Historic Pelham

Presenting the rich history of Pelham, NY in Westchester County: current historical research, descriptions of how to research Pelham history online and genealogy discussions of Pelham families.

Friday, August 25, 2017

Pelham Remembered in 1922 the Remarkable Pelhamville Train Wreck of 1885


On December 27, 1885, the mail express train out of Boston known as the late night "Owl Train" reached Pelhamville during a major windstorm. Just as the train sailed past the Pelhamville Station, the gale lifted the station's massive wooden passenger platform into the air and flipped it onto the tracks. 

 Engineer Riley Ellsworth Phillips saw the obstruction ahead, cut the steam, and braked. It did not help. The locomotive engine smashed into the overturned platform, left the rails, and tumbled end-over-end down the 60-foot embankment, dragging the fire tender and a large mail car with it. Though the passenger cars left the rails and bounced along throwing the passengers inside about the cabins, no passenger car tumbled down the massive embankment. 

 Engineer Phillips and his fireman, recently-married Eugene Blake, were thrown out of the cab as it flipped end-over-end down the embankment. Phillips was bruised, but lived. Fireman Blake, however, was crushed during the incident. He was found at the foot of the embankment and was carried into the nearby Pelhamville train station. Some accounts say Fireman Blake was laid on a "cot" of some sort in the Pelhamville station. Others say he was laid on the floor. 

 Most accounts agree, however, that once carried into the Pelhamville station, the mortally-injured Eugene Blake suffered tremendously for an agonizing forty minutes. During most of that time, he was administered to by an angel -- a woman who stepped out from among uninjured train passengers to offer help. The woman was Emma Cecilia Thursby, a famous American celebrity and singer who traveled the nation giving concerts.

 Periodically over the years, local newspapers have carried accounts of the Pelhamville Train Wreck.  One that seems to be one of the earliest such accounts appeared in the December 15, 1922 issue of The Pelham Sun.  In addition to describing the wreck based on a famous account of it that appeared in the January 16, 1886 issue of Scientific American, the article contained a host of interesting information.

 It described Pelhamville and its homes, structures, farms, and wooded hillsides as they existed at the time of the wreck.  It noted that old-timers still remembered the accident, including old-timer John T. Logan who had kept a copy of the January 16, 1886 Scientific American with engravings of the wreck and surrounding area.  Logan provided his copy of the Scientific American to The Pelham Sun in 1922 for use of the images and description of the wreck in the story.  

 Additionally, the story noted that when the Pelhamville Train Station eventually was torn down (after a fire damaged it rather badly, though the story does not mention that fact) timbers used in the structure and in the massive wooden passenger platform that stood adjacent to the tracks were used to build a nearby garage located on First Street.  The article states:

"Interesting, too, is the fact that many of the timbers which were contained in the old station house and platform were used in the construction of the building on First Street, which is now used as a garage by Terence Mackel."

 The text of the 1922 article appears immediately below.  It is followed by a citation and link to its source.

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 "Railroad Wreck Featured Christmas In The Pelhams Thirty-Seven Years Ago
-----
Remarkable Happening Caused Derailment of Train at Fifth Avenue Station of New Haven R. R.

 THE PELHAMS have been remarkably free from disasters of any consequence, seemingly being favored by the Goddess of Fortune in this respect.  Last summer when the whirlwind and thunderstorm cut a wide swath through this section of Westchester County leaving death and destruction in its wake, and strewing the shores of the Sound with the wreckage of hundreds of pleasure boats which were victims of its unexpected onslaught, the Pelhams escaped practically scatheless.

Thirty-seven years ago -- December 26, 1885 [sic; Dec. 27]-- Pelham (then known as Pelhamville), was the scene of a remarkable railroad accident when part of the Boston Flyer en route for New York, left the rails and plunged down the embankment at the Pelhamville station of the New Haven Railroad.  The train left Boston Christmas night at 10:30 and had a full complement of passengers.  It consisted of engine and tender, mail coach, and five passenger cars, the mail coach being next to the engine.

