1876 — Dec 29, Bridge Fails under Train Pacific Express, Fire, Ashtabula, OH –92-~98
Last edit on 10-22-2023 by Wayne Blanchard for upload to: http://www.usdeadlyevents.com/
–92-~98 Blanchard estimated death range.*
–87-200 Hamilton, Darrell E. The Ashtabula Train Disaster of 1876.**
— 100 Chicago Tribune, December 30, 1876.
— >100 Cincinnati Commercial, OH. “Shocking Railway Disaster…” 12-30-1876, p. 3.
— >100 Daily Argus, Rock Island, IL. “Horrible. A Train of cars Breaks Through…” 12-30-1876, p.1.
— 100 Decatur Daily Republican, “A Terrible Disaster,” December 30, 1876.[1]
— 100 Haine, Edgar. Railroad Wrecks. 1993, p. 31.
— ~100 Ohio Historical Society. “Ashtabula Train Disaster…” Ohio History Central.
— 98 Ashtabula County Archives 1877, in ARHF, “The Ashtabula Bridge Disaster.”
— 97 Feather. “Documentary about Ashtabula railroad bridge disaster unveiled.” Ashtabula Star Beacon, 12-1-2022.
— 92-97 Albrecht. “Saga of Ashtabula train disaster endures after 140 years.” 1-11-2019.
— 94 Taylor, Troy. “Horror for the Holidays,” 2003.
— 92 Atlas Obscura. “Ashtabula Bridge Disaster Monument, Ashtabula, Ohio.” No Date.
— 92 Hamilton, Darrell. The Ashtabula Train Disaster of 1876. (Noted as the official count.)
— 92 Holen. “The History of Accident Rates in the United States.” In Simon 1995, p. 102.
— 92 Krajewski. Bridge Inspection and Interferometry. 2006, p. 8.
— 92 Nash. Darkest Hours – A Narrative Encyclopedia of Worldwide Disasters. 1977, p736.
— ~92 Wikipedia, “Ashtabula River Railroad Disaster.”
— >90 Legends of America. “Ashtabula Train Wreck – Historic Accounts.” Accessed 10-22-2023.
— 84 Cornell, James. The Great International Disaster Book (Third Edition). 1982, p. 434.
— 84 Harris, Keith. “Wreck of the Pacific Express,” p. 54 in Kartman. Disaster! 2007.
— 83 Holbrook, Stewart H. The Story of American Railroads (5th printing). 1959.
— 83 Ohio History Central. “Ashtabula Train Disaster of 1876.” Accessed 10-22-2023.
— ~80 Adams, Charles Francis, Jr. Notes on Railroad Accidents. 1879, 104.
— ~80 Brockett (Compiler). Handbook of the United States of America. 1890, p. 151.
— 80 History.com. This Day in History, Disaster, Dec 29, 1876. “Bridge Collapses in Ohio.”
— 80 Railroad Stories. “December in Rail History,” December, 1935, p. 112.
— >80 Willsey, Lewis. “Memorable Railroad Accidents,” Harper’s Book of Facts. 1895, 674.
— 76 List of “The Lost and Dead so Far as Known,” by name; Ashtabula Telegraph, 1-5-1877.[2]
— >70 Childs. A History of the United States In Chronological Order. 1886, p. 239.[3]
— 70 Cincinnati Gazette. “Ashtabula Accident. One More Body Identified.” 1-4-1877, p. 1.
*Blanchard: There is no definitive death toll (a reading of the sources below will provide information on some of the uncertainties). It has seemed at times that every time a search was made for a source on this disaster a new death-toll number is provided. Thus we rely on our best estimate of the most probable range.
For the low-end of out death-toll range we are willing to accept Hamilton’s notation that “The official count was 92…” Five other sources note 92 or approximately 92 deaths.
We discount the sources which state exactly 100 lives lost in that most were based on day-of-event reporting or sources which drew from these newspaper articles (as well as our suspicion of round numbers like 100 or 1000 deaths).
For the high-end of our estimated death-toll we choose to rely on the Ashtabula County Archives of 1877 number of 98. In that two other sources note 97 deaths we choose to modify 98 to approximately 98.
**Hamilton: “The number of persons killed that fateful day will never be completely known. The persons killed that day has been quoted as high as 200 the day of the disaster and as low as 87 a few days after the disaster. The official count was 92, but was it the right count?”
Narrative Information
Adams, Charles Francis, Jr. Notes on Railroad Accidents. 1879, 100-106: “There has been no recent disaster which combined more elements of horror or excited more widespread public emotion than that at Ashtabula bridge. It was, indeed, so terrible in its character and so heartrending in its details, that for the time being it fairly divided the attention of the country with that dispute over the presidential succession, then the subject uppermost in the minds of all. A blinding northeasterly snow-storm, accompanied by a heavy wind, prevailed throughout the day which preceded the accident, greatly impeding the movement of trains. The Pacific express over the Michigan Southern & Lake Shore road had left Erie, going west, considerably behind its time, and had been started only with great difficulty and with the assistance of four locomotives.
