In 1851 the Albany & Susquehanna railroad company was organized and chartered.  Samuel S. Beach and Woodbury K. Cooke drew up the first notice of the railroad project and at the same time drew up a notice of a meeting to be held in Oneonta for the purpose of enlisting the interest of capitalists in the proposed road.  These notices Messrs. Cooke and Beach caused to be printed and distributed at their own expense.  This meeting resulted in the formation of the Albany & Susquehanna railroad company.  High hopes of its speedy completion were then entertained.  But could its projectors have forseen the difficulties and obstacles that they had to overcome, and the length of time that elapsed before the road was built to Oneonta, they would have wearied of the project and abandoned the enterprise.  The road was completed to this place in 1865—­a little more than fourteen years after the organization of the company.

An improved appearance was at once given the village.  New stores and new dwellings were built.  Old, weather-stained buildings were brightened with paint, and the Dutch stoop with its half doors gave place to more pretentious verandas.

Then about 1872 the machine shops were established here, and the village began to increase rapidly, and new industries were developed.

In 1860, there was but one newspaper published in the village.  That was the HERALD, which had been established in 1853 by L.P.  Carpenter, and his brother, J.B.  Carpenter—­the former now of the Morris Chronicle.  L.P. continued the publication of the paper, as editor and proprietor, for a long time, and at last succeeded in gaining for his journal a firm foothold in the community.  He labored early and late at the work that was before him—­editor, compositor and pressman—­often beset with discouragements, always feebly supported in his efforts, but still hopeful and plucky.  He could hardly, in 1860, have dreamed that within twenty years, steam presses would be brought into the same village to follow in the wake of the clumsy press whose only motive power was his own strong arm.  But few of our citizens can now justly appreciate the obligation the community is under to Mr. Carpenter for the large part of his life-work which he here so unostentatiously performed.

In 1860 there was no bank here, and merchants were compelled to adopt a round-about way of making exchanges with their creditors.  Money was sent miles away, by the stage-driver, or by special messenger, to a bank where at a round premium a draft was bought.  The stores of the village had each a general assortment of merchandise, including silks, broadcloths, groceries, plows, and schoolbooks.  On either side of Main-st. was a hard-beaten path, which served for a sidewalk.  On the south side of the street stood a number of dingy rookeries, in a half tumble-down condition.  Pigs and cows roamed at large, and were only known to be home at supper-time, when old brindle, in more instances than one, might have been seen peering through the front window with a covetous look upon the family group around the table.