Train Wreck 1873. Engineer killed buried in Orono Cemetery.

COMMENT: The accident actually happened on September 1, 1869. During a trial run across the brand-new Black Island Railroad Bridge, the flooring timbers on a section of the bridge gave way, sending the engine tender and two cars into the Stillwater River and killing the conductor (Winchell Woodard/Woodward of Patten). Supposedly his remains were taken to his home town, but there is no record of his burial there or anywhere else. The engineer (Edwin Lander of Bangor) died of his injuries the next day and was buried at Mount Hope Cemetery. Initially, two others were reported to be missing and at least one more to be severely injured, but no names were reported at the time --- other than that they were "French laborers belonging in Oldtown". The next day, the missing men were reported to have run away from the scene and to be alive and well. See BDW&C, 1869/09/02, p.3 and 1869/09/03, p.3. On September 7, the Bangor Daily Whig and Courier also reported on a photo of the "late unfortunate disaster" taken immediately after the accident by Old Town photographer M. L. Averill. Probably the image presented here is a scan or photo of Averill's photograph. No original copies of the photo are known to exist. A similar accident happened on July 26, 1873, when the uncovered section of the Milford stretch of the Milford-Old Town Railroad Bridge had completely collapsed in a nightly storm causing a train going in the direction of Milford to fall into the river, killing the engineer (George A. McClellan of Old Town) in the process. It is McClellan who was buried at Riverside Cemetery. Unlike what is claimed in "Old Town. The First 125 Years," this photo likely does not depict that accident, as the BDW&C 1873/07/28, p.3 description of that accident claims that a) the section of the bridge on which the accident happened had completely fallen in, b) the train almost completely disappeared into the river and only the back of the tender was visible. The same Daily Whig & Courier description also suggests that the train in that accident only consisted of a locomotive and a tender. On the other hand, when the Black Island bridge was completed in April 1869, the BDW&C claimed (see BDW&C 1869/04/17, p.3) that the design of the bridge was an improved Howe truss, i.e a Howe truss with a supporting arch. Clearly, while the bridge appears to be a Howe truss (as the majority of New England train bridges were at the time) there is no such arch visible on the photo. It is conceivable, however, that not all three stretches of the bridge had that design or, more likely, that the reporter did not really know what he was talking about.