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With a Short Excursus of the Monon Wreck of
1892
A Paper to be Delivered Before the Quiatenon, March 27, 1979
By
John E. Fischer
Reader:
Robert Wernle
The initials stand for railroads, of course as most of you who know
me may have guessed. They stand for: the Louisville, New Albany,
and Chicago Railroad Company; The Logansport. Crawfordsville, and
Southwestern; the Peoria and Eastern; and the Anderson, Lebanon,
and St. Louis Railroad. For years I have been meaning to write or
deliver the definitive paper on railroads in Montgomery County. I
hope that this may be the beginning of that task, nay labor of love:
it has been much more time consuming and complicated than I had imagined.
With due deference to Bob Wernle, Hall Peebles and Fred Enenbach--the
train buffs I know about--and apologies to them and those I don't
know about, I thought that I would talk about the development of
railroads and interurbans in the county and lament their loss-- a
loss which we shall feel the more sorely as the lack of gasoline
predicted impedes our mobility.
When Hall told me that I was due to deliver a paper
I was in the midst of contemplating
the then current illness of my aged car Salome and how I would get
out of and into Crawfordsville were I without her. A train then passed
by on the newly ballasted Peoria and Eastern and caused me to think
about those golden days of frequent steam trains to all corners of
our country. How many young people in those days as they dozed on
a summer evening and heard the distant whistle of a particular night
express going somewhere or other began to dream and hope to wander!
At this time the most I can hope for is the off-key bleat of a Conrail
diesel and all it does is remind us of what we have lost. Car-less
we can go only East or West via an Illini Swallow bus perhaps 8 times
a day. In 1910 in Crawfordsville there were between 18-20 steam trains
per day in all directions, 32 interurbans on the Ben Hur Division
of the Indianapolis, Crawfordsville, and Western Traction Company,
and six interurbans on the Northwest Division of the Indianapolis
and Northwestern: a total of 56 ways in an out of town daily! Add
to that your ability to transfer at Linden to the Nickle Plate or
to the Midland at New Ross or, to leave the county just a bit, to
the B. & O. at Roachdale, to the Pennsylvania or the New York
Central at Greencastle, or to the Wabash or the New York Central
at Lafayette: there were few places in the United States not easily
reached from Crawfordsville. The citizens of Montgomery County went
everywhere by train or interurban: to school, on excursions (to places
near--Veedersburg or Danville--or far), on hunting trips, or even
shopping trips. In 1913 our county had 144 miles of railroad track,
not counting the interurban trackage. Now most of that traffic is
gone; done in by the times, the truck, the automobile, and the superhighway.
L., N.A., & C
The Monon
The Monon is appropriately considered first as first
it was to come to the county "and to Crawfordsville where our
forebears had an important role in its construction. In 1832 Henry
S. Lane talked
with a young visitor about the growing interest in railroads in our
town, and 8 years later the books were opened in the clerk's office
for a stock subscription in what became the L., N.A., & C.(1)
Another young man at that time (an early railroad buff) talks about
railways:
The first road to be built in Indiana was from Madison
to Indianapolis and this was the first railway I ever rode on,
I went
to Indianapolis
from Crawfordsville on the stage coach, then took the Madison
train and went to Columbus, where my brother met me with a buggy
and took
me to Greensburg. This was 1845. The first railway train into
Crawfordsville came in from Lafayette in the year 1851 (he misremembers-it
was 1852)
and some informant says the engineer was Mike Herbrick. The report
was that the train ran so fast you could scarcely see it as it
passed. The whole town was there to see it as it came over the trestle
spanning
the big ravine over the top of Fry's hill. I happened to be in
the crowd. I think John Herndon, son of Dr. Herndon, was the first
conductor,
and he continued as conductor as long as he had strength to ring
the bell." (2) (Frank M_ Mills, Wabash 1844)
Major Elston was a moving factor in the development as we'll see
and John L. Campbell was the chief engineer-after the railroad was
built he accepted a professorship at Wabash.(3) By the way, what
does Monon mean? It is reported that it was a Potowatomi word equivalent
to 'tote' or 'carry'-- some fancier or more Romantic folk think that
it means 'swift running,'
In the 1830's and 1840's the State of Indiana created an elaborate
plan for internal improvements which rapidly failed (too little money,
too much ambition. too little coordination). One phase of that plan
was a macadam road from New Albany to Crawfordsville, begun but not
advanced very far (a reason for the poor success of the Monon was
that it followed the 1840's highway and its construction; the great
success of the Nickle Plate was the superb railroad engineering of
the 1880's). The New Albany and Salem Rail Road Company was legally
organized (recognized) on July 31, 1847 and began building soon,
thereafter. The first problem that it faced was the admittedly attractive
but terribly hilly terrain of Southern Indiana--the 'Knobs' 22 miles
north of New Albany required a 34’ deep cut. 22' of which
were through solid rock.(4) The southern portion of the Monon has
always
been a problem quite in contrast to the sections north of Crawfordsville.
