General Notes

Name Prefix:<NPFX> Gen.
XBorn in North Carolina, 27 Oct. 1810. He was known until h
is
death as General Benjamin Trolinger. About 1850 he became i
nterested in
the building of the old North Carolina Railroad through Ala
mance County.
With his characteristic foresight and ability, he secured s
ufficient
stock to permit, in combination with the efforts of others
, the
construction of the line through what is now the present ci
ty Burlington,
North Carolina. Shortly hereafter it became necessary for t
he the
railroad to build shops somewhere betewwn Goldsboro and Cha
rlotte. With
$500.00 borrowed from his father and with such aid as he co
uld secure
from others, he finally got the railroad shops located at B
urlington,
then an unnamed village. By 1855 the shops were built and t
he locality
was known as "Company Shops". Tiring of this name as the vi
llage grew in
size, the citizens of the town, in 1887, finally agreed t
o appoint a
committee which would secure a suitable name fot the town
. The name of
Burlington was finally selected. We can, then in truth sa
y that General
Trolinger was the founder of the present city of Burlington.
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"Centennial History of Alamance County 1849 - 1949" by Walt
er Whitaker. Printed in the United States by the Dowd Press
, Inc. Charlotte, NC
EXCERPTS:
In 1850, the General Assembly had chartered a North Carolin
a Railroad Company and authorized it to issue $3,000,000 wo
rth of stock to build a railroad from Goldsboro to Charlott
e. The State, itself, promised to buy two-thirds of this st
ock as soon as private investors raised the other $1,000,00
0.
And which way was this railroad going to run? That was th
e main question which everyone was asking. Well, said the c
ompany engineers, the shortest distance was by way of Pitts
boro and Asheboro-but there were a lot of curves and stee
p grades along that route. Maybe they would build it by wa
y of Hillsboro and Graham and Greensboro. It was twenty mil
es farther that way-
General Ben Trollinger, who ran the cotton mill at Haw Rive
r, suggested that the road be constructed by his mill. He w
as willing to build the bridges which would be needed acros
s the river. Several other influential men backed up his id
ea. The railroad must come through Alamance County, they sa
id. And so it did.
-----------------------
General Trollinger and his brother-in-law, Dr. D. A. Montgo
mery, completed the Haw River Bridge on September 12, and t
he railroad was extended to Graham on September 18 and to G
ibsonville by October 15. The eastern and western spans o
f the track, built separately, were joined at Greensboro o
n January 29, 1856, and the first trains passed through o
n the following day.
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Before the first rails were laid, the North Carolina Railro
ad Company selected a location where they could build repai
r and maintenance shops. It was a good, well-elevated piec
e of land slightly west of the village that is now Glen Rav
en, almost equally distant from both ends of the railroad
. The Board of Directors had turned down Greensboro, Hillsb
oro, Goldsboro and several other cities in favor of this si
te. With confidence they sent agents to buy the necessary l
ots. They were shocked when it suddenly became apparent tha
t the people in western Alamance did not want the railroa
d shops and that they could not be persuaded to sell land t
o the railroad.
Slightly affronted at this refusal, the directors put thei
r heads together once more and chose a second site. They co
uld route the tracks a block north of the Alamance County C
ourthouse in Graham and would build the shops on the edge o
f that small village.
The news struck Graham like a swarm of bees. Preposterous
! To have their neat little village ruined by a railroad. T
hink of all the smoke and noise. Why, think of the menace t
hose iron monsters would be to wandering lives