The Baltimore and Delaware Bay Railroad, originally part of the

Central Railroad of New Jersey Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object. Central may also refer to: Directions and generalised locations * Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...

's route from

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the List of United States ...

via central

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic states, South Atlantic regions of the United States. It borders Maryland to its south and west, Pennsylvania to its north, New Jersey ...

, was later part of the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad ( reporting mark PRR), legal name as the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, also known as the "Pennsy," was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At its ...

system.

History

Chapter 148 of the 1856 Session Laws of Maryland, passed March 8, 1856, chartered the Kent County Rail Road Company, charged with building a railroad from the

Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula, including parts of the Ea ...

or connecting

Chester River The Chester River is a major tributary of the Chesapeake Bay on the Delmarva Peninsula. It is about long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed April 1, 2011 and its waters ...

in Kent County east to a point on the north side of the

Sassafras River The Sassafras River is a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay on the Delmarva Peninsula in the United States. It is approximately longU.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed April ...

Cecil County Cecil County is a county located in the U.S. state of Maryland at the northeastern corner of the state, bordering both Pennsylvania and Delaware. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 103,725. The county seat is Elkton. The ...

or on the Queen Anne and Kent Railroad, as well as branches to any point in Kent County. Construction began in March 1868, but a shortage of funds brought work to a halt in September 1868. Work began again in April 1869, with the intention of building from the

Delaware Railroad The Delaware Railroad Company (DRC) was a railroad company that operated in the US state of Delaware from the mid-1850s until 1976, during which time it was the largest in the state. Its original main line began in Bear, Delaware and extended sout ...

and the Queen Anne and Kent Railroad at

Massey Massey may refer to: Places Canada * Massey, Ontario * Massey Island, Nunavut New Zealand * Massey, New Zealand, an Auckland suburb United States * Massey, Alabama * Massey, Iowa * Massey, Maryland People * Massey (surname) Educati ...

to Rock Hall (where a ferry would connect with

Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...

), with a branch to Chestertown. The line was opened from Massey to Kennedyville in April 1870. The rest of the line from Kennedyville to Chestertown on the Chester River opened on February 20, 1872. A branch from just north of Chestertown west to Parsons (on the projected line to Rock Hall), via Vickers, opened on August 1, 1872. However, this created a nonsensical dogleg, and was abandoned and partly removed when the direct line from Parsons to Worton was completed in October 1873. The Smyrna and Delaware Bay Railroad was chartered July 14, 1865. With the backing of

Jay Gould Jason Gould (; May 27, 1836 – December 2, 1892) was an American railroad magnate and financial speculator who founded the Gould family, Gould business dynasty. He is generally identified as one of the Robber baron (industrialist), robber bar ...

, who gained control of the Kent County Railroad in June 1873, it began construction in April 1873 and opened in September 1873, from Woodland Beach, Delaware, on the

Delaware Bay Delaware Bay is the estuary outlet of the Delaware River on the northeast seaboard of the United States, lying between the states of Delaware and New Jersey. It is approximately in area, the bay's freshwater mixes for many miles with the saltw ...

, west to the state line, where an extension of the Kent County Railroad was built to connect (using the clause in the charter allowing for branches). The objective of this line was to form a connecting line (with car ferries at both ends) between the

Vineland Railway ''Vineland'' is a 1990 novel by Thomas Pynchon, a postmodern fiction set in California, United States in 1984, the year of Ronald Reagan's reelection.Knabb 2002 Through flashbacks by its characters, who have lived during the '60s in their youth ...

at Bayside and Baltimore. Gould now changed the proposed terminus from Rock Hall to Tolchester Beach and began dredging work there. Most of the line to Tolchester Beach was graded, but the

Panic of 1873 The Panic of 1873 was a financial crisis that triggered an economic depression in Europe and North America that lasted from 1873 to 1877 or 1879 in France and in Britain. In Britain, the Panic started two decades of stagnation known as the "L ...

led to the collapse of the project. On February 15, 1877 the Kent County was sold at

foreclosure Foreclosure is a legal process in which a lender attempts to recover the balance of a loan from a borrower who has Default (finance), stopped making payments to the lender by forcing the sale of the asset used as the Collateral (finance), coll ...

and bought by the

New Jersey Southern Railroad New Jersey Southern RR and connections The New Jersey Southern Railroad was a railroad that started in 1854. It would continue under this name until the 1870s as a separate company and the lines that it had constructed or run continued to be run ...

(later part of the

(CNJ)), which merged the two companies as the Baltimore and Delaware Bay Railroad on May 12, 1883. The remainder of the Parsons-Chestertown line was now removed, and used to extend the main line from Parsons to Nicholson (Earl Nicholson Road). However, only the line from Clayton to Chestertown was regularly operated, the Nicholson Branch and the line to Woodland Beach being operated only seasonally. By 1888, the first mile of track west of Woodland Beach had been abandoned. In May 1889 the CNJ stopped operating the line, although it was still heavily under CNJ influence. The line was upgraded, and new carfloats and floatbridges were built at Bayside and Woodland Beach during the summer. Car float service was opened on August 17, 1889, largely handling peach traffic. However, the Woodland Beach float bridge was destroyed by a hurricane on September 8–10 and was never rebuilt. The line east of

Smyrna, Delaware Smyrna is a town in Kent and New Castle counties in the U.S. state of Delaware. It is part of the Dover metropolitan statistical area. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of 2020, the population of the town is 12,883. The international juri ...

was closed in 1895, and the line from Worton to Nicholson was closed in 1897 after the peach crop failed. The

bought the whole line on June 25, 1902, assigned it to its

Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad The Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (PW&B) was an American railroad, headquartered in Philadelphia, that operated in Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland from 1836 to 1902. It was part of an 1838 merger of four state-chartered railr ...

, and promptly abandoned it east of

on July 1. On October 2, all the property was transferred to the

, another PRR subsidiary. However, the Baltimore and Delaware Bay was not dissolved until December 8, 1920.

References

* *
Corporate Genealogy - Delaware Railroad
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baltimore Delaware Bay Railroad Defunct Delaware railroads Defunct Maryland railroads Central Railroad of New Jersey Predecessors of the Pennsylvania Railroad Railway companies disestablished in 1920 Railway companies established in 1883