After many attempts, in 1878 Milton finally obtained railway service. On March 2, 1876, the Virginia assembly incorporated the Milton and Sutherlin Narrow-Gauge Railroad Company, and a year later the North Carolina general assembly followed suit.
The result was a narrow-gauge railroad seven miles long from Milton to Sutherlin Station on the Richmond and Danville Railroad in Virginia.
Convict labor was hired from both Virginia and North Carolina for use in constructing the roadbed, and the stone pillars to carry the tracks across Country Line Creek and the Dan River. The Town of Milton subscribed to stock in the enterprise, and the one engine owned by the company began running in 1878. It primarily was a freight line but some passengers were also carried. Initially, three round trips were made each day.
The Richmond and Danville acquired control of the Milton and Sutherlin in 1882 and operated it until 1894, when the Southern Railway Company leased the larger line and also operated the Milton and Sutherlin. The opening of the regular-gauge Atlantic and Danville Railway in 1890 into Danville, through Semora, Milton, and Blanch in Caswell County cut into the revenue of the Milton and Sutherlin route so deeply that its operation by the Southern ceased on September 6, 1894. It was returned to the Milton and Sutherlin Railroad Company and a mortgage of 1880 was was foreclosed; the property of the line was sold on November 23, 1896, and the rails soon afterwards were taken up.
L. M. Warlick purchased all the stock of the Milton and Sutherlin, foreclosed on the mortgage, and had all the assets sold November 23, 1896. Warlick, from Winston (became Winston-Salem) purchased these assets for $6,000 and proceeded to tear up the rails. The right of way purportedly became a public road.
See: Powell, William S. When the Past Refused to Die: A History of Caswell County North Carolina 1777-1977. Durham: Moore Publishing Company, 1977, pp. 505-506.
Photograph courtesy the Danville Historical Society and Mark Cornelius. Click on photograph for a larger image.
For a history of the legal steps taken to create and eventually discontinue the Milton & Sutherlin Narrow Gauge Railroad Company see: Harrison, Fairfax. A History of the Legal Development of the Railroad System of Southern Railway Company. Washington, D.C.: The Transportation Library, 1901: 252-255. Print.
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Brief history of the Milton & Sutherlin Narrow Gauge Railroad from Hilton, George Woodman. American Narrow Gauge Railroads. Stanford (California): Stanford University Press: 544. Print.
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About the photograph: Some time ago, I posted in this forum some information about a Mason Bogie, Richmond & Danville 830, including the reference to a photo of the locomotive taken in the mid 1880s in Catawba County NC. I cannot now find the thread ... but, I do remember that we were unable to trace the lineage of this loco.I just managed to track down Matt Bumgarner, the guru of North Carolina railroad histories. Matt told me that he did not have the definitive proof of the history of this Mason Bogie but he suggested:
(1) the loco was acquired by the Carolina and North Western (the narrow gauge railroad controlled by the standard gauge Richmond and Danville) from the Milton and Sutherlin, a small 7 mile long ng railroad. Where and how they got the Mason remains a mystery.
(2) the loco was scrapped by the Richmond & Danville in 1888 or 1889 because it was difficult to maintain, perhaps because it was the only MB on the roster.
I would continue to treat this information as conjecture ... but does anyone have info that suggests a ng MB went to the Milton and Sutherlin about 1880?
Source: My Large Scale Forum
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Caswell county voted in the affirmative on the proposition to tax itself to build the Milton & Sutherlin Narrow Gauge Railroad. This short line will connect Milton with Danville, the main market for the productions of Caswell county.
Source: Carolina Watchman (Salisbury, North Carolina), 19 April 1877.
Caswell County suffered economically because it lacked adequate transportation infrastructure to attract industry. Several attempts were made at railroads. All eventually failed. One, the Milton & Sutherlin Narrow Gauge Railroad, became operational in 1877 but was out of business by 1895. It ran seven miles from Milton to Sutherlin, Virginia, which was on the Richmond & Danville Railroad. Bonds were issued to finance the railroad's construction.
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Carolina & North-Western Railway
Chester & Lenoir Narrow Gauge Railroad
Caldwell & Northern
Lower Creek & Linville Transportation Company
Danville & Western
Danville & New River
Dismal Swamp Railroad
East Tennessee & Western North Carolina Railroad
Linville River Railway
Laurel River & Hot Springs
Lawndale Railway & Industrial Company
Milton & Sutherlin
Mt. Airy & Eastern
Suffolk & Carolina
Washington & Plymouth
Wellington & Powellsville
Source: Tar Heel Press
Milton and Sutherlin Narrow-Gauge Railroad Company Records
Records, 1877-82. 0.1 cu. ft. Ran from Sutherlin, Virginia, to Milton, North Carolina (7 miles). Chartered in Virginia (1876) and North Carolina (1877); line opened in 1878. Part of the Richmond and Danville system (1882-94); operated by Southern Railway Company after 1894. Records include contracts. Southern Railway Archives. Ms84-106.
