From the Utica Saturday Globe of Utica, NY
Saturday, December 18, 1920

The First Train Into Norwich

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C.H. Brown of Pittsburg, Was a Former Employee of the
New York and Oswego Midland, and Tells of the Big Event in Letter

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   Norwich, Dec. 17. - C.H. Brown, an old New York & Oswego Midland employee who now resides in Pittsburg, Pa., where he is employee by the Duquesne Light Company, is a subscriber to the Chenango edition of the Saturday Globe. He is much interested in the story of the early days of the road and writes to say that he recalls the first passenger train run into Norwich, and went to work for the company the same year the road was opened.

   He was later a brakeman on the Auburn branch under Conductor David Shattuck when the road was under construction by Sage, Williams & Jerome. Among the old engineers he recalls Frank Fisher, "Pat" Crane, "Shorty" Freeman, Ed Williams, John Skinner, Ed McNiff, "Old Daddy" Card and "Old Windy" Blake. The engines were woodburners with "stacks as large as airships" and the engines were all named. If he remembers right the company had 27 work trains on the northern division.

   He recalls the night the track was built into DeRuyter. When the train was run into the town the people met it "with a brass band and free whisky at the Tabor House". Later when the building of the road had reached Scipio about 11 miles from Auburn the "old Midland went bankrupt" and paid the employees with scrip that was worth only about 22 to 26 cents on a dollar.

   In the Centennial year, 1876, Mr. Brown was yardmaster at Norwich. A Mr. Purdy, who was the company paymaster, was acting as a conductor on one of the trains in a Centennial Special that was made up of several sections. Mr. Purdy's section reached Norwich in the afternoon about 4 o'clock. A coach near the center of the train carried a number of his intimate friends and some members of his family.

   At his request Mr. Brown cut out the coach from the center of the train and attached it to the rear. The train left Norwich and was nearing Hurley on the way to Philadelphia. Mr. Purdy wanted to send a message to New York reporting that his train was on time. He pulled the bell cord and the engineer stopped the train. A flagman was sent back to signal the section following but too late. The train following plowed into the rear coach of the Purdy section killing several of his friends and some members of his family.

   "At another time three train crews "coupled up" with 82 old, dinky coal cars with a three-link hook coupler and 18 gondolas on the head end. We had five engines out of Sidney to get the train up the hill - three engines pushing and two pulling. We picked up a section crew at Guilford and strung them along the train in case we broke in two. Ed Welch and myself were going to hold the train down the hill into Norwich. We had our hand brakes all set. When we rounded the horse shoe bend at the Oxford trestle we discovered the train had parted in seven places. On two pieces of the train there was no brakeman.

   "So we had to let off the brakes and the train ran away. When we hit the Lyon Brook bridge it looked to me to be about an inch long. Luckily the main track happened to be clear. When the train stopped the head engine was nearly to North Norwich. Some of the oldtimers will remember about it."

   "Just a few words more. I passed the 66th year mark November 4, and I feel about the same as I did 30 years ago. An old white horse came by the electric light plant where I am employed the other day. The old horse was all covered with burdocks from his head to his hind feet. I went out and put my arms around his neck for he looked to me just like an old wornout railroad man, and I have always been told that a railroad man turns into an old white horse at the end."