Salem & Hillsborough Railroad IV Traditional Geocache

Salem & Hillsborough Railroad Cache Series

The remaining 20.39 miles between Hillsborough and Hopewell Corner (Albert) were completed and ready for opening by early October 1877. The official opening of the 44.76 miles of the Albert Railway took place on Thursday, October 4, 1877 with Lieutenant-Governor Tilley in attendance at Albert. The original station houses at Albert and Hillsborough were both two storey frame structures, 24 x 38 feet and cost $1,125 each. The station houses at Cape as well as at Albert (rebuilt by the Canadian Government Railways following the burning of the original) remain today as private residences. The former Albert station still sports colours close to its original. Portions of the Albert Railway nearer the southern end, now part of a provincial hiking trail, swung out on the marshes in front of Hopewell Hill to be opposite the shipyard of Gaius Turner, Esquire, across the Shepody River at Harvey Bank. At Riverside it passed near Senator McLellan's shipyard. In 1878, the Harvey Branch Railway was formed to construct a railway from Albert across the Shepody River to Harvey Bank, a distance of a little over 3 miles. The above mentioned Gaius S. Turner, a local entrepreneur and politician was one of the driving forces behind this railway extension to his ship yard, and as we will mention latter, was very involved in another railway until his death in April 1892. The extension to Harvey Bank went into operation in the mid 1880's. October 10, 1889 saw the formation of the Salisbury & Harvey Railway company (from which the Salem & Hillsborough Railroad copied its initials). The Salisbury & Harvey was a corporate reorganization after an earlier bankruptcy, and controlled the full 48 miles from Salisbury to Harvey Bank.