Source: Virginia Tech Special Collections
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Annual Report (1893)
Milton and Sutherlin Railroad Company: 1893
The annual report for the Milton and Sutherlin Railroad Company submitted December 1893 to the Virginia Railroad Commission contained the following interesting items:
Directors, Among Others: W. M. Watkins; E. Hunt
Officers
President: J. W. Lewis, Milton
Secretary: H. W. Hines, Milton
Treasurer: J. W. Hall, Washington, D.C.
Division Superintendent: J. B. B. Thompson, Richmond
Length of Line: 6.5 miles
Capital Stock: $58,800 ($5 par value)
Debt: First Mortgage (Bonds): $24,960 @ 8%, payable January and July*
Gross Earnings From Operations: $3,149
Total Operating Expenses: $6,617
Total Operating Loss: $3,468
Deductions From Income (bond interest, etc.): $2,202
Total Loss: $5,676
Employees on Railroad
Enginemen: 1
Firemen: 1
Conductors: 1
Other Trainmen: 1
Section Foremen: 1
Other Trackmen: 5
Principal Freight Carried: Tobacco (541 tons); Merchandise (471 tons); Hay (259 tons); Grain (183 tons)
Total Locomotives: 1
Total Passenger Cars: 1
Total Freight Cars: 4
Track Mileage: 6.62 miles (single track: 6.5 miles; yard and sidings: .12 miles)
State Allocation of Track: Virginia: 6.10 miles; North Carolina .40 miles
New Ties Laid During the Year: 3,214 (oak-first class)
Locomotive Fuel Consumption During the Year: 145 tons (14% coal; 86% wood)
Bridges and Trestles
Bridges (all wooden): 2
Trestles: 7
Track Gauge: Three-Feet Wide
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* All equipment and income was mortgaged.
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Milton and Sutherlin Railroad Depot in Milton, NC
The combined freight and passenger depot building was in "downtown" Milton and not down the hill toward the Dan River where an old depot building stands today.
According to the Sanborn Insurance Map for 1883, Lee Street ran north from Main Street (Broad Street today) to the Milton and Sutherlin Railroad depot. This street was west of Bridge Street and east of Liberty Street. The southern portion of this Lee Street (south of Main Street/Broad Street) today is called Lea's Street. The northern part no longer exists as a public street. Milton's commercial row begins just east of the now closed northern section of Lee Street.
There must have been some excitement the first time the locomotive first pulled into Milton!
Click image to see a larger version.
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Richmond & Danville RR Schedule: 1879
Train No. 1 departed Richmond, VA, at 11:40 am, arriving at Sutherlin 5:46 pm, where a connection was made to Milton. The trip to Milton on the Milton and Sutherlin Narrow Gauge Railroad took one hour. The problem was the next train leaving for Milton was not until the following day at 11:00 am. Hopefully, there were hotel accommodations in Sutherlin
Click image to see a larger version.
The Milton Chronicle (Milton, NC), 13 Feb 1879
Milton and Sutherlin Narrow-Gauge Railroad Company Records, 1877-82. Ms84-106. Returned to NS Corp Archives in Atlanta.
Contact: Archives1@nscorp.com
This schedule was published in the Daily Danville News on Saturday August 23, 1879.
The records of the Norfolk & Western and Southern railways, their subsidiaries and predecessors have been returned to Norfolk Southern Corp. (NS), which is consolidating its historical materials into a corporate archive in Atlanta. Under the terms of agreements established in the early 1980s between NS and Virginia Tech, the historical records of the Norfolk & Western Railway Company and the Southern Railway Company were deposited in the University Libraries' Special Collections while NS retained ownership of the materials.
We are updating our web pages to reflect our resources currently available for railroad history and directing inquiries to the contact person Archives1@nscorp.com with questions about materials now in the NS corporate archive.
Virginia Tech's Special Collections will continue to be a significant source of railroad history through the more-than-200 cu. ft. of business records and drawings, photographs, personal papers and publications relating to various regional railroads from the 1840s to the 1980s acquired through other donations and purchases. More than 12,000 scanned images from NS and other sources will continue to be available through the VT ImageBase, one of our most popular online resources.
