feet long, eight feet wide, and six deep. The official report of the killed that were buried places the number at fifty-one Confederates and nineteen Union soldiers. The wounded, some of whom died later, numbered 123. This, at that time, was the most horrible and disastrous railroad accident on record. The common grave of its unfortunate victims was in time washed away by foods, and the bones of those it contained were carried along, year by year, until at last the ground was left tenantless of its dead.

AT CARR'S ROCK.-Wednesday morning, April 15, 1868, eastbound express train No. 12 passed Lackawaxen, on the Delaware Division, at twelve minutes past three o'clock. The train was forty minutes late. There were nine cars in the train, the three rear cars being sleeping-coaches. Jasper B. Judd was the conductor, Henry Green the engineer. The Delaware Division had then but a single track. The rails were of iron, and of poor quality. When the railroad was built through that region, a wild mountain creek joined the Delaware at the mouth of a deep valley, midway between Shohola and Pond Eddy. A high jutting rock on one side of the valley was known as Carr's Rock, and the stream was called Carr's Rock Brook. The railroad was carried across the creek and its valley by filling in the latter and by the construction of a culvert of heavy masonry. The embankment nd culvert were fifty feet above the creek, the fall being perpendicular at the culvert, and steep elsewhere, the Delaware River being about 100 feet from the foot of the embankment. The railroad curves sharply at this point.

The engineer was running to make up lost time. He had passed an eighth of a mile beyond Carr's Rock, when he discovered that he had lost part of his train. The conductor, who was in the front passenger car, had made the discovery before that, and going back through the train found that the sleeping-cars were not there. They had been thrown from the track, and hurled over the high embankment and culvert. As was learned later, or as was gathered from the evidences on the track, a rail 250 yards or more west of the culvert had been broken by the locomotive of the train, but the broken rail had kept in place until all the cars but one ahead of the first sleeper had passed over it. When the forward wheels of that car struck it, a section of the broken rail was displaced. Failing to mount the safe rail ahead of it, the truck went off on the ties. The rear truck remained on the rails, however, as did the following cars. The forward truck ran along on the ties 700 feet without the mishap having been discovered by the conductor or engineer. The passengers in the derailed car were awakened by its jolting over the ties, and one pulled the bell-rope. If the track had been straight the derailed car would doubtless have followed on safely until the accident had been discovered and the train stopped, but when the wheels of the truck met the beginning of the sharp curve it failed to respond to the change in direction, and kept straight on. The coupling to the car ahead was broken. The cars behind the derailed one followed it from the rails to the verge of the precipitous bank and culvert.

As the cars hung over the gulf, the coupling of the second and third cars broke. The first one plunged from the culvert, but was carried by its momentum to the far side of the creek, where it crashed in ruin, carrying instant death to many of its helpless occupants. The second car rolled over and over down the steep and rocky slope, its sides splitting open and its roof being torn away in the frightful descent. The third car fell bottom side up to the bottom of the steep, partially in the creek, and the fourth car fell near it.

When the discovery that something was wrong was made by the engineer and conductor, and the train was backed to the scene of the catastrophe, the last sleeper was in flames, lighting up fitfully the awful wreck of the other cars, from which rose most appalling shrieks and groans, and making the darkness of the wild surroundings more intense.

When the first shock of the horrible casualty was over, Conductor Judd and his trainmen, aided by the passengers from the cars that were not wrecked, and such of those as had escaped with their lives from the cars that had plunged from the bank and culvert, hastened to the aid of the injured and to the rescuing of the living who were held fast in the tangled débris of the wreck. The records of the sleeping-car company, as was subsequently learned, showed that berths had been sold to twenty-three persons for that trip in the car that caught fire. But two persons were saved alive from that car, and the charred remains of what were believed to be those of six others were all that were left to show what had become of the remaining twenty-one. In the first car that went into the gulf nearly every passenger was killed. The car that fell into the creek caught fire; all the part that was out of the creek was burned.

A train with physicians and other aid aboard was hurried to the scene of the dreadful catastrophe at the earliest possible moment, and the dead and injured were taken to Port Jervis. The injured were cared for tenderly at the various hotels and at private residences, by volunteer nurses, and by the five physicians of the place, and five sent from New York by the Company. The dead were laid out in the ladies' waitingroom of the depot to be identified and taken away by relatives or friends. The unidentified remains were buried in one grave in Laurel Grove Cemetery.