 'Christmas, of 1885, was a raw, blustery winter day, and as night approached the wind increased in velocity until it blew a gale, and at 6 o'clock on the morning of the 26th it was still whirling the snow around in huge flurries.

 In those days, the main line station of the New Haven was west of its present site, being located on the other side of Fifth Avenue, extending from where is now the Burke Stone, Inc. real estate office down to the taxi barn of Terence Mackel, on First Street.  At that time Fifth Avenue was a mudhole of a road, which wound its way along the wooded hillside on which now is located the fine residential district of Pelhamwood.  It was little more than a wagon track which led from the surrounding farms to the little wayside railroad station of Pelhamville, with a plank sidewalk from Fourth Street to the depot.

 The depot itself was built of brick with a tower to give grace to the structure, and the platform outside the the waiting room was of solid oak planks spiked down to heavy uprights driven into the ground.  Fifth Avenue of those days crossed the track at grade and it was not until six years afterward that the track was tunneled under and the bridge built so that traffic could go on undisturbed and trains would not have to slow down at the crossing.  The track was raised too, to make the grade of the tunnel [sic] less.

 As the train approached at top speed, a terrific gust of wind got underneath the platform, tore it from its fastenings and turned it completely over on to the tracks directly in the path of the oncoming train.  The engineer saw the danger and applied the brakes, but too lat to save crashing into the timbers.  It ploughed [sic] through the obstruction with a terrific tearing sound, smashing it to kindling wood.  Then the engine, tender and mail car left the track and plunged down the embankment, but the rest of the train containing a large number of passengers fortunately remained on top, although entirely derailed, with the exception of the forward truck of the baggage car at the rear.  The fireman was killed, the engineer and three of the seven mail clerks were seriously injured, while a number of the passengers sustained a severe shaking up.

 There was little aid to be gotten nearer than New Rochelle, for the Pelhamville of thad day consisted of four houses on what is now Fifth Avenue and a few scattered farms in the vicinity.  The nearest house to the depot was the building now owned by Earl Shanks and housing his druggist business.  That can be seen in one of the accompanying illustrations.  Up Fifth Ave. within 50 feet of Peter Ceders' real estate once stood a house owned by John Case, and on the other side of the street where Caffrey's gasoline station is now was the home of Mr. Straly.  One other building, the store of Jacob Heisser at Fourth Street [today's Lincoln Avenue] and Fifth Avenue, now occupied by the Progressive Grocery Company, completed 'Main Street, Pelhamville.'

 The news of the train wreck caused a number of people to come from New Rochelle and Mount Vernon to visit the scene.  A large body of workmen were sent to Pelhamville by the railroad company, and for several days they worked constructing a track up the bank.  The engine, tender and mail car were righted, placed on the auxiliary track and pulled up to the place on the main line.  The work occupied over a week.

 The train wreck is well remembered by some of the older inhabitants of Pelham, and particularly by John T. Logan of Second Avenue.  Mr. Logan carefully preserved the account of the accident and the accompanying pictures which appeared in the Scientific American of January 16, 1886, and to him The Pelham Sun is indebted for loan of the pictures and the story of the wreck.

 Interesting, too, is the fact that many of the timbers which were contained in the old station house and platform were used in the construction of the building on First Street, which is now used as a garage by Terence Mackel.

How great a change has been wrought in this locality since that time can be imagined from the statements of Mr. Logan.  Pelhamwood and Pelham Heights were then wooded hillside.  The Boston and Westchester Railroad had not been built, paved streets were unknown, as were street lights.  The inhabitants of Pelhamville found their way at night by the aid of lanterns, and these used to be taken to the country store of Jacob Heisser at Fourth Street and Fifth Avenue to be filled and trimmed."

