Boston & Albany Railroad Company. Engineering Department

The Boston and Albany Railroad was formed by a series of mergers beginning in 1867 that subsumed both the first commercial line in New England, the Boston and Worcester Railroad (chartered 1831) and the Western Railroad (1833), the most important line in Western Massachusetts. The expansionist Boston and Albany began extending lines eastward and westward at the same time, absorbing the Castleton and West Stockbridge Railroad (incorporated in 1834 and renamed the Albany and West Stockbridge two years later) and the Hudson and Berkshire Railroad, creating a powerful corporation that established the first continuous rail line across the Commonwealth.

Throughout the nineteenth century, the Boston and Albany prospered, absorbing a number of branch lines and extending its reach both northward and southward. By the 1880s, it claimed the distinction of operating one of the most efficient commuter operations, connecting Boston through Brookline and Newton Highlands to Riverside, eventually extending commuter service to Worcester. The line was noted, too, for Director Charles Sprague Sargent’s initiative to beautify rail travel, hiring the architect Henry Hobson Richardson to design aesthetically pleasing stations.

The nineteen atlases comprising this collection include detailed plans documenting the location and ownership of rights of way, land-takings, and other land transfers to or from the railroad company. Dating from the early years of operation for the corporation to just after the turn of the century, the atlases include maps of predecessor lines (Boston and Worcester Railroad Corporation and Western Rail-Road), as well as the Grand Junction Railway Company (Charlestown, Somerville, Everett, and Chelsea), the Ware River Railroad, and the Chester and Becket Railroad.

The collection includes frequent citations of legislation, references to actions with respect to county commissioners, boards of selectman, registries of deeds and deed books, and to the state Board of Railroad Commissioners (later Public Service Commission). Plans regularly specify location of subject properties in relation to the properties of identified abutters.