The two companies were merged on September 11, 1891. However, the original investors, all of them from Watsontown, Pennsylvania, made little headway in construction. The president was Samuel H. Hicks, who was also general manager and superintendent of the Wilkes-Barre and Western Railway; this railroad terminated at Watsontown, across the Susquehanna from White Deer, and represented a possible connection with the eastern extension. The next year, Philadelphia and New York investors appeared among the directors, including Robert C. Bellville, secretary and treasurer of the Wilkes-Barre & Western, and Charles M. Clement, a prominent Sunbury lawyer and the new general counsel for the railroad. Still, the company lacked the resources to do more than grade of right-of-way at Mill Hall in the summer of 1892.