 Source:  Railroad Wreck Featured Christmas In The Pelhams Thirty-Seven Years Ago -- Remarkable Happening Caused Derailment of Train at Fifth Avenue Station of New Haven R. R., The Pelham Sun, Dec. 15, 1922, Vol. 13, No. 42, p. 7, cols. 1-3.

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I have written before about the Pelhamville Train Wreck of 1885 that resulted in the death of Fireman Eugene Blake and injuries to several others including the train engineer, Riley Phillips. See:






Mon., Sep. 24, 2007:  The Pelhamville Train Wreck of 1885





Bell, Blake A., The Pelhamville Train Wreck of 1885: "One of the Most Novel in the Records of Railroad Disasters, 80(1) The Westchester Historian, pp. 36-43 (2004).

 *          *          *          *          *

Only known photograph showing the aftermath of the
"Pelhamville Train Wreck of 1885.” The January 16, 1886
issue of Scientific American included an artist’s depiction
of the same scene in connection with an article about the
wreck describing it as "A Remarkable Railroad Accident"
that occurred on the New Haven Line in Pelhamville
(now part of the Village of Pelham) at about 6:00 a.m.
on December 27, 1885. See A Remarkable Railroad Accident,
Scientific American, Jan. 16, 1886, Vol. LIV, No. 3, pp. 31-32.
The engine and tender lie in the foreground with the mail
car behind. NOTE: Click Image To Enlarge.





Front Cover and Images of the January 16, 1886 Issue
of Scientific American that Featured a Cover Story About
the Pelhamville Train Wreck Entitled "A Remarkable Railroad

Accident." NOTE: Click on Images to Enlarge.

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posted by Blake A. Bell @ 4:50 AM 0 comments

Friday, December 30, 2016

Pelham Recalled the Pelhamville Train Wreck of 1885 Upon Death of Riley Ellsworth Phillips in 1927


On December 27, 1885, the mail express train out of Boston known as the late night "Owl Train" reached Pelhamville during a major windstorm.  Just as the train sailed past the Pelhamville Station, the gale lifted the station's massive wooden passenger platform into the air and flipped it onto the tracks. 

Engineer Riley Ellsworth Phillips saw the obstruction ahead, cut the steam, and braked.  It did not help.  The locomotive engine smashed into the overturned platform, left the rails, and tumbled end-over-end down the 60-foot embankment, dragging the fire tender and a large mail car with it.  Though the passenger cars left the rails and bounced along throwing the passengers inside about the cabins, no passenger car tumbled down the massive embankment.  

Engineer Phillips and his fireman, recently-married Eugene Blake, were thrown out of the cab as it flipped end-over-end down the embankment.  Phillips was bruised, but lived.  Fireman Blake, however, was crushed during the incident.  He was found at the foot of the embankment and was carried into the nearby Pelhamville train station.  Some accounts say Fireman Blake was laid on a "cot" of some sort in the Pelhamville station.  Others say he was laid on the floor.  

Most accounts agree, however, that once carried into the Pelhamville station, the mortally-injured Eugene Blake suffered tremendously for an agonizing forty minutes.  During most of that time, he was administered to by an angel -- a woman who stepped out from among uninjured train passengers to offer help.  The woman was Emma Cecilia Thursby, a famous American celebrity and singer who traveled the nation giving concerts.  

 I have written about Riley Ellsworth Phillips and the Pelhamville Train Wreck on a number of occasions.  See the bibliography with links at the end of today's article.  

 The Pelhamville Train Wreck was so significant and so affected Pelhamville residents that it was written about repeatedly in the local newspaper, The Pelham Sun, for many decades after the wreck.  Today's posting to the Historic Pelham Blog transcribes yet another article about the wreck in 1885.  The article appeared in The Pelham Sun the week following the death of Riley Ellsworth Phillips.  Its text is immediately below, followed by a citation and link to its source.

