Ashtabula County

 On the night of December 29, 1876 an unthinkable horror occurred just a few hundred yards east of the train depot at Ashtabula when the Lake Shore train No. 5, the Pacific Express, carrying 159 passengers, plunged over 80 feet and burst into flames when the bridge over the Ashtabula river collapsed from under them, claiming ninety-two lives. The freight house was turned into a make-shift morgue as families and friends from as far away as Maine and California arrived hoping to identify the remains of loved ones, some of whom had been burned beyond recognition. The Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway purchased a lot in Chestnut Grove Cemetery for the burial of the nineteen victims who could not be identified and, in the aftermath, paid nearly a half million dollars in damage claims. After testifying before the legislative joint committee Charles Collins, chief engineer for the railroad, committed suicide. Six years late, Amasa Stone, president of the Cleveland, Painsville and Ashtabula Railroad also ended his own life.

The Ashtabula Disaster

By Rev. Stephen D. Peet,
of Ashtabula, Ohio