In 1834, shortly after a survey was completed of the proposed 483-mile long route of the nascent New York and Erie Railroad, the project was characterized in the New York State Legislature as “chimerical, impracticable, and useless.”

Despite that notion, a popular one at the time, the Erie was eventually built and it lived a long and mostly profitable life. It also changed the character of the Upper Delaware River Valley-- including a portion of Sullivan County-- forever.

Despite its much longer life and its much greater profitability, the Erie has not enjoyed the same level of reverent nostalgia among Sullivan County residents that the O&W Railway does. And much less about the Erie's promotional efforts on behalf of the region has been chronicled as compared with that of the O&W, whose erstwhile slogan, “Doctors say, ‘Go to the Mountains!'” has become widely quoted.

While O&W Vacation Guides, “Summer Homes” and “Winter Homes” publications, and other material have become highly prized collectors' items, there does not seem to be the same level of enthusiasm for collecting all things Erie.

That does not mean however, that copies of early Erie publications aren't valuable, even sought after. Longtime Tusten Town Historian Art Hawker, for example, has recently discovered what he calls a “treasure trove” of illustrations of the Upper Delaware region by the artist William MacLeod, who was commissioned by the Erie to sketch picturesque scenes of the region for their travel guides, published by Harper & Brothers of New York City.

The 1851publication, one of the earliest extant, contains 136 such illustrations, depicting scenes along the entire route. The sketches are so intricately drawn and detailed they convey much about the area despite their being in black and white.

And the illustrations are just a small part of the information contained in these guides. Each one of the stops along the entire route is featured in a brief vignette, describing the community and the surrounding area.

Some Sullivan County locales such as Pond Eddy and Barryville are also included, though the stations serving those communities were located on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware.

In 1851, at least, Barryville was the name of the Erie's stop, although the actual station was located in Shohola, PA., and the guide is fairly blunt about the fact that the station was located in kind of a wilderness, in contrast to the hustle and bustle on the New York side of the river.

“Shohola, as this station was formerly called, has but little business at present, though with time it must prove an important one, being so near the large village opposite,” the guide announces. “Barryville is another of the numerous offsprings of the Delaware and Hudson Canal, that passes through it. Besides the coal business established there by that canal, the immense piles of lumber and numerous saw-mills scattered along the shore below us show how much the great staple of the Delaware has to do with the prosperity of the place.”

After describing the stops in Lackawaxen and Mast Hope, PA, the guide book takes its reader to Narrowsburgh, at the time still spelled with the “h” affixed.

“Narrowsburgh, though not the most picturesque, is certainly one of the most delightful stations along the road. There is an air of industry, prosperity, and comfort about everything refreshing to behold after all that we have passed… Narrowsburgh is another of the rapidly-growing communities which the railroad has scattered along its path. Where a few years since were only a farmhouse and a hotel, now stands a village with stores and dwellings clustering round the beneficent presence of a station.”

The guide goes on to recommend Narrowsburgh for the natural beauty of the surrounding area and the abundance of game, making it a stop of great interest for the “tourist, artist, or sportsman.”

Of the railroad's next stop, Cochecton, the guide informs the reader that “the station here is of the simplest description, but the views from it, looking toward the village and up and down the valley, are truly beautiful.”

Of Callicoon, the guide notes that “not that many years since, wild animals roamed the forests along its creek, and a race of old hunters dwells here that still recounts their adventures with them and the Indians.”

“Hankins,” the guide informs, “is another secluded station, standing in a level plain midway across a bend in the Delaware. The business done here, though, will undoubtedly increase.”

The next stop, the last one in Sullivan County, was called Equinunk in 1851, named after the village across the river in Pennsylvania, since there was nothing yet built around the station on the New York side. Interestingly, at the time of publication, no bridge linking the two sides yet existed. In time, the station would become known as Long Eddy.

There is much more to the 1851 Erie Railroad guide, including the illustrations to which Art Hawker referred, 22 of which are of Sullivan County locales or drawn from vantage points in the county. And the 1851 guide is just one of hundreds of publications dealing with the Erie located on the website published by theHathiTrust Digital Library, a partnership of academic and research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world.

The site can be accessed at https://www.hathitrust.org/ and a search function can take users wherever they decide they want to go.

John Conway is the Sullivan County Historian. Email him at jconway52@hotmail.com. His most recent book, “In Further Retrospect” will be published shortly.