Scotian Railroad Society 1983-04 News - Fatal Wreck on the Nova Scotia Railway in 1856

Scotian Railroad Society - News April 1983 - Fatal Wreck on the Nova Scotia Railway in 1856

An early wreck on the Nova Scotia railway in Fairview in the Scotian Railroad Society News.
A transcription of the article text appears below the scanned pages, for ease of reading and search purposes.

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Please use this tag when referring to this article: Scotian Railroad Society, News April 1983

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Accident occurred on Monday, March 3, 1856. Morning.

RAILWAY ACCIDENT

We regret to record the death of Mr. Elias Woodworth, by an accident which occurred yesterday morning. As our City readers know it snowed nearly all Sunday, the snow terminating in hail and then in rain. Towards daylight the wind came round to the North West, when it froze severely.

Shortly after daylight one of the men employed by Feetham, who has charge of the permanent way, walked over the road and reported that the snow on it was soft, so soft that he kicked it off with his boot at the very spot where, two hours later, it was hard enough to throw the Engine off the track.

About eight o'clock Mr. Woodworth and Mr. Feetham started from the Station, where some time had been spent in clearing the ground and freeing the points and crossings, taking with them no Passenger Cars but only a flat Platform Car, with 15 laborers upon it, picks and shovels with them for removing obstructions. These were met in three or four places on this side of the Three Mile House.

The Engine was stopped, and the men alighted and cleared the track in every instance. While the men were completing their work at the last place Mr. Woodworth disengaged the Engine from the Platform Car, ran on to the Three Mile House, within two hundred yards of the spot where he subsequently lost his life.

Finding no obstruction, he returned, connected with the laborers' Car, upon which they were sitting and standing, and went on his way upwards again.

About a quarter of the mile beyond the Three Mile House, perhaps ten yards of the track were covered with snow two or three inches deep. Probably assuming that there was no hard ice under it, he attempted to run through, instead of stopping and clearing the track as had been done in all other places.

This fatal error in judgment cost the Engineer his life, and endangered the lives of others. Hard ice, extending under and beyond the snow, sent the engine off the track, down the embankment in front of Letson's Tanyard.

It fell, wheels up, in by two or three feet of water. Mr. Woodworth must have been stunned in the fall and suffocated in the water. No man heard him cry.

The Fireman, a lad named Corcoran, was badly scalded and was nearly 20 minutes in the water before he was rescued by breaking up the corrugated Iron which formed the Engine House. There is no apprehension of serious consequences.

Fortunately the rod which connected the Platform Car to the Engine broke, and the former was left on the road. But for this Providential disconnection the laborers (all of whom, with the exception of one who broke his leg in leaping off) might have been killed or badly injured.

The Coroner's Inquest, which sat upon the body of Mr. Woodworth in the afternoon, brought in a verdict of accidental death. We believe there is but one feeling of sorrow pervading the community for the loss of a courageous, zealous and skillful officer. We cannot discover that anybody is to blame, except the man himself, but we are quite sure that he erred in judgment only because he was over anxious to do his duty to the public, and overcome whatever obstructions the inclemency of the season presented to test his hardihood and skill.

Mr. Woodworth has left a widow and one son to mourn his irreparable loss.