Cambridge Depot: Where History Meets Hospitality

How the D & H Railroad Changed Cambridge

The construction of a railroad line to Cambridge in 1851-1852 changed the face of the village and the local farming economy. Before the railroad arrived, most  farmers in the area were self-sufficient, producing a diversity of crops and animal products largely for their own use. The largest commercial activity was the production of wool through sheep farming. Like all movements of goods and people at the time, it relied on horse-drawn wagons and a primitive system of roads.

The train entered Washington County at a crucial point in the .development of its agricultural industry. Small towns and rural areas were making use of local water power to drive saw and grist mills. Flax mills and factories began operating along Owl Creek and White Creek. As many as six mills, along with factories manufacturing rope, twine and canvas were in operation prior to the arrival of the railroad. Other industries were also expanding. The Rice Seed Company relocated from Salem to Cambridge in 1844 and the next year the Lovejoy Company began operating a foundry in Cambridge where it produced stoves and a variety of farm implements, notably the Lovejoy steel plow.

These two companies would become the biggest industrial enterprises in town, made largely possible by the entry of the railroad in 1852.

Start of the D & H

The first railroad in the country, the Dewitt Clinton, began operating between Albany and Schenectady in 1832 as an adjunct to the Erie Canal. Following its success, most area railroads were chartered in the 1830s. Spurred by the unprecedented opportunities and furious competition of the Industrial Revolution, an extensive network of lines was built over the next two decades, linking the rival cities of Albany and Troy with the immense markets of Boston and New York City. The line that reached Cambridge was an extension of the Rutland and Washington Railroad, built to carry slate and marble from northern Washington County and Vermont to the rail centers of Troy and Albany. The line eventually became part of the Delaware and Hudson (D & H) Railroad.

The operation of the railroad brought expanding markets within Cambridge’s reach.

Officially incorporated in 1866, the village prospered and grew. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, new industries were developed and architecturally significant homes and public buildings were constructed, many of which, such as the Cambridge Hotel, Rice Mansion, and Hubbard Hall, have been restored for public use today. Today, the village encompasses a remarkable collection of mid-to-late-nineteenth century residences, commercial buildings and churches.

Hub of commercial activity

By 1884, the D & H. railroad complex in the center of the village was a hub of commercial activity. At the height of its operation from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries, it included a complex of buildings used to store and ship a variety of goods produced or handled by local enterprises. The prosperous J.B. Rice Company, the principal employer in the village and the second largest seed company in the nation by 1900, had two warehouses for the fl~wer and field seeds that it shipped by rail throughout most of the country. B. P. Crocker, a wholesale and retail dealer, had a two-story warehouse for flour, grain, hardware, paints, and oils. Two other large warehouses were used for lumber, lime, cement, coal and produce. By 1904, H. H. Lovejoy and Son had taken over the Crocker warehouse for shipping its steels plows and other machinery.

Smaller companies, such as the carriage house at the blacksmith’s shop, shipped carriages to local and distant markets.

The railroad was also responsible for the change from flax and wool production to dairy farming in southern Washington County. Farmers brought their insulated milk cans in wagons either to stops on the tracks near their farms or to creameries such as the two built in Cambridge in the last decades of the nineteenth century.

Tourism and culture

The passenger trains also brought tourists and culture. In the early twentieth century, six passenger trains, each with four coaches, traveled the Washington Branch of the D & H daily. Celebrities on lecture circuits, including Mark Twain and Susan B. Anthony, arrived in Cambridge by train to speak at Hubbard Hall. The first passenger depot, erected in 1852, was moved to Pleasant Street in 1900 to make way for the handsome passenger station still standing today.

Regular passenger service through Cambridge ended decades ago. Local residents were able to drive to the Eagle Bridge station for trains to Troy until the 1950s, while freight trains through Cambridge remained an important link for industry and agriculture. Paper mills were the primary rail customers until many of the local mills closed. Milk trains operated until the 1960s. Today, occasional freight trains still transport feed and fertilizer to local distributors. Along with the demise of the railroads, the history of its great era has been hidden for decades. The restoration of the D & H. railroad complex in Cambridge will bring that history to light and help revitalize the village that the railroad created.

Prepared by Marcia Reiss from previous reports by Todd French, Dave Thornton, and Jack and Diana Waite.