But this anticipates. We are riding too rapidly with our narrative. If old "Jud" Remington were traveling with us upon this special he would do, as sometimes was his wont, reach up and pull the bell-cord to slow the train. He took no risks, did "Jud"--bless his fine, old heart. We have anticipated--and perhaps we have neglected. All these years, of which we have been writing, the R. W. & O. had a competitor--a very live competitor, we must have you understand. So live, that to gain a permanent position for itself, that competitor must needs be completely eliminated. To that competitor--the Utica & Black River Railroad--we must now turn our attention. CHAPTER VIII THE UTICA & BLACK RIVER The beginnings of the Utica & Black River Railroad go away back to 1852--the year of the real completion and opening of the Watertown & Rome. The fact that not only could that line be built successfully, but that there would come to it immediately a fine flow of traffic was not without its effect upon the staunch old city of Utica, which had felt rather bitterly about the loss, to its smaller neighbor, Rome, of the prestige of being the gateway city to the North Country. From the beginning Utica had been that gateway. Long ago we read of the fine records that were made on the old post-road from Utica through Martinsburgh and Watertown to Sackett's Harbor. The Black River valley was the logical pathway to the Northern Tier. The people who dwelt there felt that God had made it so. And now the infamy had come to pass that a new man-built highway had ignored it completely; had passed far to the west of it. Spurred by such feelings, stung by a new-found feeling of isolation, the people of Lewis County held a mass meeting on a December evening in 1852, at Lowville, to which their county-seat had already been moved from Martinsburgh, but two miles distant. They set the fire to a popular feeling that already demanded a railroad through the natural easy gradients of the valley of the Black River. The blaze of indignation spread. Within a fortnight similar meetings were held at Boonville and at Theresa. And within a few months the Black River Railroad Company was organized at the first of these towns with a capital of $1,200,000 and Herkimer, in the valley of the Mohawk, was designated as its probably southern terminal. Once again Utica writhed in civic anguish. But in three days gave answer to this proposed, second blow to her prestige by the organization of the Black River & Utica Railroad, with a capital of $1,000,000--a tentative figure of course. As an evidence of her good faith she raised a cash fund for the employment of Daniel C. Jenney to survey a route for her own railroad, north and straight through to French Creek (about to become the present village of Clayton) one hundred miles distant.