The death list of this most sickening tragedy of the rail is as follows:

Ephraim Hoyt and wife, Chenango Forks, N. Y.; Mary E. Cobb, Honesdale, Pa.; Eneas Blossom, proprietor of the Erie dining-saloon at Susquehanna, Pa.; a child of D. B. Tisdell, of Ithaca, N. Y.; H. Blonvin, Urbana, N. Y.; I. S. Dunham, Binghamton, N. Y.; C. K. Loomis, Buffalo, N. Y.; Elijah Knapp, Jamestown, N. Y.; Thomas Purinton, New York; Mrs. A. P. Snow and child, of Iowa; Tobias Erlich, Hornellsville, N. Y.; Philip Richter, Hoboken, N. J.; J. Melvin, Buffalo; A. E. Brown, Bath, N. Y.; Ferdinand Sausse, Paris; Mrs. John Decker, of Binghamton (among those burned to death); F. N. Horton of Salem, Wis. ; A. L. Oliver of New York; four unidentified, and those supposed to have been entirely consumed in the rear sleeper; a total of forty dead.

The wounded were seventy-five, some of whom never recovered entirely from the effects of their injuries. Among the wounded were Charles W. Douglas, superintendent of the Delaware Division, and Charles S. Fairman, editor of the Elmira Advertiser.

A coroner's jury held an inquest at Port Jervis, N. Y., July 17th, and another one made a so-called investigation in Pike County, Pa., where the disaster occurred. This latter inquest held nobody nor anything to blame for the catastrophe. The Port Jervis inquest found that it was due to a broken rail over which the train was being run at too great speed.

In connection with this accident, the reader will find it interesting to refer to the report of General Superintendent Hugh Riddle, made to the Company some weeks before the Carr's Rock horror ("Administration of John S. Eldridge," pages 156-157).

In August, 1869, this most melancholy tragedy was brought sensationally before the public by one of those unusual movements peculiar to the Gould and Fisk régime. A number of the passengers injured at Carr's Rock had declined to accept the terms of settlement offered by the Company, and had brought suit to recover heavy damages. Among these passengers were Stephen Sweet, of Middletown, and C. C. Dyke, of Brooklyn, both of whom had been seriously hurt in the accident. The general verdict that the disaster was due to a broken rail and the reckless speed at which the train was running had not been questioned by any one, either in or out of the Erie management. In the winter of 1868-69, derailing of trains was so frequent that the management came to the conclusion that it was the work of train-wreck ers, and the Company offered a reward of $2,000 for information that would lead to the arrest and conviction of any one concerned in such a crime. May 28, 1869, a half-demented, dissolute character, named James Bowen, informed the Erie watchman at Stairway, seven miles west of Port Jervis, that he had surprised a man tampering with the rails at a dangerous spot, and recognized him. The watchman went with Bowen to the spot and found a rail loosened. Bowen said the man who had tampered with the rail was James Knight, who was a well-to-do and reputable farmer living in that vicinity. Knight was arrested, and Bowen's charge was found to be groundless, and he was himself arrested on charge of being the one who had tampered with the rail. lodged in jail at Milford, Pa., where, on June 2d, as was announced in the New York papers June 23d, he made a confession, declaring that he had displaced the rail and made the charge against Knight in hope of convicting him and obtaining the $2,000 reward. The New York papers also intimated that Bowen had been guilty of wrecking the train at Carr's Rock in 1868. This intimation was fiercely assailed by the local papers, until it was in turn intimated to them that this opinion was not only shared by the management, but had originated with it, whereupon the broken rail and undue speed verdict of Carr's Rock was rejected and the new theory accepted. The result was that on August 18th

He was

it was made public that James Bowen's conscience had harassed him so that he had sent for the local Erie officials and attorney, August 17th, and said that he had something to tell them. They went to Milford, where they bethought them that it would be well to have some one else hear what James Bowen had to say, and selected as such witnesses such substantial citizens as the district-attorney of Pike County, and an ex-associate judge and two ex-sheriffs. In the presence of these officers and ex-officers, Bowen confessed that he had fixed the rail that threw the train off the track with such terrible results at Carr's Rock, that night in April, 1868. The confession, as given to the press, was an incoherent, rambling statement, just such a one as an irresponsible, weakminded man like Bowen would make, but the substance of it had been suggested to him, and by making it he expected to be leniently dealt with by the court, although the Erie officials were particular to announce that, before they knew what Bowen had it in his mind to say, they had warned him that he would say it at his peril, and must not expect any leniency from them. This confession was published, and poor old Bowen (he was then over sixty) was denounced far and wide as "The Fiend Bowen." When he came into court to get his expected light sentence, Judge George R. Barrett sentenced him to ten years in the Eastern Penitentiary, and to pay a fine of $10,000.

