Charles Sanger Mellen
Encyclopedia
Charles Sanger Mellen was an American railroad man whose career culminated in the presidencies of the Northern Pacific Railway
Northern Pacific Railway
The Northern Pacific Railway was a railway that operated in the west along the Canadian border of the United States. Construction began in 1870 and the main line opened all the way from the Great Lakes to the Pacific when former president Ulysses S. Grant drove in the final "golden spike" in...

 1897-1903 and the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad
New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad
The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad , was a railroad that operated in the northeast United States from 1872 to 1968 which served the states of Connecticut, New York, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts...

 1903-1913.

Railroad Man

Mellen was born in Lowell, Massachusetts
Lowell, Massachusetts
Lowell is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, USA. According to the 2010 census, the city's population was 106,519. It is the fourth largest city in the state. Lowell and Cambridge are the county seats of Middlesex County...

, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, on August 16, 1852. His family soon moved to Concord, New Hampshire
Concord, New Hampshire
The city of Concord is the capital of the state of New Hampshire in the United States. It is also the county seat of Merrimack County. As of the 2010 census, its population was 42,695....

 where he attended high school, graduating in 1867. Rather than attending college, he began his railroad career as a clerk at the Northern New Hampshire Railroad in Concord in 1870. After a short time at the Central Vermont Railroad and back to the Northern New Hampshire Railroad, he moved to the Boston and Lowell Railroad
Boston and Lowell Railroad
The Boston and Lowell Railroad is a historic railroad that operated in Massachusetts. It was one of the first railroads in North America and the first major one in the state...

 (B&L) where he was promoted to Superintendent. The Boston and Lowell enjoyed revenues from leasing use of its lines into Boston to the Boston and Maine Railroad
Boston and Maine Railroad
The Boston and Maine Corporation , known as the Boston and Maine Railroad until 1964, was the dominant railroad of the northern New England region of the United States for a century...

. Its policies led the B&M to build its own line into Boston and to fight with the B&L to the New Hampshire courts. Mellen was the President of the B&L when it lost its court case, and ceased independent operations in 1887 when it was leased to the Boston and Maine Railroad
Boston and Maine Railroad
The Boston and Maine Corporation , known as the Boston and Maine Railroad until 1964, was the dominant railroad of the northern New England region of the United States for a century...

. From 1888 to 1892 he was purchasing agent, then General Traffic Manager of the Union Pacific Railroad
Union Pacific Railroad
The Union Pacific Railroad , headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, is the largest railroad network in the United States. James R. Young is president, CEO and Chairman....

, where he formed a friendship with Diamond Jim Brady. In 1892, he became general manager of the New York and New England Railroad
New York and New England Railroad
The New York and New England Railroad was a major railroad connecting southern New York state with Hartford, Connecticut, Providence, Rhode Island and Boston, Massachusetts. It operated from 1873 to 1893. Prior to 1873 it was known as the Boston, Hartford and Erie Railroad, which had been formed by...

, during a time when it was engaged in a bitter war with the New Haven. Charles P. Clark, the New Haven's president, hired him away from his competitor in November 1892. Mellen later testified that "[Clark] said I was too much of a nuisance on the New England." Mellen came to the attention of J. P. Morgan
J. P. Morgan
John Pierpont Morgan was an American financier, banker and art collector who dominated corporate finance and industrial consolidation during his time. In 1892 Morgan arranged the merger of Edison General Electric and Thomson-Houston Electric Company to form General Electric...

 when he drove such a hard bargain with the New York Central that Chauncey Depew
Chauncey Depew
Chauncey Mitchell Depew was an attorney for Cornelius Vanderbilt's railroad interests, president of the New York Central Railroad System, and a United States Senator from New York from 1899 to 1911.- Biography:...

 complained to Morgan, a director of both the New Haven and the New York Central. Morgan's grandfather was an original investor in the Hartford and New Haven Railroad
Hartford and New Haven Railroad
The Hartford and New Haven Railroad was an important direct predecessor of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. Its railroad commenced service in 1844 and ended independent operations in 1872...

, one of the two principal predecessors of the New Haven. His interests had led him to become a director of the New Haven in 1891.

