. Between the ocean and the lakes; the story of Erie . mportance, young Griffis, just to see how it wouldlook, placed one of the rails upon a sill near the Pier, andspiked it down, thus having driven the first spike on therailroad that was eventually not only to unite the Ocean withthe Lakes, but be one of the main links in the mighty chainof communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific. In1846 Griffis became General Wood Agent of the Company,a place of much importance, as at that time wood was thesole fuel on the railroad, and the purchasing and distributionof it was entirely in Griffis
. Between the ocean and the lakes; the story of Erie . mportance, young Griffis, just to see how it wouldlook, placed one of the rails upon a sill near the Pier, andspiked it down, thus having driven the first spike on therailroad that was eventually not only to unite the Ocean withthe Lakes, but be one of the main links in the mighty chainof communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific. In1846 Griffis became General Wood Agent of the Company,a place of much importance, as at that time wood was thesole fuel on the railroad, and the purchasing and distributionof it was entirely in Griffiss hands until 1848, when the rail-road was opened to Binghamton. Then a second agent wasappointed, the duties being more than one man could attendto. Griffis remained in the service of the Company until1S53. He died in Susquehanna County, Pa., in 1896. DROVE THE FIRST SPIKE ON THE ERIE. Abner Griffis, then a young man, and having been twoyears a member of the engineer corps on the North BranchCanal, a part of the public works of Pennsylvania, came to. George E. Hoffman began on the New York and ErieRailroad as Superintending Engineer of the Eastern Divi-sion in 1S40, and had charge of the superstructure, ofthe machine shops, and of the purchase of locomotivesand cars. August 20, 1841, he was made Division Engineerof the Central Division, with headquarters at Bingham-ton. While he was in charge of the superstructure, earlyin 1841, he became seized of a brilliant idea. This was thatthe wheels of the cars would meet with less resistance fromthe rails, and secure a better bite on them, if the railswere laid so that the wheels came in contact with only asmall portion of their surface. He was so much convincedof the correctness of his theory that Camp & Co. were di-rected to lay a mile or two of the sills so hewn on one sidethat when the rails were spiked on they would be slanting,and present only about an inch of one edge to contact withthe wheels. It required the passing of cars ov
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjecterierai, bookyear1901