But the evidence of this "confession," introduced in the proceedings of Sweet, Dyke, and others for damages against the Erie, to show that the Carr's Rock disaster was the work of a train-wrecker and not the result of any dereliction of duty, availed nothing. The plaintiffs obtained verdicts. against the Company, and collected damages, Sweet for $10,000 and Dyke for $20,000. Bowen served out his sentence (with the exception of paying the fine) for a crime he never committed, and returned to Pike County, where he died in 1895. Carr's Rock is now known as Parker's Glen, and a sparkling fountain playing in the gulf below the culvert marks the spot where that horror was, more than thirty years ago.

AT MAST HOPE. On the night of July 14, 1869, Conductor Judson D. Brown's freight train, bound west on the Delaware Division, pulled upon the switch at Mast Hope, Pa., to wait for the passing of express train No. 3, which left Jersey City at 6:30 P.M., and was due to pass Mast Hope at a few minutes before midnight. The engineer of the freight train was James Griffin. The express train was in charge of Conductor Henry Smith. Charles Coffey was engineer. The train approached Mast Hope at its usual high rate of speed. The engineer sounded his whistle as usual. Mast Hope was not a stopping place for the express. As he was whizzing by the station Engineer Coffey was horrified to see the locomotive of the freight train pulling out on the main line directly in his path. He had barely time to think before his locomotive had plunged into the freight locomotive, and was turned completely round. The collision was frightful. How Coffey or his fireman, Perry Hoyt, escaped instant death is one of the miracles of railroad life. The coals from the fire

box of the locomotive set fire to the wrecked car next to it. The flames spread rapidly. The depot building caught fire from the burning cars and was destroyed. Nine persons were burned to death in the cars, among them the Rev. Benjamin B. Halleck, a Universalist minister of New York. He was unhurt by the smash-up, but was held fast under his seat, in plain sight of those who were doing all they could to rescue him. Among these was his brother-in-law, who had escaped from the car. It was impossible to save him. He coolly gave directions as to the best way to extricate him, as the flames closed in about him, and he met his awful death without a murmur or a groan. The dead, besides Mr. Halleck, were an unknown family of five-father, mother, and three children, immigrants-Daniel Baer, and three other passengers, who were burned beyond recognition. The number of the injured

were ten.

Engineer Griffin disappeared after the disaster, and was arrested at Salamanca, N. Y., July 16th. He was held by the coroner on the charge of manslaughter. He was unable to explain how or why he pulled his engine out on the main track ahead of the express, except on the theory that he had fallen asleep on his engine while waiting on the switch, was aroused by the whistling of the passenger train, and, while

yet confused and half asleep, had started his engine unconsciously. He was tried at Milford, Pa., at the September term of court following. He was defended by the Hon. George W. Woodward, ex-Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and other eminent counsel, and was acquitted, so greatly to the indignation of Judge George R. Barrett, the presiding judge, that he addressed the jury, after its verdict, in scathing terms, discharged it, and declared that its members were unfit to try causes in any court.

Engineer Coffey suffered so from nervous shock of the collision that it was years before he could bring himself to run an engine again. He at last conquered his aversion, and is to-day one of the most fearless, as he is one of the oldest, engineers in the Erie employ. He runs an express train on the Susquehanna Division.

Engineer Griffin was but twenty-five years old when the accident occurred. His hair was very dark. Within a year his hair was almost snow white. Strange as it may seem, he was, after two or three years, taken back into the Erie's employ, and is in their employ to-day.

Conductor Judson D. Brown, of the freight train, is a passenger conductor on the Erie. Henry Smith, conductor of the fated passenger train, is in business at Wellsboro, Pa.

1841.

