In December of 1880, Francis H. Clergue began taking preliminary
steps to building a railway up the western side of Green Mountain.
Clergue, a 1875 graduate of Bangor Regional High School, was the son
of Joseph Hector Clergue, a successful barber and wigmaker, and the
oldest of eight siblings. He enrolled in Maine State College, known
today as the University of Maine, but dropped out after only a year
and a half. He continued on to become a clerk for attorney Frederick
M. Laughten, Eventually becoming a partner in Laughton’s firm.
Clergue studied many different designs of railroads, and eventually
settled on the cog railway, a relatively new concept, which had been
designed and out into use on Mount Washington by Sylvester Marsh. To
many people of that time period, the idea that a locomotive could
ascend a mountain seemed impossible.