“It was due at Ashtabula at about 5.30 o’clock P.M., but was three hours late, and, the days being then at their shortest, when it arrived at the bridge which was the scene of the accident the darkness was so great that nothing could be seen through the driving snow by those on the leading locomotive even for a distance of 50 feet ahead. The train was made up of two heavy locomotives, four baggage, mail and express cars, one smoking car, two ordinary coaches, a drawing-room car and three sleepers, being in all two locomotives and eleven cars, in the order named, containing, as nearly as can be ascertained, 190 human beings, of whom 170 were passengers.
“Ashtabula bridge is situated only about 1,000 feet east of the station of the same name, and spans a deep ravine, at the bottom of which flows a shallow stream, some two or three feet in depth, which empties into Lake Erie a mile or two away. The bridge was an iron Howe truss of 150 feet span, elevated 69 feet above the bottom of the ravine, and supported at either end by solid masonwork abutments. It had been built some fourteen years.
“As the train approached the bridge it had to force its way through a heavy snow-drift, and, when it passed onto it, it was moving at a speed of some twelve or fourteen miles an hour. The entire length of the bridge afforded space only for two of the express cars at most in addition to the locomotives, so that when the wheels of the leading locomotive rested on the western abutment of the bridge nine of the eleven cars which made up the train, including all those in which there were passengers, had yet to reach its eastern end.
“At the instant when the train stood in this position, the engineer of the leading locomotive heard a sudden cracking sound apparently beneath him, and thought he felt the bridge giving way. Instantly pulling the throttle valve wide open, his locomotive gave a spring forward and, as it did so, the bridge fell, the rear wheels of his tender falling with it. The jerk and impetus of the locomotive, however, sufficed to tear out the coupling, and as his tender was dragged up out of the abyss onto the track, though its rear wheels did not get upon the rails, the frightened engineer caught a fearful glimpse of the second locomotive as it seemed to turn and then fall bottom upwards into the ravine. The bridge had given way, not at once but by a slowly sinking motion, which began at the point where the pressure was heaviest, under the two locomotives and at the west abutment. There being two tracks, and this train being on the southernmost of the two, the southern truss had first yielded, letting that side of the bridge down, and rolling, as it were, the second locomotive and the cars immediately behind it off to the left and quite clear of a straight line drawn between the two abutments; then almost immediately the other truss gave way and the whole bridge fell, but in doing so swung slightly to the right. Before this took place the entire train with the exception of the last two sleepers had reached the chasm, each car as it passed over falling nearer than the one which had preceded it to the east abutment, and finally the last two sleepers came, and, without being deflected from their course at all, plunged straight down and fell upon the wreck of the bridge at its east end. It was necessarily all the work of a few seconds.
“At the bottom of the ravine the snow lay waist deep and the stream was covered with ice some eight inches in thickness. Upon this were piled up the fallen cars and engine, the latter on top of the former near the western abutment and upside down. All the passenger cars were heated by stoves. At first a dead silence seemed to follow the successive shocks of the falling mass. In less than two minutes, however, the fire began to show itself and within fifteen the holocaust was at its height. As usual, it was a mass of human beings, all more or less stunned, a few killed, many injured and helpless, and more yet simply pinned down to watch, in the possession as full as helpless of all their faculties, the rapid approach of the flames.
“The number of those killed outright seems to have been surprisingly small. In the last car, for instance, no one was lost. This was due to the energy and presence of mind of the porter, a negro named Steward, who, when he felt the car resting firmly on its side, broke a window and crawled through it, and then passed along breaking the other windows and extricating the passengers until all were gotten out. Those in the other cars were far less fortunate. Though an immediate alarm had been given in the neighboring town, the storm was so violent and’ the snow so deep that assistance arrived but slowly. Nor when it did arrive could much be effected. The essential thing was to extinguish the flames. The means for so doing were close at hand in a steam pump belonging to the railroad company, while an abundance of hose could have been procured at another place but a short distance off. In the excitement and agitation of the moment contradictory orders were given, even to forbidding the use of the pump, and practically no effort to extinguish the fire was made. Within half an hour of the accident the flames were at their height, and when the next morning dawned nothing remained in the ravine but a charred and undistinguishable mass of car trucks, brake-rods, twisted rails and bent and tangled bridge iron, with the upturned locomotive close to the west abutment.
“In this accident some eighty persons are supposed to have lost their lives, while over sixty others were injured. The exact number of those killed can never be known, however, as more than half of those reported were utterly consumed in the fire; indeed, even of the bodies recovered scarcely one half could be identified.
