Historic Pelham: Postscript To the Pelhamville Train Wreck of 1885 - Settlement of the Widow's Lawsuit Against the Railroad

For at least a decade I have suspected that one or more lawsuits likely were brought against the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company after the December 28, 1885 wreck of the New York City bound Boston Express train in front of the Pelhamville train station. Readers of the Historic Pelham Blog will recall that as the train approached the station racing to make up time on its way to New York City, it passed through a dust cloud that obscured the engineer's view and smashed into a massive wooden station platform that a windstorm had just flipped over onto the tracks. The locomotive, tender and a mail car filled with mail clerks tumbled down an embankment that was sixty or seventy feet high. Passenger cars left the tracks but miraculously hung over the edge of the embankment without tumbling down. The train's fireman, Eugene Blake, died at the scene. The engineer, several mail clerks, and many passengers were injured.

Although I long suspected that lawsuits followed, I never have found evidence of such suits. Recently, however, while performing unrelated research in local newspapers, I ran across a brief reference indicating that, indeed, the widow of the deceased train fireman, Eugene Blake, filed a lawsuit against the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company following the accident. About fourteen months later, in February, 1887, a local newspaper reported that the widow of fireman Blake settled her lawsuit against the railroad in exchange for a payment of $4,000. The brief report stated as follows:

"--The N.Y.N.H. & R.R. Co. have settled a suit began [sic] against them by Mrs. Blake, the widow of Fireman Eugene Blake, who was killed in the accident at Pelhamville, in December, 1885. They paid her $4,000."

Source: LOCAL INTELLIGENCE, New Rochelle Pioneer, Feb. 12, 1887, p. 3, col. 1.