There having been for months rumors afloat that Erie affairs were being conducted after questionable methods ("Second Administration of Eleazar Lord," page 50), the matter was brought to the attention of the New York Legislature, and on February 4, 1841, was referred to the Committee on Railroads, composed of Erastus D. Culver, of Washington County; Jonathan Aiken, of Dutchess County ; William C. Pierpont, of New York; Seth C. Hawley, of Erie, and Reuben Howe, of Montgomery County. The matters to be investigated were whether the Company had made contracts or purchases of material at larger prices than the work could have been agreed upon in consideration of the contractors subscribing to the stock; whether the stock had had any market value during the past year; whether any cash payment had been made in stock on general call; whether the interest on State stocks was paid with money obtained by selling the stock; whether the Company had sold the State stock loaned to it at less than its par value; and whether the Company had in any way evaded the fair intent of the law requiring it to expend a certain proportion of its own money before being entitled to the credit of the State.

The Committee made its report May 8th, exonerating the officers of the Company from the charges and insinuations that brought about the investigation. The report made 165 printed pages, and included many tables and long statements from the various officers. The report was not satisfactory to the opponents of the railroad, and Assemblyman Arphaxad Loomis, of Herkimer County, moved that it be recommitted to the committee, with instructions to bring in a bill to prohibit the further issuing of stocks to the Company until the further order of the Legislature. Assemblyman Andrew G. Chatfield, of Steuben County, moved that the matter be referred to a select committee for further action. The matter was finally settled May 24th, by the appointment of a select committee of three, on the following resolution offered by Mr. Chatfield :

Resolved, That the report of the Standing Committee on Railroads upon the petitions praying for further aid to the New York and Erie Railroad Company, together with the remonstrances against the same, and the petitions for the speedy construction of the New York and Erie Railroad by the State, communicated to this House on the 22d of May instant, be referred to a Select Committee of three members, to be appointed by ballot, who shall have power to send for persons and papers, with instructions to inquire into the management of said Company and its officers; to sit during the recess of the Legislature, at such times and places within this State as they shall deem proper, and to report to the next Legislature.

The select committee of the Assemby thus appointed consisted of Andrew G. Chatfield, of Steuben County, chairman; George G. Graham, of Ulster; and William B. Maclay, of New York.

The first meeting of the committee was at the office of the Company in New York City, July 29, 1841, where it examined the books and took the testimony of the officers and agents of the Company. September 23d, the committee. met at Goshen, N. Y., where it was in session until October Ist, the first meeting day being the day the railroad was opened between Piermont and Goshen.

October 2d, the committee met at Piermont, and returned to Goshen, October 4th, where it prosecuted its investigation until October 7th, when it adjourned to meet at Monticello, N. Y., October 11th, remained there two days, and met at Bethel, Sullivan County, N. Y., October 13th. It was in session there one day, and adjourned to meet at Binghamton, October 18th. On the 20th it adjourned to Owego, where the investigation occupied nine days, the chief subject. being the difficulty over the location of the route through Owego and the place where the depot was to be. From Owego the committee went to Elmira, where it met on the 29th, and continued in session until November 2d. It adjourned from Elmira to Corning, where its session began November 4th and ended on the 6th, resuming at Addison, N. Y., on the 8th. From Addison the committee visited Rathbonsville on the 9th; Hornellsville on the 10th and 11th; Phillipsburg, Allegany County, the 13th; Cuba and Olean the 15th; Randolph the 17th; Dunkirk the 19th and 20th. From Dunkirk the committee adjourned to New York,

where it met on December 13th and remained in session until December 30th.

The committee made its report to the Legislature, January 18, 1842. The report was exhaustive, and occupied, with the testimony, exhibits, reports of engineers, etc., 699 pages of Vol. III. of Senate Documents for 1842. The committee employed James Seymour, a prominent civil engineer, to pass over the entire route of the railroad and report on its affairs. His report made thirty printed pages.

The committee's report not only exonerated the management on all the allegations, but commended it for the manner in which it had prosecuted the work, as follows: "The result of this investigation not only exonerates the Company, its officers, and its agents from everything like a charge of fraud or mismanagement or attempt to evade the law, but it proves, on the contrary, that they are justly entitled to the confidence which the Legislature has heretofore reposed in them. Instead of being liable to censure, the Company is entitled to approbation."

1868.

