Thus a veritable free-for-all fight developed over the prostrate form of the Cincinnati and Charleston railroad enterprise for the right to inherit its appropriation. The result was a deadlock in the legislature which prevented any action being taken during the regular session of I841-2. The same struggle recurred during the special session of 1842; and not until an immediate decision on the question was made necessary by the filing of a suit against the Louisville, Cincinnati and Charleston Railroad Company did the East Tennessee delegation reach any semblance of agreement. But it was then too late. The opposition forces, especially of Middle Tennessee, were too well organized; and the act which was passed during this session merely provided for cancellation of the subscription, and the return of the bonds which had been issued, upon the payment to the company of whatever amount the court should decide to be Tennessee's share of the expenses for surveys. Thus the Louisville, Cincinnati, and Charleston appropriation was lost to East Tennessee.

Meanwhile, the Hiwassee Railroad Company was struggling along on the verge of bankruptcy, buoyed up chiefly by the hope of inheriting at least a part of the Cincinnati and Charleston subscription. Realizing that it would be suicidal to allow the work to be suspended during this critical period, the company adopted many and varied expedients in its efforts to keep the work going, some of which had disastrous consequences. The slowness with which payments on the individual subscriptions were paid resulted in a corresponding delay in obtaining installments on the state subscription; and the directors seem to have yielded to the temptation to allow unnessarily large credits to certain subscribers in payment for rights-of-way or for work done on the road. By May, 1841, $357,000 in bonds had been received, but it was necessary to dispose of them at a loss of nearly $80,000. The resultant shortage of funds necessitated the issuance of scrip, or negotiable demand warrants, in meeting the obligations of the company, and this was seized upon by the ever-present critics to cast discredit upon the enterpise.

By this time, about sixty miles of the roadway had been graded, and the bridge over the Hiwassee River nearly completed; and attention was naturally directed to the procuring of rails and the putting of a portion of the road in operation. Here, however, another problem presented itself. The price of iron rails was exceedingly high-$110 a ton for imported rails, and $125 a ton for those of American manufacture. The company therefore determined to take advantage of the resources of iron ore and coal along the route, and manufacture its own iron. The Chief Engineer estimated that this could be done at a cost of about $30 a ton, and that the road could be ironed with superior rails at a saving of more than $4,000  per mile.

Although this policy seems to have been adopted with laudable intentions, it merely served to supply the opponents of the road with more ammunition. The requests for additional aid from the state which was so essential to success were met by a demand for an investigation of the rumors of fraud and mismanagement, and with charges that the issuance of scrip and the manufacture of iron were both violations of the charter of the company. President Jacobs vigorous defense of the policies adopted was eloquently supported by T. A. R. Nelson and William Rowles in the legislature, and the rumors of fraud appeared to be largely unfounded; but the expected aid from the state failed to materialize.

By the summer of 1842 the company was so hopelessly involved in debt and had suffered such a loss of prestige that a deed of trust was executed in favor of T. Nixon Van Dyke and Spencer Jarnagin, in an attempt to save the project from complete bankruptcy. Even this measure proved disastrous, for it led directly to the filing of a suit against the company by the Attorney General of the state on October 3, 1842, asking the forfeiture of the charter. As a result of this action, all work on the road was suspended; and the Hiwassee project followed the Cincinnati and Charleston enterprise into complete abandonment, leaving about sixty-six miles of graded road, a bridge over the Hiwassee River, and an uncompleted iron establishment at Charleston, Tennessee, as mute testimonials of the fickleness of public sentiment. Although initiated with high hopes and great expectations during the boom time of 1835-6, the Hiwassee project was buried under an equally impressive revulsion of feeling against railroads during the later stages of the economic depression.

A few years later, however, when the Georgia roads, which had also been forced into suspension by the unfavorable financial situation, had been revived and were knocking at the doors of Tennessee, interest in the Hiwassee enterprise was again developed. This time it was successful, and under the new name of the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad, was carried through to completion in 1855. The movement for a Virginia and Tennessee connection, so dear to the hearts of the editors of the Rail-Road Advocate, also came to life; and the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad was completed in 1857." Even the ill-fated Cincinnati and Charleston enterprise was revived during the decade of the fifties; and although the Civil War intervened, it was eventually to achieve success in a modified form during the post war period. Thus the abortive efforts of the railroad enthusiasts of the 'thirties, although barren of immediate accomplishment, served to lay down in outline form the railroad connections which eventually were to fulfill the prophecy of the Rail-Road Advocate and achieve the commercial salvation of East Tennessee.

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This page is copyright 2000 Chip Brown. The original text was written by S.L Folmsby, with no copyright restrictions. This text is copyrighted in as much as we have added new work to the original text. Images and coding for these pages provided by Maynardville.Com. All the engines depicted in the title graphic are actual engines that ran in the state of Tennessee.