“Of the cause of the disaster much was said at the time in language most unnecessarily scientific; — but little was required to be said. It admitted of no extenuation. An iron bridge, built in the early days of iron-bridges, — that which fell under the train at Ashtabula, was faulty in its original construction, and the indications of weakness it had given had been distinct, but had not been regarded. That it had stood so long and that it should have given way when it did, were equally matters for surprise. A double track bridge, it should naturally have fallen under the combined pressure of trains moving simultaneously in opposite directions. The strain under which it yielded was not a particularly severe one, even taken in connection with the great atmospheric pressure of the storm then prevailing. It was, in short, one of those disasters, fortunately of infrequent occurrence, with which accident has little if any connection. It was due to original inexperience and to subsequent ignorance or carelessness, or possibly recklessness as criminal as it was fool-hardy.
“Besides being a bridge accident, this was also a stove accident, — in this respect a repetition of Angola. One of the most remarkable features about it, indeed, was the fearful rapidity with which the fire spread, and the incidents of its spread detailed in the subsequent evidence of the survivors were simply horrible. Men, women and children, full of the instinct of self-preservation, were caught and pinned fast for the advancing flames, while those who tried to rescue them were driven back by the heat and compelled helplessly to listen to their shrieks. It is, however, unnecessary to enter into these details, for they are but the repetition of an experience which has often been told, and they do but enforce a lesson which the railroad companies seem resolved not to learn. Unquestionably the time in this country will come when through trains will be heated from a locomotive or a heating-car. That time, however, had not yet come. Meanwhile the evidence would seem to show that at Ashtabula, as at Angola, at least two lives were sacrificed in the subsequent fire to each one lost in the immediate shock of the disaster.” (Adams 1879, 100-106)
Settlements cost the rail company “over $600,000.” (Adams 1879, 293)
Ashtabula County Archives: “December 29, 1876, was the date of the occurrence; the time of day about half past seven o’clock in the evening. At that moment the Pacific Express, No. 5, bound westward over the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern railway, broke through the iron bridge that spanned the Ashtabula river on the line of the road, and suddenly plunged with a precious cargo of human life into a chasm seventy feet deep.[4]
“The night was a wild and bitter one. A furious snow-storm had raged all the previous day, and had heaped great masses of snow along and across the track. The wind was a cold, biting one, and was blowing with a velocity of about forty miles per hour. The darkness was dense. On such a night as this the train, composed of eleven coaches, and drawn by two heavy engines, approached the…bridge, located about one thousand feet east of the Ashtabula station. It was more than two hours behind the time for its arrival.[5] On board there were not less than one hundred and fifty six human souls.[6] There were two express cars, two baggage cars, three passenger coaches, one of them the smoking car, one drawing room coach, and three sleeping coaches.
‘The bridge was an iron structure, and carried a double track. It consisted of two trusses of the Howe truss type, and the length of the span between abutments was one hundred and fifty feet. The train approached the bridge on the south track. At the moment of the crash, one engine, by a sudden plunge forward, had gained the west abutment,[7] while the other engine, two express cars, and part of the baggage car rested with their weight upon the bridge. The remainder of the train was drawn into the gulf….
“About the Crash — from account of Miss Marian Shepard, Ripon, Wisc., who was in the sleeper car “Palatine.”
“Suddenly there was an awful crash. I can’t describe the noise….Someone cried out, ‘We’re going down!’ At that moment all the lights in the car went out. It was utter darkness… I felt the car floor sinking under my feet….I thought of a great many things, and I made up my mind I was going to be killed. For the first few seconds we seemed to be dropping in silence. I could hear the other passengers breathing. Then suddenly the car was filled with flying splinters and dust, and we seemed breathing some heavy substance. For a moment, I was almost suffocated. We went down, down. Oh, it was awful! It seemed to me we had been falling two minutes. The berths were slipping from their fastenings and falling upon the passengers. We heard an awful crash. It was as dark as the sound died away there were heavy groans all around us. It was as dark as the grave. I was thrown down…. Everyone alive was scrambling and struggling to get out. I heard someone say, ‘Hurry out; the car will be on fire in a minute!’ Another man shouted, ‘The water is coming in, and we will be drowned!’ The car seemed lying partly on one side.
“In the scramble a man caught hold of me and cried out, ‘Help me; don’t leave me!’ A woman, from one corner of the car, cried, ‘Help me save my husband!’ He was caught under a berth and some seats. I was feeling around in the dark, trying to release him, when someone at the other end of the car said they were all right and would help the man out. I groped along to the door, crawling over the heating arrangement in getting to it.
“While I was getting out at the door, others were crawling out the windows. On the left the cars were on fire. On the right a pile of rubbish, as high as I could see, barred escape. In front of me were some cars standing on end, or in a sloping position. I followed a man who was trying to scale the pile of debris. I got up to a coach which was resting on one edge of the roof. The side was so slippery and icy I could not walk on it, and so I crawled over it. The car was dark inside, and oh, what heart rending groans issued from it! It seemed filled with people who were dying. Two men…helped me down from the end of the car. Then I was in snow up to my knees….Right under our feet lay a man, his head down in a hole and his legs under the corner of a car. He asked help, and Mr. White and Mr. Tyler released his legs somehow, and some other men carried him away.
