Averaging only 19 feet per month, drilling the Blue Ridge
Tunnel was painfully slow. Air quality was bad, the working
space was very limited and a cholera epidemic claimed many
lives. Workers on the tunnel encountered excessively hard
rock on the east portion; the west portal required timbering,
and later arching with brick. Crozet reported being taken
by surprise by the eruption of a large vein of water, "for
which we were obliged to take hands from their work and
set them pumping until we could obtain machinery for that
purpose..."
The Brookville tunnel project was plagued by "soft,
rotten slate," causing frequent rock falls from the
ceiling, a constant danger to the workers.
Another major project was the construction of a massive
fill at the east portal of the Blue Ridge Tunnel, 135 feet
high and 720 feet long. The grade through the tunnel itself
was 70 feet to the mile, with the west portal 56 feet higher
than the east portal.
Many of the workers were Irish. Trouble erupted when the
tunnel workers (mostly men from County Cork) marched against
the "Fardowners" (men from Northern Ireland who
were grading the line). A considerable fight began, quarters
were burned, the militia was called out and arrests were
made. Charges were dropped when the leaders explained, "They
just wanted to have a little fight!"
The people of the Shenandoah Valley were impatient and
many wanted to hurry the process by building a temporary
line across the top of the mountain. The tracks were placed
in a series of inclined planes with a stationary engine
pulling a limited number of cars up the heavy grades. There
were three such sections of track: one and one-half mile
over Brookville Hill, three miles around Robertson's Cut,
and four and a half miles over the Blue Ridge. Later, the
company bought engines capable of hauling three cars at
a time over the temporary track.
The main tunnel was finally holed through on Christmas
Day, 1856. Earlier, the president of the Board of Public
Works, E.J. Armstrong, had reported that "no description
that he or this board could give would afford anything like
an accurate idea of the many dangers that have retarded
the progress and accumulated cost and peril, far beyond
original expectation."
Crozet said in his report, "The main tunnel will
cost, all included, as close a calculation as I can make,
about $464,000. The whole length at the floor is 4,273 ft.,
making the cost per linear foot $106.60, and $7.00 per cubic
yard, including arching of about 800 ft., ventilating, pumping,
and portal. The excavation of this excessively hard rock
is $5.00 per yard. It will have taken six and one-quarter
years in its construction."
The main tunnel remained in use until 1944, when the C&O
excavated a newer bore, at a slightly lower elevation, and
with greater dimensions for modern motive power and cars.
Crozet's next position would be working with the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers in the construction of the Washington
Aqueduct, a federal project to bring water from the Great
Falls of the Potomac to the District of Columbia. A major
feature of this work was the Cabin John bridge, which for
some 50 years was the longest masonry arch in the world.
Work on the aqueduct was stopped, however, due to financial
stringency in 1859.
Crozet returned to Virginia, where he was appointed chief
engineer of the Virginia & Kentucky Railroad, which
would eventually become the main line of the Norfolk &
Western Railway. Virginia left the Union in April 1861 and,
after preliminary surveys, the work was suspended with the
coming of the Civil War. President Jefferson Davis interviewed
Crozet, who offered his services to the Confederacy. (Davis
had used Crozet's textbooks as a West Point cadet.) Apparently
due to his age, the offer was declined. Crozet resigned
himself to inactivity and died at the home of his daughter
on January 29, 1864, at the age of 74. Originally buried
in Richmond, his remains were removed to a grave in front
of the library at VMI on November 11, 1942.
His gravestone reads:
"Colonel Claudius Crozet
Born in France Dec. 31, 1789
Died in Virginia Jan. 29, 1864
Soldier, Scholar, Educator,
Engineer, Chairman of the First
Board of Visitors V.M.I.
1837-1845"
