From the DeRuyter Gleaner of DeRuyter, NY
Thursday, February 1, 1940

(Item #1)


An Accommodating Conductor

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My Dear Mr. Ames :

   The following may indicate why the Midland R.R. did not function long.

   I can not verify this piece of family lore by sending the accompanying photograph, but recent articles concerning the Midland R.R. remind me of a tale my parents told.

   They were bringing me on the Midland to DeRuyter to visit at the farm of my grandfather, Albert Burdick, when I cried lustily and could not be quieted.

   The friendly brakeman asked if he could be helpful and the reply was that I was hungry. "O, that is easy" said he, rang the bell, stopped the train in a pasture, jumped off with the tin drink water cup and returned with nice warm milk to comfort me. It did.

Yours sincerely,
Anna V.E. Burdick

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(Item #2)


Midland Railroad Days Recalled

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Denton, Md., Dec. 24, 1939
(Letter to Clifford W. Ames, publisher of the Gleaner)

Dear Cliff :

   I was very much interested in the article by Mr. Cox regarding the old Midland Railroad. Although the old Midland had been built, enjoyed its short life and was abandoned before I was born, I well remember the old sagging trestle which spanned the canyon back of the Wibert schoolhouse.

   It was I believe about 100 feet high. We school kids were warned by parents and teacher to keep entirely away from it. It got to be in such bad shape that it was considered a menace to the stock that grazed in the creek bottom and was pulled down by A.D. Warren. I remember that we school children all gathered at a safe distance to watch the event. To the best of my recollection two hay ropes tied together were used.

   I believe it was Elmer Rice who negotiated the tottering structure and when the "all-clear" signal was given the famous old chestnut team, Tom and Dick, settled into the collars and the old Wibert trestle fell with a splintering crash. It is doubtful if there was ever a better team of horses in the Wiberts section than Tom and Dick. For many years they were under the skillful guidance of the hardy old pioneer, Jared Gates, who used to say in his sage and droll vernacular, "They can walk off with anything that's got two ends to it."

   Reading of deer roaming 'round about the hills and valleys of the old native heath has the flavor of an enchanted saga of the dim past. The agricultural frontier must be receding under the pressure of the merchandised age and the New Deal.

   When I left the old town, twenty-one years ago, there were no abandoned farms, the hills were teeming with prosperous farmers and redolent with aroma of high-grade cattle. There were no wild animals larger than a skunk or a woodchuck. Forty years ago there was a huge bear who made his appearance in some sections of Muller Hill during blackberry season; he was usually seen by Adam Sternburg who picked berries to sell and didn't want much company during the berry season.

   At that time any prediction that deer would some time roam about the hills and valleys, graze in the meadows, browse among the willows and slake their thirst in the limpid waters of Moose Run would have been considered as fantastic, as a prophecy that the war cry of the Six Nations would again ring out, echo and reverberate among the hills and valleys of their former habitat as in the days of Shenandoah, Brandt and Red Jacket.

                                                    F.D. Carpenter