The line reached Gosport in January, 1854.
Meanwhile in Crawfordsville railroad fever had struck
and in 1844 (renewed in 1846) some of the town's leaders got a charter
to build
a railway. (5) 5 The road started at the southern edge of Lafayette
where the rail (imported from England) was brought by boat from
New York city to Albany, via the Erie canal to Buffalo, then to
Toledo,
and finally to Lafayette on the Wabash and Erie Canal. The Crawfordsville
and Lafayette was taken over by the New Albany and Salem on June
17. 1852; the line got through Lafayette in October of 1853 and
linked up the road to Crawfordsville from Michigan City (the Northern
line
from Monon to Michigan City is the 4th longest stretch of tangent
track in the United states). The 56 miles to Gosport were bridged
(with the help of Michigan Central cash which flowed more freely
at the knowledge of the N.A. &. S. ‘s 'roving' charter
enabling the road"... to construct a railroad to such other
point or points as said company may deem expedient.")(6) --and
the last spike was driven in Putnamville on June 24, 1854. The first
train from Michigan City to New Albany took a little over 16 hours.
The Monon as we all know or knew it was formed from this main N/S
line with the addition of the Indianapolis Airline (between Hammond
and Indianapolis; into Chicago on the rails of the Chicago and Western
Indiana from Hammond) in 1881. It was reorganized in March of 1897
as the C., I., & L. (Chiacgo, Indianapolis. and Louisville Railway
Company). It added the Orleans, Paoli. and Jasper RR --connection
to French Lick--in the late 80's and built the Indianapolis and Louisville
RR in the early 20th century 47 miles SW into the coalfields. The
Monon had a difficult history; -bankrupt in 1929 until 1946 it was
the first railroad to be dieselized by John Barriger. It is really
our railroad--the Hoosier Line--all of its trackage is within the
state.
Ireland must be Heaven
'Cause tho Monon don't go there.
Or the following song titles (written for the centennial celebration
of the Monon at the Indiana Society of Chicago):
'Up and Down the Monon'
'Sleepy Little Town (In the Brown County Hills)'
'Monticello Moon'
'The Belle of the Monon'
'Indiana is So. Rich'
'Last Call for Dinner (Wonderful Monon Meals)'
'Hoosier Time'
'The Gentlemen Who Paid My Fare'
The lyrics to one of which go:
UP and down the Monon
Everything is fine,
'cause' that rootin', tootin' Monon."
She's a Hoosier line, oh. (7)
Or, George Ade's panegyric to the line and the state, printed on
the menu of dining cars for years:
The traveler who wishes to see Indiana must go riding
on the Monon. It was the first iron trail to be pushed from one end
of the state
to the other. That is why so many worth-While things may be seen
from the car windows. . .
The Monon pathway is by open prairies and deep woodland, across the
Kankakee and Tippecanoe and Wabash, up to the gates of important
cities, and through the quiet shades of college towns. It links the
Ohio with the Grand Calumet and lays a friendly hand on factories,
fields and quarries through an important chain of counties.