While the contest between Daniel Drew and Cornelius Vanderbilt for possession of the Erie Railway ("Administration of John S. Eldridge," pages 148-160) was at its height, the New York Legislature took cognizance of it. A bill seeking to legalize the action of the Erie Directory in overissuing stock was introduced in the Assembly, and it was defeated March 31st, by an overwhelming vote. Pending further action on the bill, the Senate had taken hand in Erie affairs on another line of procedure.

March 5th, Senator James F. Pierce, of the Second District, offered the following preamble and resolution in the

Senate:

WHEREAS, Grave charges have been made in the newspapers and before the Supreme Court, in reference to the management of the Erie Railway Company, and that the general management of the said Company is controlled by persons who systematically make use of their positions to depreciate and destroy the value of the stock of said Company, and that the Directors of such Company have issued a larger amount of the stock of such Company than such Company is entitled to issue by law, therefore

Resolved, That a committee of three Senators be appointed to examine into the condition of such Company and into the said charges, with power to send for persons and papers, said investigation to be conducted without expense to the State.

On motion of Senator Henry W. Genet, of New York, the following addition was made to Senator Pierce's resolution:

Resolved, That said committee be directed to report the testimony taken, and the result of their deliberation, within twenty days from the adoption of this resolution.

The preamble and resolutions were agreed to.

March 6th, on motion of Senator Abner C. Mattoon, the number of the committee was increased from three to five, and such a committee was appointed as follows:

James F. Pierce, of the Second District; John J. Bradley, of the Seventh District; Abner C. Mattoon, of the Twentyfirst District; Orlow W. Chapman, of the Twenty-fourth District; Wolcott J. Humphrey, of the Thirtieth District.

The committee met at 62 Broadway, New York, March 10, 1868, and at the Delavan House, Albany, March 13th, 19th, 24th, 25th. The witnesses examined were Horatio N. Otis, Secretary of the Company; J. C. Bancroft Davis, of the Erie Directory; David Groesbeck, Daniel Drew's broker; Gen. A. S. Diven, Vice-President of the Company; Henry R. Pierson, of the Erie Directory; William G. Edwards, cashier of Bloodgood & Co., of Wall Street; James M. Cross, a contractor of Newark, N. J. Jay Gould, James Fisk, Jr., Homer Ramsdell, Daniel Drew, John S. Eldridge, President of the Erie; Henry Thompson, Dudley S. Gregory, John S. Hilton, William Belden, of Fisk & Belden; Henry M. Smith, of Smith, Gould, Martin & Co., were subpoenaed as witnesses, but failed to appear, nor could they be found by the Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate. Copies from the minutes of the Board of Directors bearing on the matter to be investigated, copies of contracts with Daniel Drew, of the lease of the Buffalo, Bradford and Pittsburg Railroad, the agreement with the Boston, Hartford and Erie Railroad Company to guarantee the bonds of that company, and of the proceedings that led up to that agreement, and the statement of President Eldridge justifying the matter that had led to the investigation, were also part of the testimony.

April 1st two reports were submitted to the Senate, a majority report signed by Senators Pierce, Bradley, and Mattoon, and a minority report signed by Senators Chapman and Humphrey. The majority report scored the methods of Gould, Fisk, Drew, Eldridge, and the others of the existing Erie management in their manipulating of the Erie stock and its over-issue, declared that they were acting in violation of law and morals, and denounced their acts in scathing terms. "Justice demands," said the report, "that these agents should be removed, but as the courts have ample power over them, the committee have not deemed it necessary to introduce a bill for the purpose. The committee, however, believe that some legislation is necessary to prevent similar practices in future, and they accordingly ask the adoption of the following resolution:

Resolved, That the frauds and abuses developed by the investigation of the management of the present directors and officers of the Erie Railway Company, demand that increased penalties for such offences shall be imposed for the protection of stockholders and the community, and that the special committee conducting such investigation be, and they hereby are, instructed to report a bill, making it a felonious offence for any director or officer to fraudulently issue stock of the Company in which he holds such trust, or to convert to his own use or purposes the proceeds of stock or bonds, or to fraudulently take or carry away to another State, or with like intent to keep and retain therein, to evade legal process in this State, the moneys or effects of such Company.

The minority report, which would have been the majority report but for the fact that Senator Mattoon withdrev/ hig