It was storming terribly. The wind was blowing a perfect gale. By this time, the scene was lighted up by the burning cars. The abutments looked as high as Niagara. Away above us, I could see a crowd of spectators. Down in the wreck there was perfect panic. Some were so badly frightened and panic stricken that they had to be dragged out of the cars to prevent them from burning up. Before we got out of the chasm, the whole train was in a blaze. The locomotive, the cars, and the bridge were mixed up in one indistinguishable mass. From the burning heap came shrieks and the most piteous cries for help. I could hear far above me the clangor of bells, alarming the citizens. We climbed up the deep side of the gorge, floundering in snow two feet deep. They took us to an engine house, where there was a big furnace fire. The wounded were brought in and laid on the floor. They were injured in every conceivable way. Some had their legs broken; some had gashed and bleeding faces; and some were so horribly crushed they seemed to be dying.”
Investigations:
“The Coroner’s Jury — A jury was assembled on Saturday, December 30, the day following the accident. The following Ashtabula citizens of were chosen: H. L. Morrison, T. D. Faulkner, Edward G. Pierce, George W. Dickinson, Henry H. Perry, and F. A. Pettibone. Edward W. Richards, justice of the peace, was the acting coroner, and Theodore Hall was chosen as the jury’s counsel. These gentleman immediately began an investigation, which was to last sixty eight days, in search of the facts relevant to the cause of this tragedy.
“Verdict of the Coroner’s Jury:
….Third. That the fall of the bridge was the result of defects and errors made in designing, constructing, and erecting it; that a great defect, and one which appears in many parts of the structure, was the dependence of every member for its efficient action upon the probability that all or nearly all the others would retain their position and do the duty for which they were designed, instead of giving to each member a positive connection with the rest, which nothing but a direct rupture could sever. The members of each truss were, instead of being fastened together, rested one upon the other, as illustrated by the following particulars: the deficient cross-section of portions of the top chords and some of the main braces, and insufficient lugs or flanges to keep the ends of the main and counter braces from slipping out of place; in the construction of the packing and yokes used in binding together the main and counter braces at the points where they crossed each other in the shimming of the top chords to compensate deficient length of some of their members; in the placing, during the process of erection, of thick beams where the plan required thin ones, and thin ones where it required thick ones.
Fourth. That the railway company used and continued to use this bridge for about eleven years, during all which time a careful inspection by a competent bridge engineer could not have failed to discover all these defects. For the neglect of such careful inspection, the railway company alone is responsible.
Fifth. That the responsibility of this fearful disaster and its consequent loss of life rests upon the railway company, which, by its chief executive officer, planned and erected this bridge.
Sixth. That the cars in which said deceased passengers were carried into said chasm were not heated by heating apparatus so constructed that the fire in it will be immediately extinguished whenever the cars are thrown from the track and overturned. That their failure to comply with the plain provisions of the law places the responsibility of the origin of the fire upon the railway company.
Seventh. That the responsibility for not putting out the fire at the time it first made its appearance in the wreck rests upon those who were the first to arrive at the scene of the disaster, and who seemed to have been so overwhelmed by the fearful calamity that they lost all presence of mind and failed to use the means at hand, consisting of the steam pump in the pumping house and the fire engine “Lake Erie” and its hose, which might have been attached to the steam pump in time to save life. The steamer belonging to the fire department and also “Protection” fire engine were hauled more than a mile through a blinding snow storm and over roads rendered almost impassable by drifted snow, and arrived on the ground too late to save human life; but nothing should have prevented the chief fireman from making all possible efforts to extinguished what fire then remained. For his failure to do this he is responsible….” (ARHF, “Ashtabula Bridge Disaster.”)
“The special committee appointed by the Ohio Legislature [Jan 12, 1877] to investigate this disaster concluded that “the bridge was liable to have gone down at any time in the last eleven years, and it is remarkable that it did not”….
Afterwards:
The unidentified were buried in a mass grave at Chestnut Grove Cemetery that is marked by a tall granite monument listing the names of those who died.…The incident also led to reforms in bridge design and railroad safety.” (Ohio Historical Society, Ashtabula Train Disaster…)
“As a direct result of this accident, Ashtabula General Hospital was founded and built at a site a quarter of a mile north of the bridge disaster site. This site was chosen as it was a central location to the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern’s Ashtabula Railroad Yards and station, the Ashtabula, Youngstown, & Pittsburgh’s Ashtabula Railroad Yards, and the docks served by both railroads in Ashtabula Harbor….
“Approximately 10 years after the disaster, the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern finally adopted the use of steam heat in all passenger equipment to replace the dangerous wood/coal fueled stoves, which started the fires at Ashtabula and other notable nineteenth century railroad accidents.” (Ashtabula Railway Hist. Found. “The Ashtabula Bridge Disaster.”)