The name Monon' is Indian. It means 'swift-running.' The railway
began to make history some ninety years ago. My first dream, as
a Hoosier boy, was to ride away on the Monon toward the Heaven
piercing
spires of La£ayette or Michigan City. The Monon is 'catty cornered'
to the whole State of Indiana, and all its trains are ’Hoosiers.'
(8)
Some other interesting things about the Monon: On July
10, 1863 Morgan's raiders destroyed
track, water tanks, and bridges near Salem; on May 1, 1865 the funeral
train of President Lincoln Went via the Monon from Lafayette to
Michigan City though it was 3:45am when it passed through Lafayette,
the square
was thronged); Lew Wallace is reported to have said that he wrote
large parts of Ben Hur riding on the Monon; (9) in 1937 it was
the only line to get food into Louisville during the flood. The only
major long-distance train on the Monon rails was the Florida Flyer
in the 1890's-Florida in 36 hours from Chicago! In 1917 there were
4 trains a day in each direction through Crawfordsville and in
1931
on the Hoosier you could dine as follows: crabmeat canapé,
navy bean soup, a small steak, hash brown potatoes, a salad, pie
(baked on the car!), and coffee with a martini before for $1.75 (the
1" ) Monon was absorbed by the L &: N (for a second time)
in 1971.
The P. & E.
After fits and starts, a special railway convention was held in
Crawfordsville in 1866 to get the stalled E/W railroad into motion;
the result: the Indiana, Crawfordsville, and Danville Railroad. The
road was finished in 1869 and the first train ran to Indianapolis
on May 4. 1869 (president of the railroad was Col. S.C. Willson and
Professor John Campbell). One year later the road was consolidated
with the Danville, Urbana, and Pekin Railroad. Its new name was the
Indiana (first Indianapolis), Bloomington, and Western Railroad:
it became the P.& E. on February 20, 1890: a part of the Big-Four.
It would be wellnigh impossible to overestimate the
benefits which the people of Montgomery County have reaped from
the opening of this
new channel of commerce to the markets of the east. The thick
forests of oak and walnut in the eastern part of the county became
at once
accessible. . . . .renewed activity was infused into every
branch of business, and the county entered upon a new era of prosperity." (11)
(Beckwith's history of the county)
It was a busy line. The Argus News (January 31, 1892) reports
that 922 cars had been handled and that 42 trains had gone through
on the Sunday previous.
The L. C. & SW
This line, called in later years the Vandalia, was made up from
three separate segments: the Frankfort and Logansport; The Crawfordsville
and Frankfort; and the Crawfordsville and Rockville (part of an unfinished
Evansville-Crawfordsville link). Never a strong line, it connected
Terre Haute with Fort Wayne and other points in central Indiana.
The good citizens of Darlington used the Vandalia on Sundays for
excursions to lake Maxinkuckee. Also, during the "greatest on
Earth at Crawfordsville" the local agent there would sell 300/350
tickets on the Thursday of that event. (12) An advertisement in the
Weekly Crawfordsville Journal on January 4, 1890 states:
The Vandalia Line
Shortest and quickest route to Fort Wayne, Put-in-Bay, Detroit and
all points North; the most direct route to the West for emigrants;
lowest rates. All passengers carried to the St. Louis Depot.
Another ad states that the Vandalia had clean depots, clean
coaches, and sound bridges.
The A. L. & St.L.
This route doomed to a late start, impecunious
and fitful life, and an early end, became known as the Central
of Indiana and then
the Midland. The work on the right of way was begun in 1853:
the tracks reached Ladoga in 1887: Browns Valley in 1888: and.
finally.
Waveland Junction in 1890. The Centennial History of New Ross
has a splendid picture of a Midland collision with the Big Four
in the
late 1880's: nobody was hurt (James B. Elmore has a poem on
the subject).
After the arrival of the interurbans the citizens
of Ladoga would
ride to New Ross and catch the Ben Hur division car to Indianapolis;
it took students from small towns to Westfield high school;
it took miners to and from their work in the southern part of
its territory.
