It was then thought possible and feasible to build a railroad bridge across the Niagara and the international boundary between Lewiston and Queenstown, in competition with the Suspension Bridge, which from the very moment of its opening in 1849 had been an overwhelming success. The energetic group of Oswego men who had promoted the building of the Lake Ontario Shore, hoped to duplicate the success of the Suspension Bridge there at Lewiston. They saw that small frontier New York town transformed into a real railroad metropolis. "And what a line we shall have, running right up to it!" they argued. "Seventy-three out of our seventy-six miles, west of the Genesee River, as straight as the proverbial ruler-edge; and a maximum gradient of but twenty-six feet to the mile! What opportunities for fast--and efficient operation!" They had capitalized their line at $4,000,000 and in October, 1870, when I first find official mention of it, they had expended $54,300 upon it. Its officers at that time were: _President_, GILBERT MOLLISON, Oswego _Treasurer_, LUTHER WRIGHT, Oswego _Secretary_, HENRY L. DAVIS, Oswego _Engineer_, ISAAC S. DOANE, Oswego _Directors_ Luther Wright, Oswego Alanson S. Page, Oswego Fred'k T. Carrington, Oswego Gilbert Mollison, Oswego Reuben F. Wilson, Wilson Joseph L. Fowler, Ransonville Oliver P. Scovell, Lewiston George I. Post, Fairhaven William O. Wood, Red Creek Burt Van Horne, Lockport James Brackett, Rochester D. F. Worcester, Rochester * * * * * It is needless to say that the railroad bridge was never thrust across the Niagara at Lewiston. That project died "a'borning." And so, almost, did the Lake Ontario Shore Railroad. As I have just said, the building of the road finally was halted at Ontario, fifty-one miles west of Oswego. Finally, by tremendous effort and the injection of some capital from the wealthy city of Rochester into the project it was brought through in 1875 as far as Kendall, a miserable little railroad, wretched and woe-begone with its sole rolling stock consisting of two second-hand locomotives, two passenger-cars and some fifty or sixty freight-cars. In the long run, just as most folk had anticipated from the beginning, it was the wealthy and prosperous Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburgh that took over the Lake Ontario Shore and completed it; in 1876 as far as Lewiston, and a year or two later up the face of the Niagara escarpment to Suspension Bridge and the immensely valuable connections there. The merger, itself, was consummated in the midsummer of 1875. To reach the tracks of the new connecting link, from those of the old road, it was necessary not only to build an exceedingly difficult little tunnel under the hill, upon which the Oswego Court House stands, but to bridge the wide expanse of the river just beyond, a tedious and expensive process, which occupied considerably more than a twelvemonth.