In the 1870s, Dover businessman George Richards sought the construction of a railroad to carry iron ore from New Jersey's Hibernia mines to the furnaces at High Bridge and in the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania for use with the Pennsylvania ores. Richards first suggested to Sam Sloan, the president of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad, that the DL&W build a spur to along the north side of the Rockaway River through Dover to the Hibernia mines. Sloan turned down the idea.