(13) To call its career checkered would be a kindness-with
the exception of the Lebanon-Anderson segment, it was abandoned
by 1943, its tracks
torn up. Elmer Sulzer"s book, Ghost Railroads of Indiana, has
a fine history of this charming, but feckless railroad.
The Interurbans
The original idea behind the whole interurban concept is attributed
to Noah Clodfelter of this county by Bowen in his history of the
county in 1913: an interesting, but unsubstantiated point.
Interurbans were a transition from sole reliance
on steam railroads to sole dependence on automobiles and trucks.
Frank J. Sprague developed
the right motor and delivery system in 1887 (in 1890 70% of
all street railways used animal power: 1902 97% were under electric
power)-as
early as 1891 someone had approached the city fathers about
an electric railway (January 17. 1891: Weekly Crawfordsville
Journal). The major
development of these lines was in Ohio and Indiana: many medium
sized towns no great distance apart: rural areas were fairly
densly populated
and farm income was relatively high: the terrain was flat and
ideally suited to interurban construction. The enormous profits
of the Sandusky.
Milan. and Norwalk (1893) attracted money, speculators, investors,
and the attendant problems-by 1909 there were 15.000 miles
of interurban railroad in the United States. (14)
It is impossible for anyone who was not
living in a rural community where there was no thought
or knowledge
of automobiles, but
where the community had the possibility of getting an electric
line, to
realize the vision which such a possibility encouraged.
(Carl C. Taylor, Rural Sociology, New York. 1926. 136/7)
( 15)
The interurbans were, a quick success: railroads could
be expected to lose 75 % of local traffic to a parallel
interurban
(the Monon reported that one of its local branches lost
78% of its
business
in the first year after an interurban line paralleling
it ). The interurban building boom was from 1901-1904.
The longest trip possible between 1910-1922:
Elkart Lake, Wisconsin to Oneonta, New York, a distance of
1,087 miles (nobody ever traveled
it); in 1910 a group of businessmen from Utica, New York
went by interurban lines from Utica to Louisville, Kentucky
(they stayed
in hotels at nights along the route: although there were
sleeping cars on interurbans on some rare occasions). The Indianapolis
Traction
Terminal was the largest in the country, built in 1904: in
1918 it was served by 128,145 trains with 7,519,634 passengers.
Indiana was
second only to Ohio with its 1,876 miles of lines.
There were two lines to Crawfordsville: the
Indianapolis Lebanon/Crawfordsville division of the Indianapolis
and Northwestern Traction Company
built in 1904 and the Indianapolis, Crawfordsville, and Western
line finished
in 1907--both were taken over by the Terre Haute, Indianapolis
and Eastern Traction Company (the direct line paralleling the
P. & E.
became the Ben Hur Division of the TH.I.&E.
Interurbans were an immensely popular, but short-lived phenomenon
for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the advent of
the dreaded foe of both interurbans and railroads, the automobile.
Both lines were abandoned on October 31, 1930. (16)
A Short Excursus on the Monon Wreck of January 11. 1892
In Memory of the Monon Wreck
James B. Elmore
Minds mirror now brings back the scene
And throws the pictures on the screen
That once had been so long ago
When mother earth was clothed in snow.
The heart was faint the face was sad
To see so many illy clad
And many hearts were filled with pain
To view those forms ne're seen again.
The mind retains that awful spot
One would but can forget it not
And still we hold with fleeting years
The time that brought those hallowed tears.
Four graves are green in foreign lands
Now cared and watched by tender hands
God called them home to folks and kin
Beyond the pale of pain and sin.
They rest in peace with those
of yore
They live in house of open door
The hosts are robed in perfect white
Celestial pow's has banished night. (17)
The poem is Elmore's reaction to the wreck, one of the worst on the
Monon and certainly the worst in the county. Any perusal of the
newspapers of the day indicates that there were numerous wrecks,
no surprise given the range and frequency of train service in the
period (an analogy could be made with the reports of automobile
accidents today) (18) Although this goes beyond the topic at hand
and probably is worth a separate paper for the Club, I would like
to report some aspects of the wreck which seem interesting. Needless
to say, the newspapers of Crawfordsville were full of the wreck
and discussed it for weeks afterward.
