Bostons Bridge, NC Train Wreck, Sept 1891

HURLED FROM A BRIDGE

A Passenger Train Falls Eighty Feet Into a Creek.

Over a Score Killed and Many Seriously Injured.

A dispatch from Statesville, N. C., says:
The most terrible railroad disaster that has ever happened in North Carolina occurred on a recent morning at Boston's Bridge, which crosses the Third Creek, two miles west of this place.

The westbound passenger train on the Western North Carolina Railroad (No. 9), which had passed Statesville on time (at 1:42 A.M.), was hurled from the bridge, a distance of about 100 feet, the engine, tender, baggage and second-class car, the first-class coach, the Pullman car and the private car of Superintendent BRIDGE all going down into the creek.

The train was composed of a baggage and mail car, second and first class coaches, Pullman sleeper, and Superintendent BRIDGE'S private car, Daisy. The sleeper, which was from Goldsboro, usually contains a good number of passengers from Northern points, and last night was no exception.
The run to Statesville was made on time, a distance of twenty-five miles, but jast after leaving Statesville there is a high stone bridge spaning[sic] Third Creek, and down into this creek plunged the entire train, a distance of at least sixty-five feet, wrecking the whole train and carrying death and destruction with it. Twenty passengers were killed outright, nine seriously injured, and about twenty badly bruised and shaken up.

The scene at the wreck was awful. The night was dismal, and to add to the horror of the situation, the water in the creek was up. It was only through the heroic efforts of those who had hurried to the scene of the wreck that the injured were not drowned.

The accident was caused by the spreading of the rails. The bridge was not injured and trains are running on schedule time. Twenty dead bodies are now lying in a warehouse at Statesville. The injured are having the best of care at private homes and hotels.

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