Marcellus Massey, Watertown Samuel Sloan, New York William E. Dodge, New York John S. Farlow, Boston Percy R. Pyne, New York Talcott H. Camp, Watertown Moses Taylor, Scranton C. Zabriskie, New York John S. Barnes, New York S. D. Hungerford, Adams Gardner R. Colby, New York William M. White, Utica Theodore Irwin, Oswego The North Country complexion of the directorate had all but disappeared. As far back as 1871, Addison Day had ceased to be Superintendent of the road, and had become Superintendent of the Utica & Black River. He had been succeeded by J. W. Moak, a former roadmaster of the Rome road. Moak was not only equally as efficient as Day, but he was much more popular, both with the road's employees and its patrons. Yet one of Sloan's first acts was to relieve him of a portion of his territory and responsibility. He made the point, and it was not without force, that it was all but impossible for an operating officer at Watertown to supervise properly the western end of the now far-flung system. So, he took the former Syracuse Northern, the Lake Ontario Shore and the branch from Richland to Oswego--all the lines west of Richland, in fact--and made them into a new division, with headquarters at Oswego. For this division he brought one of his few favored officers from the Lackawanna, E. A. Van Horne, who had been a Superintendent upon that property. Van Horne was a forceful man, who, as he went upward, made a distinct impress upon the railroad history of the North Country. He was quick tempered, decisive, yet possessing certain very likable qualities that were of tremendous help to him there. Another of Sloan's early acts--more easily understood than some others--was to tear out the soft-coal grates of the fire boxes of the R. W. & O. locomotives, and substitute for them hard-coal grates. Anthracite then, as now, was a great specialty of the Lackawanna. And in the road to the north of him Sloan possessed a customer of no mean dimensions. * * * * * For the next four or five years the R. W. & O. grubbed along--and barely dodged receivership. Its service steadily went from bad to worse. It now took the best passenger trains upon the line four hours to go from Watertown to Rome, seventy-two miles (in the very beginnings of the road, they had done it in an even three hours). No one knew when a freight car would reach New York from Watertown. Confusion reigned. Chaos was at hand. And when Watertown merchants and manufacturers would go to Oswego to protest to Mr. Van Horne (Mr. Moak finally had been demoted, and Watertown suffered the humiliation of having the operating headquarters of the system moved away from it) they would hear from the General Superintendent of the property his utter helplessness in the matter; the threats from Sloan were that he might close down the road altogether, and Van Horne was beside himself for explanations: