This page originally appeared on Thomas Ehrenreich's Railroad Extra Website
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This page originally appeared on Thomas Ehrenreich's Railroad Extra Website
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The bridge crossed the Sauqoit Creek, directly opposite
the village of Yorkville, and about three and a half miles west
of Utica. It was of wood, had a span of forty feet—engineers'
measurement—resting on stone abutments; from the bridge to
the surface of the water being a distance of eight feet, and the
water beneath having a depth of four feet.
The Cincinnati express train, going East, at the not unusual rate of thirty-two miles per hour, and a way train, going West, at the rate of ten or twelve miles per hour-we quote the statements of the engineers before the Coroner-passed each other on the bridge. The engines, with their tenders, got off on each side, but as the baggage cars of the express, and the first freight car of the way train touched the bridge, the north side of the structure gave way. The express train, consisting of four passenger cars, was in an instant overwhelmed with destruction. The first car crossed the bridge but was completely wrecked; the second struck against the abutment in its front, and was upreared in such manner that the third shot under it, and the fourth under the third-thus dovetailing, so to speak, one into the other, and effectually destroying all. The great matter for wonder is, that a single passenger in these cars escaped with life. The freight cars of the way train also fell into the creek, one diagonally over the other; two others were drawn off the track and down the embankment at the side of the bridge, and the balance were thrown off the track. The only passenger car attached to this train was badly jarred, but, singularly enough, none of the passengers inside were injured.
The names of the killed are: A. Moore, of Rising Sun, Indiana; Daniel A. Brayton, of Phelps, Ontario County, New York; William H. Perkins, of Rochester; two young children of Abram Mack, of Cincinnati; an aged Irishman, name unknown, but supposed to be Fitzgerald; and a colored preacher, name uncertain. Among the wounded S. S. Horton, of Binghamton, had his throat cut from ear to ear, as completely as though it had been done with a knife. It is said he will recover. A Mrs. Broderick was completely scalped, her head being quite circled, as an Indian would do it with a knife. Several of the wounded had portions of the scalp torn off. Fifty-five persons in all were wounded more or less severely; several, it is feared, will not survive.
There are two theories of the accident: one, that a, breaking of the axle of one of the now shattered cars threw the track cross-wise, and the cars off the track-thus, of course, producing a shock which no bridge could resist; the other, that the weight of two trains was too much for the bridge. This, it is stated, was rebuilt about three years ago, and it is given in evidence that some of the principal timbers were rotten. These were of bastard elm — a species of wood very difficult to distinguish from common elm, but much inferior to that for bridging purposes. The engineers and conductors do not seem to be to blame, as they had no orders against two trains passing the bridge at once. Several residents of the neighborhood have deposed that they knew the bridge to be rotten — a knowledge which comes, unhappily, too late to be of use.
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