The first of many trains arrived in Frenchtown in 1853 and with them came commerce, mobility, excitement – and sometimes tragedy. The incidents described below are really horrible, so if that will upset you, please read no further.* * *
Still with me? OK, here goes:
Philip K. Smith was the son of Margaret and Isaac C. Smith. Isaac worked at Robert L. Williams' fanning-mill factory. (More about that another time.) Philip was called “Phip.”
On Oc.t 23, 1869, two days shy of his 10th birthday, Phip and his friends were walking home along the tracks, when a train was leaving the siding near the Little Nishisackawick Creek. “The slow-moving coal train was a temptation that the boys could not well withstand, and they one and all began to clamber up the cars,” recalled Mart D.L. Shrope decades later in the Frenchtown Star.
Phip “was unfortunate enough to fall when climbing upon a car, falling on the rail, striking on his back. He was dragged for some distance by the wheels, a comrade caught hold of one arm and tried to pull his playmate from beneath the wheels, but all in vain. His body was nearly cut in twain and with the accident went out the life of one who was a favorite with all who knew him.
“The writer was on the first car that passed over his body and it seems yet can see the face of the boy as the wheels passed over and crushed his body.” Phip was not the only Frenchtown youth lured into peril by the coal trains.
The Star reported that on Aug. 30, 1880, Harry Palmer, 16-year-old son of carpet weaver Henry M., tried “to board a coal train above the depot (now the Bridge Cafe) when he slipped and fell, and his foot was mashed so badly by the wheels of the train that amputation was necessary.” Editor William Sipes asked, “When will boys believe there is danger in jumping on and off moving trains? There seems to be a fascination about it for some reason.”
In 1891 the Star was compelled to report another horrible outcome: “Hugh Robinson, of this place, had one leg cut off below the knee and the other broken (on Aug. 6) near Raven Rock, while trying to mount a coal train, we learn. The railroad company's physician attended his injuries and he was brought to the home of his father, David C. Robinson, in this borough. The young man (age about 26) had a habit of riding on trains this way, having made a trip to the Western part of Pennsylvania, recently, and had become an adept at it; but missed his calculation this time, and the result is to be regretted.”
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The Rev. J. Davidson Randolph, pastor of the Frenchtown Presbyterian Church in 1864-82 coexisted just fine with the railroad while here, but in November of 1891 he was grievously injured while trying to catch a train in Atglen, Pa.
He was going to the station to catch the 6:30 p.m. to Christiana, when he heard a train coming, which he supposed was the one he wanted. The Star reported, “Desiring to cross the track before the train would arrive and supposing the train was slowing up to stop,” he rushed across the tracks. He had barely jumped up onto the platform when an express train roared by at 60 mph. The blast of wind from the train knocked him off the platform, breaking his forearm, severely injuring his back and knocking him out. He was taken home where he remained unconscious until the next morning.
“Had he been an instant later in reaching the platform he would have been killed,” the Star observed.
That same issue of the Star reported a tragic outcome for former Frenchtown merchant DeWitt C. Dalrymple. He had been the first tenant in the storefront currently occupied by Modern Love.
But in November of '91, he was the 36-year-old yardmaster for the Delaware Lackawanna & Western Railroad in Hoboken.
One morning, he was reading the details of an order when he was hit by a train that was backing up. The cars passed over his leg, severing his foot. In reaching down to save his other leg, his hand was caught and mashed. Dalrymple was taken to the hospital where “the surgeons were waiting a reaction before making an amputation.” His reaction was to die that afternoon. His body was brought here for his funeral and burial.
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On June 24, 1925, at about noon, John W. Hann, 70, was walking south along the tracks, going home from a visit to a store. He was just below the Frenchtown depot when he stepped onto a side track to make way for a passing freight, but was run over by another engine that was rearranging cars there. His deafness may have been a factor. Hann had moved to Frenchtown from a farm in Kingwood several years previous.
That's enough of that. I promise something fun tomorrow!
Adapted from “Rick's Frenchtown Encyclopedia”
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