“In the years that followed, the federal government created the Interstate Commerce Commission whose original purpose was to regulate safety and investigate accidents of the American railroad companies. The ICC in time gave way to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration as the governing body of railroad safety.”
(Ashtabula County Archives 1877 official summary, in Ashtabula Rail. Historical Foundation, “The Ashtabula Bridge Disaster.”)
Childs: “A passenger train[8], on the 29th of December, fell through the iron bridge[9] spanning the Ashtabula Creek, a distance of seventy-five feet, into the water below.” (Childs 1886, 239)
History.com: “The Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway brought passengers into Chicago from points east. On December 29, a snow storm forced one of the trains (two locomotives and 11 coach cars) from New York to Chicago to creep along at less than 10 miles per hour. Visibility was greatly reduced, but at 7:30 p.m., the crew was able to see their approach to the bridge over Ashtabula Creek…Just after the first locomotive made it to the other side, the bridge collapsed under the weight of the train. The other locomotives and coach cars uncoupled and plunged down the deep ravine into the creek below, causing several explosions and a large fire….[10]
“Of the 80 people who were killed, 19 bodies were burned beyond recognition. Another 68 passengers were severely injured, but 52 others managed to walk away with minor or no injuries….
“Inspector Charles Collins[11] was the mirror opposite of Stone. The man who had recently inspected the bridge reportedly “wept like a baby” when he saw the wreckage and loss of life in the Ashtabula valley. Although he testified in public that he always thought the bridge was safe, there were whispers that he told a different story to those who were close to him. Some maintained that he had been forced to give favorable reports about the bridge by the company and that he often said that he trusted “it will be a freight and now with a passenger train” when the bridge finally went down. Collins took most of the blame for the company after the disaster and there was no question that he blamed himself for the accident. Three days after he testified to the special committee, he was found dead in his bed at his resident on Seneca Street in Cleveland. He had blown his brains out with a pistol just hours after he completed his testimony.
“Fate eventually caught up with Amasa Stone as well. Although he never accepted any responsibility for the accident and avoided personal legal consequences for it, there is no question that he was hurt by the public perception of him as a “murderer”. His temperament, never a happy one to begin with, became even darker after business reverses and then ill health followed in wake of the Ashtabula disaster. By 1883, he had endured all that he could stand and on the afternoon of May 11, he locked himself in the bathroom of his Cleveland mansion and fired a bullet through his heart.
“This disaster was the deadliest rail accident in the United States to that time.” (History.com. This Day in History, Disaster, December 29, 1876. “Bridge Collapses in Ohio”)
Peet: “The scene of this direful event is situated on the Lake Shore Railway, midway between the cities of Cleveland and Erie, and about two miles from Lake Erie.” (Peet 1877, 9)
About the Fire Fight:
“The fire department consisted of three companies, two at the village and one at the depot. There was only one steamer, and that was a mile from the depot. These companies were under the control of the chief fireman, Mr. F. W. Knapp, who is a tinner by trade, and a man slow and lymphatic in temperament, and one who, for a long time, had been addicted to the constant use of intoxicating liquors; a man every way unfit for so trying an emergency…. (Peet 1877, 11)
About the Stories of Looting:
“Much valuable property was removed from the bodies of the dead….More than $1,500 worth of valuable articles were afterwards recovered by the Mayor by a proclamation, and by detectives. A saloon keeper was found to have appropriated shawls and satchels, and others were found to have diamonds and jewelry in their possession which had been stolen…. The dead in the valley and the wounded in the streets, and the survivors in other places were alike subject to this villainous pillaging…. Scarcely anything of value was left after the wreck….” (Peet 1877, 61-65; Peet was a preacher.)
Taylor: “The fire, which killed more people than the initial wreck[12], has been a subject of mystery and debate since 1876. Although the Ashtabula fire department managed to get one engine down to the fire, no hoses were ever connected and no water, save for a few buckets of melted snow, was ever directed at the burning debris. It was rumored afterwards that officials from the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad forbade anyone to put out the fire. The reason, according to rumors, was that the company’s insurance liability would be less if the passengers were not only dead, but burned beyond recognition as well. There was no truth to this but it added to the finger-pointing and blame that followed.
“The less dramatic reasons were the confusing conditions at the scene. No one had ever seen anything like this before and when Ashtabula fire chief G. A. Knapp arrived on the scene 45 minutes after the crash (possibly intoxicated), he found a scene of total pandemonium. There was no organized effort to do anything. Passengers and rescuers were simply trying to save anyone they could and were hampered by the fire, the water, smoke, snow and treacherous terrain. Efforts were further impeded by the hundreds of spectators who had gathered and by the activities of thieves, who boldly robbed the wounded and helpless passengers. The terror at the scene was increased by the terrible snapping noise created by the paint on the train cars as it ignited.