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 "DEATH OF ENGINEER RECALLS WRECK OF BANKERS EXPRESS AT PELHAMVILLE
-----
Riley Ellsworth Phillips, 80, Dies After Sixty-one Year Service, Was Seriously Injured When Locomotive Left Rails At Pelhamville in 1885
-----

 The death last Thursday of Riley Ellsworth Phillips, veteran locomotive engineer of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad recalls to many of the older residents of the Pelhams, the wreck of the 'Bankers' Express' at the old Pelhamville station, on the night of December 27, 1885.  That accident in which one man was killed and Phillips' locomotive and tender were hurled from the railroad embankment at what is now Pelham station, was the only wreck charged against the record of the veteran engineer.  

 Old timers can tell a vivid story of the wreck at Pelhamville.  To them it brings a living picture of the little town as it was in the old days.  The railroad embankment was crossed by a grade crossing at what is now Fifth avenue.  It was little more than a wagon track made by the carts of the farmers from the farm districts between the railroad and Long Island Sound.

 A brick station stood to the west of the grade crossing.  A platform of oak planking extended some distance past the station.  It was this platform that was responsible for the wreck of the crack 'Bankers' Express' with Phillips at the throttle.

 The high wind of a winter storm tore the platform from its moorings, and lifting it up turned it over onto the railroad tracks, shortly before the express was due to pass through Pelhamville.

 Making up time, Phillips had the big locomotive doing its best when the train approached Pelhamville station.  Suddenly he saw the wrecked platform lying right in the path of the train.  He endeavored to apply the brakes, but the danger was unavoidable.  The heavy locomotive crashed into the timbers, leaving the rails hurtled through the air to the foot of the embankment, carrying the tender and baggage car along with it.  Fortunately the passenger coaches did not leave the rails.

 Phillips crawled out of the wrecked locomotive, seriously injured.  The body of his fireman was later found in the wreck.  Three mail clerks were injured.  Removal of the wreck took more than a week with the inadequate wrecking machinery used in those days.  

 Phillips recovered and was absolved from all blame.  He continued in the service of the railroad and was one of the road's most trusted employees.  He would have completed his sixty-second year with the railroad in July.  

 He was eighty years old and was a veteran of the Civil War."

 Source:  DEATH OF ENGINEER RECALLS WRECK OF BANKERS EXPRESS AT PELHAMVILLE -- Riley Ellsworth Phillips, 80, Dies After Sixty-one Year Service, Was Seriously Injured When Locomotive Left Rails At Pelhamville in 1885, The Pelham Sun, Feb. 25, 1927, p. 10, cols. 1-2.  

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Only known photograph showing the aftermath of the
"Pelhamville Train Wreck of 1885.” The January 16, 1886
issue of Scientific American included an artist’s depiction
of the same scene in connection with an article about the
wreck describing it as "A Remarkable Railroad Accident"
that occurred on the New Haven Line in Pelhamville
(now part of the Village of Pelham) at about 6:00 a.m.
on December 27, 1885. See A Remarkable Railroad Accident,
Scientific American, Jan. 16, 1886, Vol. LIV, No. 3, pp. 31-32.
The engine and tender lie in the foreground with the mail
car behind. NOTE: Click Image To Enlarge.








Front Cover and Images of the January 16, 1886 Issue
of Scientific American that Featured a Cover Story About
the Pelhamville Train Wreck Entitled "A Remarkable Railroad
Accident." NOTE: Click on Images to Enlarge.

*          *          *          *          *
I have written before about the Pelhamville Train Wreck of 1885 that resulted in the death of Fireman Eugene Blake and injuries to several others including the train engineer, Riley Phillips. See:






Mon., Sep. 24, 2007:  The Pelhamville Train Wreck of 1885





Bell, Blake A., The Pelhamville Train Wreck of 1885: "One of the Most Novel in the Records of Railroad Disasters, 80(1) The Westchester Historian, pp. 36-43 (2004).