CDJ Tuesday. January 12. 1892
The Monon Wreck: Never before has such a terrible railroad
wreck occurred near Crawfordsville as that one on the Monon
yesterday.
Accustomed to read almost daily in the newspapers of
some awful disaster our sense have become blunted to their
horror.
But yesterday's
scenes brought all who witnessed them to a most keen
realization of what death and suffering by the wholesale is.
Hereafter
newspaper accounts of such disasters cannot be passed over
with indifference.
They will recall and invite comparison With the wreck
of January 11, 1892 on the Monon railroad. The occasion too
was
prolific in
examples of hero's work on the part of those unhurt and
not seriously injured. But we are especially proud to say
that citizens of Crawfordsville
came forward with unselfish devotion and helped bravely
in rescuing and nursing. Martin's ice men no doubt saved
many a life by preventing
the spread of fire, while those who carried off the dead
and bleeding are deserving of the highest praise. At the
hotels and houses men
left their business and ladies their household duties
to spend hours tenderly nursing the victims to life or making
death as easy
as possible. Everything possible to relieve was done
and
there was no sign of neglect, all of which is much to the
credit of our
people.
NYT Tuesday. January 12. 1892
On the front page. Three theatrical
troupes aboard. "The ladies
coach was literally torn to pieces, as was also the parlor car.” "The
excitement has been intense and hundreds have visited the scene of
the accident." "The scenes about the wreck
were heartrending."
Also, front page on 1/13/1892. Information about trous, datelined
Louisville. .
The northbound mail left Crawfordsville a few minutes late and the
engineer, Cowoll, accelerated rapidly to about 25 miles an hour to
make up time. Soon after passing- the Sugar Creek bridge where there
is a nasty reverse curve, the engine struck a broken rail and the
five following cars tumbled down a 50' embankment just opposite the
farm of Mr. Appelton Elmore. There were two baggage cars, a smoker
(with a burning stove that did much damage), a ladies car, and the
parlor car "Minerva." The victims were taken to the Nutt
House.
The three killed immediately were:
Mrs. Irma Van Rokoy, 32, Ballet Dancer--Italy
C.H. Cheek, 42, Lumber dealer—Greencastle
Ben Hamberger, 36, Salesman--Cincinnati
A Col, Melville McKee of Greencastle dies
a few days later amidst a storm of controversy: was it
the wreck or his
naturaly weak heart?
A Coroner's Hearing was held about this and a letter
to the editor comments as follows:
Is it any business of the coroner to
hold an inquest to determine whether a railroad accident
happened from a "latent defect" in
a rail, or from the negligence of the railroad company?
CDJ 1/22/1892
There seemed to be two issues involved
at this inquest: whether Col. McKee died because of
the wreck or his heart condition and also
whether the railroad is at fault (the writer wonders
about this latter aspect). In regard to the former:
two doctors involved came almost
to blows at the inquest and were
restrained only by the coroner's threat to call the police.
A curious situation. At an earlier coroner's inquest
the evidence given weighed
heavily against the story of a railroad worker, a
section hand who had noted the break and had applied
in vain the week before for a
new rail. The road was "in perfect condition" at the scene
of the wreck (CDJ, 1/13/1892). Yet, the Argus News 1/16/1892 says:
It 1s a notorious fact that there are more rotten ties and more
defective rails in this road, as well as unsafe bridges, than any
other road of half its prominence, in the country. There are more
dangerous points, more abrupt curves and high embankments and there
is greater danger from fast running than on any road passing through
this city. The road needs new ties almost the entire length.