“Fire Chief Knapp gazed in bewilderment at the wreck and asked train station agent George Strong which side of the burning mass he and his men should put water on. Strong, more concerned about the advancing flames killing more people while the decisions were being made, told him to forget about the water and to worry about getting the people out instead. This was likely the right decision but it never mattered for no actual orders were given by Knapp, Strong or any Ashtabula officials that night. The firemen simply pitched into the efforts of the rescue workers and concentrated their efforts on pulling the wounded from their fiery and watery fates. The fire eventually burned itself out and by daybreak was a blackened pile of burned metal, scorched debris and roasted human flesh….
“The Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad eventually paid off about $500,000 in damage claims with little dispute. However, the company refused to admit responsibility for the bridge failure, arguing that the wreck was caused by either the “Columbia” leaving the track, a broken rail or incredibly, a tornado that swept down and wiped out the bridge. The most vocal in rejecting blame was Amasa B. Stone, Jr., a Cleveland millionaire and railroad mogul — and the man who had designed and built the bridge. Until the day he died, he insisted the bridge had been sound and that it had to be human error or an act of God that caused the disaster.” (Taylor 2003)
About the Bridge:
“The original railroad bridge over Ashtabula Creek had been a wooden one. In 1863, Amasa Stone made plans to replace it with a design of his own. The key section was the middle span, a 154-foot piece that sat on two stone abutments that were put up after an extensive fill had narrowed the river valley. It was a variation on the long-used wood and iron truss but Stone’s new design used an all iron structure, a type that had never been tried and as it turned out, would never be replicated. The new structure was installed in the fall of 1865 and was a series of 14 panels that were protected against the force produced by the weight of the trains by enormous diagonal I-beams. All of the steel in the bridge was produced at the Cleveland Rolling Mills, which was owned by Stone’s brother, Andros. The crew installing the bridge ran into many problems and at one point, it had to be entirely taken down and then put back up again at great expense. When Joseph Tomlinson, an engineer on the project, warned Stone about the stress on the trusses, Stone fired him.[13] When completed, the bridge was tested by the weight of six locomotives and pronounced safe.” (Taylor 2003; see also, Peet 1877, 15-16)
“After the disaster, many would remark that it was not so surprising that the bridge fell but that it managed to stay up for 11 years without mishap. It was inspected four times each year by railroad officials, who reported no problems — except for the suspicious “snapping” noise that train engineers sometimes heard as they traveled over the bridge. Also among the details missed by inspectors was the fact that the metal on the ends of the beams had been crudely filed down to make them fit. If inspector Charles Collins, who looked at the bridge just 10 days before the calamity and found no problems, had gotten down among the I-beams and had seen what many others saw when the ruined bridge was on the ground two months later, he would have shut it down immediately. Several of the I-beams were as much as three inches out of alignment at their juncture with the bearing blocks. Given that the essence of the design was the connection of all of the parts, the displacement of the I-beams meant that it was just a matter of time before something horrible occurred.
“Amasa Stone refused to admit guilt though and remained his usual arrogant self when questioned by a special investigative committee of the Ohio legislature on January 18, 1877. Not only had the bridge been safe, he insisted, but it had been designed to be stronger than it needed to be. As for the stoves that set the cars on fire, he insisted that he had examined every other type of stove that was available and had dismissed them as unsuitable. The stoves that he had used, manufactured by Baker, had simply been the best. No stove could be designed to extinguish itself in case of accident. In his final opinion, he stated that the train had jumped the tracks and in turn, had demolished the bridge.” (Taylor 2003)
National Railway Historical Society: “May 11, 1883 Suicide of Amasa Stone. He had been depressed since a bridge designed by collapsed under a passenger train six years earlier (see December 29, 1876).” (National Railway Historical Society, Inc. Railroad Historical Almanac 1880-1899. 2006, p. 5.)
Krajewski: “This tragedy is said to have hastened the death of Cornelius Vanderbilt, owner of the railroad; he died a month after the accident. It is also reported that the accident stunted the growth of the City of Ashtabula for 30 years (in 1878 the City of Ashtabula was the same size as the City of Cleveland) because of the negative association with the accident (the accident was referred to as The Horror of Ashtabula). The Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway by 1900 had replaced all bridges of similar design and construction.” (Krajewski 2006, p. 9-10.)
“What did not happen was the implementation of a real system of bridge inspection. Not long after the Ashtabula disaster, it is written that the Ohio legislature passed a bill to create bridge standards for design, construction and inspection. The bill also called for the appointment of an experienced engineer to oversee all bridges within the state. The bill never became law due to fears that the appointment of the engineer would be political and that bridge owners would relieved of any liability if the state government certified the safety of a structure (Vose, 1887).”[14] (Krajewski 2006, p. 10.)
