Watertown Daily Times, Sept. 28, 1908
Change in the R., W. & O. Became Effective on Saturday.
Watertown, Sept. 28. ¬ The Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg division of the New York Central railroad, after being known by that name for more than forty-seven years, ceased to exist as such at midnight Saturday and the trackage that the big division once included now comprises two divisions on the Central ¬ the St. Lawrence division, with headquarters in this city and Cornelius C. Christies as superintendent, and the Ontario division, with general offices at Oswego and F. E. MacCormick, formerly assistant superintendent of the Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg, as superintendent of the new division. The Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg, with its total trackage of 683.67 miles, and extending from Messena (sic) on the Northern Canadian border of the State to Suspension Bridge, on the extreme Western Canadian border, and having many branches, had become too unwieldly on account of the wide extent of territory it covered and the enormous amount of traffic it handled; and its separation into two divisions for operating purposes became a necessity. The Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg road had its nucleus in the old Watertown & Rome road, the first to tap this section of the State, which incorporated in 1835 and completed in 1861 and has grown by the absorption of other short lines until it became what it was up to Saturday night at 12 o’clock. In 1891 the road was leased to the New York Central for a period of ninety-nine years, and has since been a part of that great system, know during the blizzards of winter, which have so frequently blocked the line for days, as the “Hojack.”