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Rolling stock: One locomotive called "The Little Janie" after Maj. W. T. Sutherlin's daughter, four freight cars and one passenger car. In 1880, the Milton & Sutherlin traveled 6,000 miles, hauling 1,535 passengers and earned $2,700 after expenses.
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South Bend was not as isolated during the Bruce years as it appears today. The Milton and Sutherlin Narrow Gauge Rail Road Company built a line after 1877 to connect Milton to the Richmond and Danville line. The track right-of-way passed a short distance from South Bend. When a later railroad came through Milton from Clarksville to Danville, the narrow gauge was torn up and its right-of-way became a public road.
Source: History of VIR
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Based on personal observation from the river and on the reading of Powell’s History, I infer that the stone structure in question is a pier of a ruined trestle of the Milton & Sutherlin RR, swept away in a windstorm in 1894. See Powell, page 334 and Dan River Book page 226. Unfortunately the endnote note to “Trip 19” in the Dan River Book erroneously refers not to page 334 of Powell but to page 224.
Information provided by Forrest Altman
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Danny Ricketts and his son Bobby Ricketts found a short section of the small track Milton and Sutherlin Railway track used as a support with rocks at the Sutherlin Mill where the Milton and Sutherlin Railroad began. Freight from and to the Richmond and Danville line had to be transferred because the railroad gauge was not the same. The same was true of the the Piedmont Airline Railroad that opened from Danville to Greensboro during the Civil War as a narrow-gauge line.
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"Sutherlin & Milton. -- This narrow-gage road, extending from Sutherlin, Va., three miles from Danville, to Milton, N. C., seven miles, was sold last week under foreclosure of the $26,000 of first-mortgage bonds. The property was sold to L. M. Warlick, of Winston, at $6,000, who says that the purchase has been made for his individual account."
Source: The Railroad Gazette, December 4, 1896.
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Milton Gets a Railroad!
Milton and Sutherlin Narrow-Gauge Railroad
After many attempts, in 1878 Milton finally obtained railway service. On March 2, 1876, the Virginia assembly incorporated the Milton and Sutherlin Narrow-Gauge Railroad Company, and a year later the North Carolina general assembly followed suit. Construction used prison labor.
The result was a narrow-gauge railroad seven miles long from Milton to Sutherlin Station on the Richmond and Danville Railroad in Virginia.
However, this was little more than a spur, as it dead ended in Milton. Thus, no railroad passed through Milton. A train ran from Sutherlin, VA, to Milton and then reversed back up the tracks. See the schedule below, with the trip requiring one hour. It primarily was a freight line, but some passengers were also carried. Initially, three round trips were made each day.
Moreover, because the rail was narrow-gauge, rolling stock used on the wider Richmond and Danville Railroad at Sutherlin could not be used on the Milton and Sutherlin. All material shipped to and from Milton had to be moved from the narrow-gauge cars of the Milton and Sutherlin to the wider cars of the Richmond and Danville. Thus, while Milton did have railway service, it was restricted. Milton did not become a "boom" town as a result of this limited service.
Source: Richmond S. Frederick 6 October 2022 Facebook Page Post.
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Poor's Manual of Railroads 1886
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Once the Milton and Sutherlin Narrow-Gauge Railroad became operational at Milton, Caswell County, North Carolina, in 1878, both Leasburg and Yanceyville became excited over the possibility of the line being extended to one of those communities. Some reports state there was "euphoria" and a keen competition between the two to secure the line's extension.
However, the excitement never resulted in commercial reality, as the little railroad never was extended beyond Milton.
References
Bumgarner, Matthew. The History of The Carolina and North-Western Railway.
Harrison, Fairfax. A History of the Legal Development of the Railroad System of Southern Railway Company. Washington, D.C.: The Transportation Library, 1901: 252-255. Print.
Hilton, George Woodman. American Narrow Gauge Railroads. Stanford (California): Stanford University Press: 544. Print.
Lincoln, Wayne. Milton and Sutherlin Narrow-Gauge Railroad, No. 15. Wayne Lincoln: 1994. Print.
Poor's Manual of Railroads 1886.
If its any help Mason Bogie locomotives were built by the Mason Locomotive Works of Taunton, Mas. - sometimes called the Taunton Locomotive works. William Mason,their founder acquired the US rights to Fairlie's Patent for articulated locomotives and supplied them to a good many US narrow gauge lines in the 1880s and 90s. You may find a lead to this engine's history in the company records.
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