Newspapers
Dec 29, Decatur Daily Republican: December 29, 2:35 a.m. dispatch to Cleveland by a reporter at the scene: “One hundred strong men are now standing around the wreck waiting for the flames and heat to subside.
December 29, 3 a.m. dispatch to Cleveland: “Nothing more from the Ashtabula disaster. Those at the wreck say they will have to wait until day-light before doing anything toward recovering bodies.” (Decatur Daily Republican, “A Terrible Disaster,” December 30, 1876.)
Dec 30, Chicago Tribune:
About the Fire:
“Five minutes after the train fell, the fire broke out in the cars piled against the abutments at either end. A moment later, flames broke from the smoking-car and first coach piled across each other near the middle of the stream. In less than ten minutes after the catastrophe, every car in the wreck was on fire, and the flames, fed by the dry varnished work and fanned by the icy gale, licked up the ruins as though they had been tinder. Destruction was so swift that mercy was baffled. Men who, in the bewilderment of the shock, sprang out and reached to solid ice, went back after wives and children and found them suffocating and roasting in the flames. The neighboring residents, startled by the crash, were lighted to the scene by the conflagration, which made even their prompt assistance too late.[15] By midnight, the cremation was complete….
“December 30, morning: “There is no death-list to report. There can be none until the list of the missing ones who traveled by the Lake Shore Road on Friday is made up. There are no remains that can ever be identified. The three charred, shapeless lumps recovered up to noon to-day are beyond all hope of recognition. Old or young, male or female, black or white, no man can tell. They are alike in the crucible of death. For the rest, there are piles of white ashes in which glisten the crumbling particles of calcined [sic] bones; in other places masses of black, charred debris, half under water, which may contain fragments of bodies, but nothing of human semblance. It is thought that there may be a few corpses under the ice, as there were women and children who sprang into the water and sank, but none have been thus far recovered.” (Chicago Tribune Dispatch, Ashtabula, Ohio, December 30, 1876)
Dec 31, Cincinnati Daily Gazette: “Cleveland, O. Dec. 31 – 11 p.m. A large force of workmen have been engaged at the Ashtabula wreck all day, and the debris is nearly cleared away. Only two additional bodies have been found to-day, and these, with the thirty-four found yesterday, are probably all that will be recovered. The rest are so completely destroyed by the fire that they can not be separated or removed. Of the thirty-six recovered, thirteen are thought to be recognized….
(Cincinnati Daily Gazette, OH. “Another Angola. Further Particulars of the Lake Shore Horror at Ashtabula.” 1-1-1877, p.1.)
Jan 1, Cincinnati Commercial, OH: “Cleveland, January 1. – The workmen at Ashtabula labored all day, mainly in cutting up and dragging out the wreck of the bridge, only a few working at the debris of the cars. No additional bodies were found, but a large basketful of feet, hands, arms, boots and other fragments of flesh and clothing were fished out, but nothing that anyone could identify….
“In all eleven bodies have been brought to Cleveland and prepared by the undertakers for burial….There is one body yet at Ashtabula which has not thus far been identified. It is that of a man weighing about two hundred pounds….
“The report that the body of r. Washburn, rector of Grace Church of Cleveland, had been found was premature. A leg was found with a boot supposed to be his. The leg was…shown to Mrs. Washburn, who immediately pronounced them not those of her husband. It is not now expected that any trace of the dead clergyman will ever be found….
“Two persons…all that were identified today, are Mrs. E. Clark, of Wellington, Ohio, and Miss Kettlewell, of Wisconsin….” (Cincinnati Commercial, OH. “Lake Shore Calamity…Remains of Fifty-Seven Identified, and Two Doubtful.” 1-2-1876, p. 1.)
Jan 2, Cincinnati Commercial, OH. “Cleveland, January 2. – Victor Nusbaum, Peter Livenbrae, Isaac and Birdie Meyer, and Larry Lanigan, express messenger, all victims of the Ashtabula railway accident, were buried here to-day….
“The news to-day from the wreck is summed up in the following special telegram from the reporter of the Leader at the scene of the disaster:
“Ashtabula, January 2. – Work on the wreck has gone on slowly to-day….
“The following notes on the process of identification are of public interest:
“E. H. Browne, of Cleveland, brother of Mrs. Knowles, lost in the car ‘City of Buffalo,’ was here to-day with the nurse of Mrs. Knowles’ family, in search of some relic of the deceased or her little girl. Bits of clothing are identified by the nurse as having belonged to Mrs. Knowles.
“Dr. G. F. Hubbard, of Oak City, Iowa, from Bergen, N.Y., where he had been visiting a brother-in-law, Thomas J. Love, was lost on the train, and it was thought no trace was left of him. Mr. Love, who had come on to search for him, was on the point of going home, but upon coming into the morgue for the last time to-day, found two shirts and a shawl which he immediately recognized. The shirts were plainly marked ‘G. G. Hubbard.’ These are all that are left of the deceased….