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posted by Blake A. Bell @ 5:35 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, April 05, 2016

New Information About Efforts to Comfort the Dying Fireman Eugene Blake After the Pelhamville Train Wreck of 1885


On December 27, 1885, the mail express train out of Boston known as the late night "Owl Train" reached Pelhamville during a major windstorm.  Just as the train sailed past the Pelhamville Station, the gale lifted the station's massive wooden passenger platform into the air and flipped it onto the tracks. 

 Engineer Riley Phillips saw the obstruction ahead, cut the steam, and braked.  It did not help.  The locomotive engine smashed into the overturned platform, left the rails, and tumbled end-over-end down the 60-foot embankment, dragging the fire tender and a large mail car with it.  Though the passenger cars left the rails and bounced along throwing the passengers inside about the cabins, no passenger car tumbled down the massive embankment.  

 Engineer Phillips and his fireman, recently-married Eugene Blake, were thrown out of the cab as it flipped end-over-end down the embankment.  Phillips was bruised, but lived.  Fireman Blake, however, was crushed during the incident.  He was found at the foot of the embankment and was carried into the nearby Pelhamville train station.  Some accounts say Fireman Blake was laid on a "cot" of some sort in the Pelhamville station.  Others say he was laid on the floor.  

All accounts agree, however, that once carried into the Pelhamville station, the mortally-injured Eugene Blake suffered tremendously for an agonizing forty minutes.  During most of that time, he was administered to by an angel -- a woman who stepped out from among uninjured train passengers to offer help.  

 Only a contemporary account can truly convey the sense of the sad moments that followed.  A local newspaper reported at the time: 

 "[A] slight woman, clad in mourning, with a face as white as snow, crept through to the cot.  ‘Stand back every one of you and give him air,’ she shouted as she placed his head on her lap and gently stroked his pallid forehead.  ‘Poor fellow,’ said the engineer.  ‘He was only married four months ago, and . . . talked all night on this trip about the happy Christmas he had passed with his wife.’  The sufferer’s white face was as of dead for a while, when he became delirious.  ‘We’ll make it, we’ll make it, Ira,’ he cried suddenly, sitting up and staring wildly around. ‘What makes you look at me so? Oh! jump, jump for your life. It’s all right, Jenny, it’s all right.’ His voice sank into a whisper with the last words, and his head fell back on the little woman’s lap. ‘He is dead,’ she said softly, placing her lace handkerchief over his face. . . ."

 Source:  THROWN OFF THE RAIL. Accident on the New York and New Haven Railroad., Eastern State Journal [White Plains, NY], Supplement, Jan. 2, 1886.

 The "slight woman" who took charge, laid Eugene Blake's head in her lap, and placed her lace handkerchief over his face after he died, it turns out, was well known.  She was Emma Cecilia Thursby, an American singer who traveled the nation giving concerts.  Overnight on the evening of December 26-27, 1885, she was returning from a concert as a passenger on the Owl Train when the accident occurred.

Thursby's biographer later wrote about her involvement in the Pelhamville Train Wreck.  He misplaced the time of the event, however, as late January, 1886 rather than late December, 1885.  Thursby's biographer wrote: 

 "The new year, 1886, promised little change in the status.  Without a manager in whom she could place complete confidence -- and she could not seem to find one --, although she was still in splendid voice, there seemed to be no escape from the inertia into which her career had fallen.  In late January she journeyed to Rochester, New York, for her first concert of the year.  Upon the return journey, she met with a serious railroad accident at Pelhamville.  Fortunately escaping injury herself, she had the presence of mind, the courage, and the sympathy to go to the aid of the mortally injured fireman of the train, Eugene Blake.  'God will surely reward you,' wrote his widow to her a few days later, 'and may God be with you in all your travels throughout this world.  I was married 6 short months when my Husband was torn from me and we were so Happy.  Although I could not be with him myself when he breathed his last I feel thankful there was one of my sex who felt for him [Page 350 / Page 351] and stepped forward and administered such wants as would soothe a dying man.'"

 Source:  Gipson, Richard McCandless, The Life of Emma Thursby 1845-1931, pp. 350-51 (NY, NY:  The New-York Historical Society, 1940).  