"Perfect condition?" An interesting difference. On the
whole the Argus News seems a bit feistier a newspaper. The CDJ 1/12/1892
reported:
Claim Agent Houston arrived on the scene from Bloomington last night
with a big satchel full of greenbacks, which the officials who came
up from Louisville handed him when he got on the train. Mr. Houston
is an energetic and enterprising young man, and had not been in Crawfordsville
twenty minutes before he began to take the injured under his wing
and settle with them. He would take them privately to one side, ask
them how much their injuries and inconvenience amount to, and if
the reply seemed reasonable he shelled out on the spot and took their
receipt for all inconvenience and injury sustained in the Wreck.
There are some fascinating questions which more study might help
elucidate. Madam Van Rokay was a famous dancer according to the NYT--at
times she made $500 per week which seems quite a sum for the period.
The Crawfordsville Star reports:
One of the company states that Madame
Van Rokay was of a superstitious nature and had a horror
of railroad wrecks. When she joined the company
six weeks ago and learned they were going to
Chicago, she alarmingly remarked: “I hope we won’t have to go over that road
where they have so many wrecks." She perhaps had heard of the
Monon. As the train neared the Junction an that fatal day, Van Rokay
was gazing out of the car window and noticed in the field a litter
of black pigs, "Oh, I'm sorry I saw them," she remarked, "they
mean bad luck."
In the same article, two young women of the company felt that the
wreck was caused by the lurid reading matter which one of them had:
Two Magdalenes, Camille, The Vendetta. One ghastly report came on
the 18th of January in the CDJ which reported that a M.H. Youngblood
had found a frozen tongue and had it at home in alcohol at 314 West
Wabash Avenue for those who had curiosity for such things. Never
at a loss for proper examples for the faithful, a Reverend Dr. Cunningham,
after praising the nobility of the helpers, goes on to say (CDJ 1/19/92):
What was the Crawfordsville railway wreck besides the Crawfordsville
rum wreck from day to day.?
The city of Crawfordsville received a brand new depot
from the Monon soon after.
Footnotes
1. Kate Miller Rabb, ed.. A Tour Through Indiana 1840: Diary of
John Parson of Petersburg, Virginia New York. .1920, p. 11
2. Frank Moody Mills, Early DayS in a College Town,, Sioux Falls, 1924. pp.205-207.
3. Ibid.
4. V.A. Hewitt, "Hoosier Heritage--The Monon." The Railway
and Locomotive Historical Society Bulletin. No. 70. August 1947.
p.27.
5. Ibid.
6. Frank E. Hargrave A Pioneer Indiana Railroad, Indianapolis. Indiana.
1932. p.31.
7. A.C. Kalmbach. ed. Trains Magazine.V.ol. 7, No. 9. July. 1947.
p. 32.
A.C. Kalmbach. ed. Trains Magazine.V.ol. 7, No.10. A_st. 1947. p. 5
8. John W. Barriger. A Hoosier Centenarian: The Monon. New York. 1947. p.23.
9. Stewart Holbrook. The Story of American Railroads. New York, 1947. pp.112-120.
10. George W. Hilton. Monon Route, Berkeley. 1978, pp. 137 & 140.
11. Bowen, History of Montgomery County, Indianapolis, 1913, pp. 297-305.
12. n.a. Darlington Yesterday and Today: 1836-1976, Crawfordsvll1e, 1976, p.
44.
13. George W. Hilton and John F. Due, The Electric Interurban Railways in America,
Stanford, 1960, p. 14.
14. Ibid. p. 15.
16. Jerry Marlette. Electric Railroads of Indiana, Indianapolis. 1959, p. 110.
Note: the Crawfordsvilla Daily Journal, July 8. 1907 reports the round trip
fare from Indianapolis to Crawfordsville was $1.40.
17. James B. Elmore, Nature Poems: Pure Literature Crawfordsville, 1954. pp.
68/69.
18. All of this material is drawn from current newsppares with dates indicated:
abbreviates as follow: AN=Argus News (Weekly); WCJ=Weekly Crawfordsville Journal;
CDJ=Crawfordsville Daily Journal; NYT=New York Times.
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