“A pin-cushion was found to-day, which was immediately recognized as having belonged to Jos. H. Aldrich, of Des Moines, Iowa….
“The following bodies have been identified at the freight-house since the last report:
Martha Tolita Volk, by parts of her dress and hair. She was fifteen and a half years of age,
and was identified by her father, Jacob Volk.
Mr. Charles Vogel, of Albany, was identified by his wife, by some of his coat buttons, one
leg of his trousers, and a handkerchief and watch-chain. His watch was gone.”
“….There have been no bodies recovered to-day, from the debris of the Ashtabula wreck, and, with the exception of Alexander Munroe, of Somerville, Mass., who lies at the Culver House, in a critical condition, the wounded are doing as well as could be expected….” (Cincinnati Commercial, OH. “Lake Shore Calamity. Progress of the Coroner’s Investigation…” 1-3-1876, 1.)
Jan 3, Cincinnati Daily Gazette, OH. “Ashtabula, O., Jan. 3. – By the finding of papers and scraps of clothing among the debris, the following named persons were known to have been on the wrecked train:
Miss Charlotte N. Smith, Rondout, N.Y.
Miss Marth Ann Smith, Rondout, N.Y.
- W. Smith, Toronto, Ontario.
“There was also identified among the bodies at the freight house, Mrs. Elizabeth Hopper, Chippewa, Ontario. The only relics found to-day, besides those mentioned, were some pocket knives. It is probable that to-morrow will finish the clearing away of the wreck, and the search for the missing.
“The list now stands as follows:
Number of passengers on the train… 128
Employes on train… 19
Total… 147
Rescued passengers… 63
Employes… 9
Total… 72
Passengers died since… 3
Employes died since…. 1
Total… 4
Names known of rescued… 72
Names known of lost… 70
Unaccounted for… 5-147
“Ashtabula, O., Jan. 3. – Mr. William H. Kinkaid, with Bates, Reed & Cooley…New York, has been published as lost on the wrecked train on Friday night last. He desires it known that he got off the train at Erie, and is alive….” (Cincinnati Daily Gazette, OH. “Ashtabula Accident. One More Body Identified.” 1-4-1877, p. 1.)
Sources
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[1] “2 a.m. – …A railroad man at the wreck gives it as his opinion that not less than 100 perished.” (December 29 dispatch in the December 30 paper)
[2] Within article: “The Disaster!”, p. 2.
[3] Not used for death-toll purposes – not in keeping with range of other sources.
[4] Into the chasm went the second locomotive, “Columbia,” and 11 railcars, including two express cars, two baggage cars, one smoking car, two passenger cars, three sleeping cars and a caboose. (Wikipedia, “Ashtabula River Railroad Disaster.”)
[5] Bad weather in departure point, Erie, PA.
[6] “The exact number of passengers aboard the train remains a mystery to this day, but it is believed that there were at least 128 passengers and 19 crew members…” (Taylor 2003)
[7] The “Socrates,” operated by engineer Daniel McGuire. (Taylor 2003)
[8] Out of Erie, PA. (Troy Taylor, “Horror for the Holidays,” 2003).
[9] This was the first such iron bridge, experimental, and met with some apprehension by the traveling public, accustomed to stone and wood bridges.
[10] :…coal-fired heaters…provided heat for all of the cars, except for the smoking car, which had an old-fashioned wood stove. All of the cars were cozily lit by oil lamps…” (Taylor 2003)
[11] Chief Civil Engineer of the Railroad. (Decatur Daily Republican (IL), “Particulars of the Ashtabula Horror.” December 31, 1876, p. 2.)
[12] This is in disagreement with the earlier writer, Rev. Peet, who was at Ashtabula and ministered to the survivors. He writes the “The work of death was owing mostly to the fall, and to the crashing of cars and heavy trucks on bodies and limbs, and even the very hearts of many. It was probably instantaneous to the very large majority of those who perished.” (Peek 1877, 29)
[13] Peet (1877, p. 16) writes: “in its erection Mr. Tomlinson, the engineer differed with the President [Stone] so much that he resigned his position…”
[14] Vose, George L. Bridge Disasters in America: The Cause and the Remedy. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1887.
[15] Peet: “Yells arose from the valley…and one wild scene of excitement pervade the spot. A little child was heard to exclaim, ‘Papa, O, Papa, take me!’ A woman cried from within a car, ‘Oh save, for God’s sake take my child!’ A man had clasped a woman, to carry her from the flames, but her foot was caught, and he was obliged to leave her and save himself. Another saw underneath the floor of a car, a man and a woman lying there and calling for help; he tried to extricate them, but, as the flames arose, he went to the firemen and begged them to put on water and save the living. Mr. Apthorp saw a woman trying to get out of the window of a car, high up amid the ruins; she was half way out and called for help. He hastened to the rescue, but the flames arose between him and her, and she perished there.” (Peet 1877, 39)