Morgan man at Northern Pacific

Morgan's bank had become receiver of the Northern Pacific in August 1893. Mellen had an active role in the reorganization and became president of the NP when it emerged from receivership in 1896. During his tenure there, NP's gross revenue increased by 156%, some of the increase at the expense of the Great Northern Railway (GN), part of the same supposedly anti-competitive Northern Securities Company
Northern Securities Company
The Northern Securities Company was an important United States railroad trust formed in 1902 by E. H. Harriman, James J. Hill, J.P. Morgan, J. D. Rockefeller, and their associates. The company controlled the Northern Pacific Railway, Great Northern Railway, Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad,...

 as the NP. Furthermore Mellen made acquisitions that enabled the NP to reach the Pacific and thereby compete with the GN over its entire route. James J. Hill
James J. Hill
James Jerome Hill , was a Canadian-American railroad executive. He was the chief executive officer of a family of lines headed by the Great Northern Railway, which served a substantial area of the Upper Midwest, the northern Great Plains, and Pacific Northwest...

, founder of the GN and part of the Trust, called Mellen and his Morgan-appointed predecessor there "overrated underachievers". But by this time Mellen had become a staunch Morgan man. He told reporters, "I wear the Morgan collar, but I am proud of it." But yet he was not fully informed about the machinations of Morgan, Hill, and Harriman concerning stock in his company. On Monday, May 6, 1901 the Morgan interests were buying up NP stock. On Tuesday Mellen wired an NP vice president in New York "Cannot you give me some idea what is transpiring, to explain tremendous movement our stock?".

The New Haven

When Charles P. Clark resigned as the New Haven's president in 1900, Mellen made inquiries for the job, but Morgan needed him at the NP. By 1903 Morgan's priorities had changed. Upon assuming the New Haven presidency in Mellen undertook a program of "Morganization" of transportation in New England that extended from railroads to steamship lines and street railways. The New Haven even bought control of the chronicly unprofitable New York, Ontario and Western Railway
New York, Ontario and Western Railway
The New York, Ontario and Western Railway, more commonly known as the O&W or NYO&W, was a regional railroad with origins in 1868, lasting until March 29, 1957 when it was ordered liquidated by a US bankruptcy judge. The O&W holds the distinction of being the first major U.S...

. His efforts, in particular the attempted takeover of the Boston and Maine Railroad
Boston and Maine Railroad
The Boston and Maine Corporation , known as the Boston and Maine Railroad until 1964, was the dominant railroad of the northern New England region of the United States for a century...

, brought him into public contention with future Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis
Louis Brandeis
Louis Dembitz Brandeis ; November 13, 1856 – October 5, 1941) was an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1916 to 1939.He was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Jewish immigrant parents who raised him in a secular mode...

 in Massachusetts. His presidency at the New Haven was defined by the effort to complete the consolidation and modernization of the often-reorganized railroads of New England. His approach was marked by high prices for acquisitions, costly construction, and high debt levels. In May 1908 Morgan's partner George Walbridge Perkins wrote to Morgan: "I still feel, as I have for couple of years, that Mr. Mellen is getting the New Haven into considerable of a muddle by his financial methods and this, I think, is becoming more or less the general opinion." The failed Morganization of the New Haven was among the great embarrassments to the Morgan interests. The Mellen-Morgan policies led to the New Haven's future financial troubles, culminating in bankruptcy in 1935. Mellen's Morganization efforts in New England also put him in executive positions at the Maine Central Railroad
Maine Central Railroad
The Maine Central Railroad Company was a railroad in central and southern Maine. It was chartered in 1856 and began operations in 1862. It operated a mainline between South Portland, Maine, east to the Canada-U.S...

, the New York, Ontario and Western Railway
New York, Ontario and Western Railway
The New York, Ontario and Western Railway, more commonly known as the O&W or NYO&W, was a regional railroad with origins in 1868, lasting until March 29, 1957 when it was ordered liquidated by a US bankruptcy judge. The O&W holds the distinction of being the first major U.S...

, and the Boston and Maine Railroad.

Loyal to the End

J. P. Morgan was aged and ill when the difficulties of the New Haven and other efforts led him to be summoned to give testimony before the Pujo Committee
Pujo Committee
The Pujo Committee was a United States congressional subcommittee which was formed between May 1912 and January 1913 to investigate the so-called "money trust", a community of Wall Street bankers and financiers that exerted powerful control over the nation's finances. After a resolution introduced...

. Morgan died 1913-03-31. Mellen shouldered the burden of testifying and faced indictments. He provided colorful testimony concerning nearly $10,000,000 disbursed in connection with acquiring the franchise for the New York, Westchester and Boston Railway
New York, Westchester and Boston Railway
The New York, Westchester and Boston Railway Company , known to its riders as "the Westchester" and colloquially as the "Boston-Westchester", operated as an electric commuter railroad in the Bronx and Westchester County, New York from 1912 to 1937...

 and resolving a franchise dispute with the New York and Portchester Railroad.
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