Reorganization, the grace of a new name, failed to save this line. The Civil War broke upon the country, with it times of surpassing hardness and in 1862 it was abandoned; the following year its rails torn up forever. Yet to this day one who is even fairly acquainted with the topography of Jefferson County may trace its path quite clearly. Here ended then, rather ignominiously to be sure, a fairly ambitious little railroad project. And while Sackett's Harbor was eventually to have rail transport service restored to it, Belleville was henceforth to be left nearly stranded--until the coming of the improved highway and the motor-propelled vehicle upon it. Yet it was Belleville that had furnished most of the inspiration and the capital for the Sackett's Harbor & Ellisburgh. And even though in its old records I find Mr. M. Loomis, of the Harbor, listed as its Treasurer, Secretary, General Freight Agent and General Ticket Agent--a regular Pooh Bah sort of a job--W. T. Searle, of Belleville, was its President and Superintendent; and A. Dickinson, of the same village, its Vice-President; George Clarke and A. J. Barney among the Directors. These men had dared much to bring the railroad to their village and failing eventually must finally have conceded much to the impotence of human endeavor. * * * * * In the summer of 1851 work upon the Watertown & Rome steadily went forward and at a swifter pace than ever before. All the way through to Cape Vincent the contractors were at work upon the new line. They were racing against time itself almost to complete the road. There were valuable mail contracts to be obtained and upon these hung much of the immediate financial success of the road. In the spring of 1922, by a rare stroke of good fortune, the author of this book was enabled to obtain firsthand the story of the construction of the northern section of the line. At Kane, Pa., he found a venerable gentleman, Mr. Richard T. Starsmeare, who at the extremely advanced age of ninety-five years was able to tell with a marvelous clearness of the part that he, himself, had played in the construction of the line between Chaumont and Cape Vincent. With a single wave of his hand he rolled back seventy long years and told in simple fashion the story of his connection with the Watertown & Rome: