Baltimore and Delaware Bay Railroad
railway line in the United States of America
The Baltimore and Delaware Bay Railroad, originally part of the Central Railroad of New Jersey's route from New York City to Baltimore, Maryland via central Delaware, was later part of the Pennsylvania Railroad 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 or connecting Chester River in Kent County east to a point on the north side of the Sassafras River in Cecil County 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 and the Queen Anne and Kent Railroad at Massey to Rock Hall (where a ferry would connect with Baltimore), 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, who gained control of the Kent County Rail Road in June 1873, it began construction in April 1873 and opened in September 1873, from Woodland Beach, Delaware, on the Delaware Bay, 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).
“Baltimore and Delaware Bay Railroad” enters the record as railway line in the United States of America. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Baltimore, Delaware and Railroad can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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