William Kilby Reynolds

English: , Born in Maine in 1810, young Kilby Reynolds soon proved he had remarkable mechanical skills. His inventive mind enjoyed developing improvements and trying new ideas. , In 1844 Reynolds purchased a large sawmill property at Lepreau, New Brunswick. He settled his wife and children in Saint John. During the week he stayed at his mill operations in Lepreau. Each Saturday he traveled the 25 miles home to his family. At that time the only crossing over the Saint John harbour was by boat. In the winter of 1849 one Saturday evening because of bad weather the ferry refused to make the crossing. Refusing to wait until morning Reynolds rowed himself across the harbour. He vowed that night he would have a bridge built so people could cross to the city centre at any time. , Three earlier attempts by others to bridge the harbour had failed. One in 1837 had taken seven lives when it collapsed. After that tragedy, nobody had tried again. , Kilby Reynolds personally surveyed the area for the bridge location and chose the narrowest point over swirling whirlpools and rocks, at about 600 feet. He had read that a New York engineer Edward W. Serrell had just completed a bridge crossing the Niagara gorge using a new suspension design. Reynolds brought Mr. Serrell to Saint John as engineer for the suspension bridge project. Serrell oversaw the construction at a cost of $80,000. On January 1, 1853 the bridge opened with people paying tolls to Reynolds and his investors. , A serious accident almost happened one storm-battered night in March 1858. Horses pulling a stagecoach from Fredericton refused to cross the bridge. Their driver, using his whip, forced them to walk on until, somewhere around the centre of the bridge they stopped, immovable. The angry driver jumped down to see why. A bolt of lightning flashing across the sky suddenly revealed a 100 foot gap where the bridge floor had been ripped away by the storm. If the horses had not stopped everyone would have fallen into the raging rapids below. , Soon after that incident Kilby Reynolds sold the bridge to the New Brunswick government. The public appreciated its convenience as a reliable passage between West and East Saint John for over 60 years. , Many of Reynolds’ ideas were ahead of public acceptance. Besides operating a highly successful sawmill at Lepreau, in 1870 he designed, built and operated the first street railway in Saint John. The project was not a financial success, so after several years it closed. By the end of the century that same route and charter were used for the city's public streetcars. , In 1872 Reynolds obtained a charter for a railway from Saint John to St. Stephen along the coast. He wanted to see a rail line linking Saint John to Boston and Montreal. A year later he gave this charter to the newly formed Grand Southern Railway company. The Grand Southern Railway was completed in 1880. , When W. Kilby Reynolds died at Lepreau in 1882 the Grand Southern Railway carried his body home to Saint John for burial. ,