 A depiction of Emma Cecilia Thursby helping the dying fireman Eugene Blake appeared on the cover of the January 16, 1886 issue of The National Police Gazette published barely two weeks after the accident.  Though likely an artist's rendering of what it was like that sad night, the fact remains that the image is the only known effort by anyone to depict the interior of the tiny wooden Pelhamville Station that once served Pelham commuters.  It shows troubled and concerned men and women hovering as Thursby uses her handkerchief to dab the face of Eugene Blake -- the same handkerchief that she reportedly placed over Blake's face after he died in her lap.


January 16, 1886 Cover of the National Police Gazette
Depicting Famed American Singer Emma Cecilia Thursby
as She Ministered to a Dying New Haven Line Fireman
Eugene Blake Following the Pelhamville Train Wreck of
December 27, 1885.  NOTE:  Click on Image to Enlarge.


Emma Cecilia Thursby was born February 21, 1845, a daughter of rope manufacturer John Barnes Thursby and Jane Ann (Bennett) Thursby.  She began singing in church in Williamsburg, Brooklyn as a young girl.  She received vocal training while attending Bethlehem Female Seminary (now known as Moravian College) in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.  By her late twenties, Thursby was singing in concert with established performers such as "Ole Bull" and Theodore Thomas.  

Thursby's career began to take off.  In 1875, she performed with Hans von Bülow and, within a year she appeared with a touring Mark Twain in a series of programs.  She supposedly signed a $100,000 contract (worth roughly $3 million in 2016 dollars) to tour throughout North America not long afterward.  

By 1885, when Thursby was involved in the Pelhamville train wreck, her performing career was on the wane as she performed less frequently.  She later served as a Professor of Music at the Institute of Musical Art in New York City (now known as the Juilliard School) from 1905 until 1911.  She died at her home in Gramercy Park in New York City on July 4, 1931.  Her papers, on which the biography that includes the quote set forth earlier in this article is based, are held by the New-York Historical Society.  For more, see "Emma Cecilia Thursby" in WIKIPEDIA - The Free Encyclopedia (visited Mar. 27, 2016).  


American Singer Emma Cecilia Thursby Who Ministered to
Dying New Haven Line Fireman Eugene Blake Following the
Pelhamville Train Wreck on December 27, 1885.  Source:
Wikipedia (Citing Billy Rose Theatre Collection Photograph
File, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy
Rose Theatre Division Catalog Call Number *T PHO A Digital
ID th-57964 Record ID 558532).  NOTE:  Click Image to Enlarge.








Front Cover and Images of the January 16, 1886 Issue
of Scientific American that Featured a Cover Story About
the Pelhamville Train Wreck Entitled "A Remarkable Railroad
Accident." NOTE: Click on Images to Enlarge.


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I have written before about the Pelhamville Train Wreck of 1885 that resulted in the death of Fireman Eugene Blake and injuries to several others including the train engineer, Riley Phillips. See:






Mon., Sep. 24, 2007:  The Pelhamville Train Wreck of 1885





Bell, Blake A., The Pelhamville Train Wreck of 1885: "One of the Most Novel in the Records of Railroad Disasters, 80(1) The Westchester Historian, pp. 36-43 (2004).
Order a Copy of "Thomas Pell and the Legend of the Pell Treaty Oak."  

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posted by Blake A. Bell @ 4:49 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

More on the Findings of the Coroner's Inquest That Followed the Pelhamville Train Wreck of 1885


On December 27, 1885, the mail express train out of Boston known as the "Owl Train" (because it traveled overnight between Boston and New York City) reached Pelhamville during a major windstorm just as a gale lifted the wooden station platform into the air and flipped it onto the tracks. Engineer Riley Phillips cut the steam and braked, but the engine smashed into the overturned platform, left the rails and tumbled end-over-end down the 60-foot embankment dragging the fire tender and a large mail car with it. Phillips and his fireman, recently-married Eugene Blake, were thrown out of the cab. Phillips was bruised, but lived. Eugene Blake was crushed in the incident and was carried into the Pelhamville train station where he died forty minutes later.






