Trumbull, CT Railroad Collision, Aug 1865

THE LAST MURDER BY RAIL.

Bridgeport, Conn., August 15. -- An extra freight train was sent up the Housatonic Road this afternoon. By an accident to the cylinder of the engine, the freight train stopped on the track, near the paper mill at Trumbull, about three miles from this city. A flag was sent back on the track, by the conductor of the freight train, to warn the passenger train of the danger. When the latter train came up it hitched on to the freight, and was slowly drawing it back to Bridgeport at the rate of about eight miles an hour. When near the Pequennock mills the train was met by a new locomotive, coming up the track on a trial. At a curve on the road the new engine came suddenly in collision with the train backing down.
Several of the cars were entirely demolished, the engine going literally through the rear passenger car. Seven persons, three of them ladies, were instantly killed and twenty more fatally wounded, and several more slightly wounded. Very many were scalded by the steam issuing from the locomotive boiler.
The engine cut straight into the car, tearing and rending all before it, and stopping almost at the extreme forward part of it. One man, unknown, was impaled through the bowels on some portion of the machinery, and wedged so tightly in this horrible situation on the hot engine as to render it impossible to remove him. Of course he was dead. The escaping steam scalded a number of the wounded passengers horribly.
The scene at the place of slaughter is described as horrible. The car and engine were a complete wreck, from which the wounded and dying were taken in a helpless condition. The only house near by was a small one belonging to a German.
The wounded who could help themselves or be helped were takent to the shade of the woods close at hand. At about noon a wrecking train was dispatched to the scene of accident, conveying DRS. HUBBARD, NASH and BURRETT, to attend to the injured. We hope there will be a rigid examination into the causes of this murder, for it is nothing else, and on the head of some person or persons rests the responsibility of this fearful crime. "Nobody to blame" will not answer now. The accident is the result of criminal and culpable carelessness.

The Adams Sentinel Gettysburg Pennsylvania 1865-08-22
__________________

Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!