From 1853 to 1976 trains were rolling through Frenchtown along riverside tracks. Some of the trains were slow, but others that weren't stopping here, could be really fast. How fast?
Someone at the Washington Star of Warren County must have paid attention in arithmetic class. In 1900 he or she studied some timetables and calculated that “one of the fastest runs in the State is made on the Belvidere Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad,” despite the road's “innumerable curves, many of them very sharp.” From Manuka Chunk (Jim Thorpe, Pa.) to the Lambertville yards, the train averaged 58 mph. “Mail pouches are caught at all stations and several slowdowns have to be made, hence the actual speed exceeds a mile-a-minute and a good part of the 35 miles is made at the rate of 65 to 70 miles an hour… This run is made with an ordinary locomotive and three or four day coaches.”
The Milford Leader corroborates with a July 1902 item, saying “The Pocono Special went flying through our village last Saturday on its journey northward with two engines ahead and a large train of coaches that were heavily laden with passengers on their way to the mountains for an outing over the Sabbath. One can obtain an idea of the high rate of speed attained, when it is known that on Saturday last it made the distance of about twelve miles from Frenchtown to Riegelsville in ten minutes.”
High-speed trains in a slow-moving era caused several tragedies, some of which will be recounted in a future post. But here are several incidents that could've been worse.
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On July 24, 1876, Lafayette Bonham's 9-year-old daughter Laura was trying to drive her father's cow off the tracks near their Twelfth Street home. A coal train killed the cow, but Laura was OK.
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In June of 1877, Albert, the 3-year-old son of Mary and William McClain Jr., was playing on or near the rails near Sixth Street. The engineer saw the tot and managed to slow the train, which grazed the boy's head, scratching it and his face. Hopefully his parents decided that Albert should not be playing on the tracks until he was maybe 5 or 6.
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The March 30, 1899, Milford Leader gives this account: “On Monday night last, a stone was thrown, evidently by some one on a coal train, which immediately followed the late passenger train, up through the window of the dwelling of Mrs. Hurley on Twelfth Street, breaking the glass and injuring Mrs. Hurley and her child to some extent, but not seriously. The deed was probably done by a tramp stealing a ride on the train.”
A coincidence: Mrs. Hurley's injury was sustained in the room upstairs from where I'm writing this paragraph.
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An exquisitely narrow escape was chronicled by the Frenchtown Star on April 28, 1928: A Miss Sell from Elizabeth was driving her Durant coupe across the tracks in the south end of town. (Don't look for this crossing; the roads have been reconfigured.) Anyhow, the Durant's motor quit at the worst possible time. The engineer of a northbound train saw the car on the tracks, but his 100-car freight could not be stopped in time.
While Sell was still trying to restart the engine, the train hit the car, but one of the locomotive's lamp brackets broke through her window and held the car up, keeping it on the cow catcher, “which probably saved her life and avoided smashing the car into bits. (An incident like this) might not happen again in a hundred years,” the Star estimated. Car and woman were carried about 60 yards before the train stopped.
Sell, who had been cut by flying glass, was treated by Dr. Harry Harman, and a taxi took her to her summer cottage south of town.
From “Rick's Frenchtown Encyclopedia” (a work in progress)
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