Images and Front Cover of the January 16, 1886
Issue of Scientific American that Featured a Cover
Story About the Pelhamville Train Wreck Entitled
"A Remarkable Railroad Accident."  NOTE:
Click on Images to Enlarge.

 Hundreds and hundreds of articles appeared in newspapers throughout the United States regarding the Pelhamville Train Wreck.  Today's posting to the Historic Pelham Blog transcribes two more brief articles regarding the Coroner's Inquest that followed the accident.  As I have noted before and as one of the articles below reports, following the coroner's inquest, the coroner's jury found the New Haven Railroad criminally negligent in connection with the accident, rendering a verdict, "That the said Eugene Blake came to his death by a railroad accident at Pelhamville, Dec. 27, 1885, through the criminal negligence of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company in failing to secure the platform of the above station."  

 Each account below is followed by a citation to its source.

 "THE PELHAMVILLE ACCIDENT.--Coroner Tice, on Monday morning, went to Pelhamville for the purpose of holding his inquest touching the death of Eugene Blake, the fireman, who was the only victim of the accident Sunday morning.  The body had been removed on Sunday to his late home in New Haven, where he had a wife to whom he had been married only five months.  The testimony of half a dozen witnesses was taken.  They were all employes [sic] of the railroad company, and, of course, made it as favorable as possible, but, as it was plainly an unavoidable accident, they had not much to gloss over.  They described their sensations on the train when the crash came, how they hurried out and found the wreck as has already been described in these columns.  The water-boy found the unfortunate fireman wedged in the cab of the locomotive with his feet against the door of the fire box.  He was conscious and said he thought he was 'done for' and a brakeman carried him to the station, where he died in forty minutes.  The inquest was then adjourned for a week in order to take the testimony of the engineer and the builder of the platform, the latter to describe how it had been constructed and whether it had been spiked down, of which there is a good deal of doubt.  Trains were running regularly on time on Monday."

 Source:  THE PELHAMVILLE ACCIDENT, The Yonkers Statesman, Dec. 29, 1885, Vol. III, No. 654, p. 1, col. 4.  

"The Pelhamville Accident.

Last Saturday evening Coroner Tice concluded his inquest relative to the death of Fireman Eugene Blake in the railroad accident at Pelhamville, on Dec. 27.  Riley Phillips, the engineer, testified that as he neared the station the air was full of flying sand raised by the storm.  When he struck the platform, he shut off steam and then went with his engine down the embankment.  There were no flanges on the forward driving wheels, but he believed that flanges would not have saved the engine.  John Heeney, Jr. superintendent of motive power for the road, testified that two-thirds of the engines were similarly constructed to enable them to round curves with the least possible strain of the axles.  The other witness could not discover that the old platform had been securely spiked down.  The jury then rendered a verdict, 'That the said Eugene Blake came to his death by a railroad accident at Pelhamville, Dec. 27, 1885, through the criminal negligence of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company in failing to secure the platform of the above station.' ----
Yonkers Statesman.'"

Source:  [Untitled], The Eastern State Journal, Jan. 23, 1886, p. 2, col. 5.  

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I have written before about the Pelhamville Train Wreck of 1885 that resulted in the death of Fireman Eugene Blake and injuries to several others including the train engineer, Riley Phillips. See:






Mon., Sep. 24, 2007:  The Pelhamville Train Wreck of 1885





Bell, Blake A., The Pelhamville Train Wreck of 1885: "One of the Most Novel in the Records of Railroad Disasters, 80(1) The Westchester Historian, pp. 36-43 (2004).
Order a Copy of "Thomas Pell and the Legend of the Pell Treaty Oak."  

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posted by Blake A. Bell @ 4:41 AM 0 comments