In 1828 Lieutenant William H. Chase of the U.S. Army was sent to the U.S. Navy Shipyard west of Pensacola where plans had been laid out to build a group or forts for its protection. From his Pensacola base, he would spend almost thirty years overseeing the construction of coastal forts from Key West to Louisiana. This seems an exceptional explanation of a lifetimes work, but it is only a part of his.
Chase’s position as Chief Engineer of the Gulf would assure much political power in West Florida, his ability to cut corners on fort construction costs and slip some of the savings into his pocket also quickly made him wealthy. In 1831 he became one of the chief organizers of the Bank of Pensacola, one of the two most powerful banking institutions in the Florida Territory. Soon after, he turned his ambitions toward a new venture, railroads.
The idea of a railroad may seem mundane today, but let us place it in the context of history. In 1807 Fulton introduced America’s first steamboat. In 1813 General Andrew Jackson invaded the Spanish Territory of West Florida at Pensacola and seized the town, his army cut paths in many places to advance due to the lack of roads. In 1820 Florida became a U.S. Territory with the capitol of West Florida established at Pensacola. In 1829 America’s first railroad began at Baltimore, Maryland and five years later William Chase chartered and became president of the Alabama, Georgia and Florida Railroad.
Chase’s plan was the most ambitious of Florida’s Territorial period. Originally spanning 210 miles, it was intended to reach the cotton rich port of Columbus, Georgia. His company had cleared land from near Floridatown, north to the Alabama state line before failing during the great financial depression of 1837. Chase’s Bank of Pensacola also collapsed. After his financial failure, in addition to his military career Chase spent years chartering and building short railways. He constructed several lines from Pensacola’s wharfs, west to the large steam-driven sawmills at Millview as well as a line to the Navy’s shipyard.
In 1845 Florida became a state; eight years later Chase chartered his second large railway, the Alabama & Florida Railroad. This joint venture with investors of Alabama sections planned a railroad from Pensacola to Montgomery. Chase also began a little remembered railroad intended to connect the port at Pensacola to Mobile. Beginning near the narrowest portion of Escambia County, it crossed Baldwin County, Alabama to a point above Mobile Bay near Tensaw. In 1856 he resigned his commission in the U.S. Army to concentrate on his railroad after 40 years of service. In 1861 his railway to Montgomery was completed, along with his Baldwin County, Alabama route. Chase’s successes were overshadowed however, as Florida declared itself succeeded from the United States on January 10, 1861.
Relations between the Southern States and the U.S. Government had deteriorated quickly during 1860. At Pensacola plans had been made to seize the coastal forts if Florida withdrew from the Union and Chase was asked to organize local troops as Colonel of Florida State Troops. In the last days of 1860, the few U.S. troops stationed on the mainland decided to withdraw to Fort Pickens on Santa Rosa Island as hundreds of newly arrived southern volunteers demanded their departure. It was at Fort Pickens on January 15, 1861 that William Chase, as Southern military commander, is remembered making a tearful request to U.S. troops to surrender, or face consequences; they did not. For his actions in Southern service, he was soon advanced to Major General. However, wishing to not be involved farther, he retired from service before the end of the year. In February 1862, his military successor Braxton Bragg ordered removal of rails from the main railway as Confederates withdrew inland.
Near the beginning of 1861, the Confederate Government had advanced funds to complete the Mobile & Montgomery Railroad, a 67 mile stretch between Tensaw Landing and Pollard, Alabama, which made Chase’s Baldwin County rail route unnecessary. In mid-1862, southern troops removed the rails of this railway in order to armor floating batteries for defense of Mobile.
After the war Chase struggled to rebuild his main Montgomery route in Escambia County,(Fl), but only 12 miles had rails before he declared personal bankruptcy. A new company, chartered in 1868, would complete his railway in 1870. That year William Chase died at the age of 72, he was buried near Pensacola at a friend’s plantation. Later moved, the location of his remains today is unknown.
William Chase stands as one of the major achievers of early West Florida. His railways brought commerce and established the heavy transportation needed for the great logging era in our region. His main Montgomery to Pensacola route is today the CSX line and has been used for 150 years. He also helped create a major industry of brick making here which lasted almost 100 years and most of the brick forts that he built still stand after 170 years as a monument to our military past. With such a legacy one thinks, “Should there be more than a street in Pensacola to remember him by, or should his connection to slavery and the Confederacy diminish him as an important part of our history?”
