Copyright USGenNet Inc., 2014 All Rights Reserved USGenNet Data Repository Please read USGenNet Copyright Statement on this page: Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott for the USGenNet Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ =========================================================================== Formatted by USGenNet Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott All of the above information must remain when copied or downloaded. =========================================================================== The Ashtabula Disaster, Dec. 29th, 1876 By Rev. Stephen D. Peet of Ashtabula, Ohio Chicago, Ill: J.S. Goodman - Louis Lloyd & Co. London, Ont.: J.M. Chute & Co. 1877 [207-206] THE ASHTABULA DISASTER ---------------- THE CORONER'S VERDICT "It is from a careful consideration of the evidence elicited from the professionals and experts that our verdict is made up in the matter of the bridge, and should it seem severe upon the railway company, or upon any of its past or present officials, it is because the truth, as shown by the evidence, demands it at our hands. We cannot do less and feel that we have discharged our duty. Mr. Amasa Stone, President of the company at the time of the erection of this structure, had been for years a prominent and successful railroad con- tractor and builder of wooden Howe truss bridges. With the undoubted intention of building a strong, safe, and durable wrought-iron bridge, upon the Howe truss plan, he designed the structure, dictated the drawing of the plans and the erection of the bridge, without the approval of any competent engineer, and against the protest of the man who made the drawings under Mr. Stone's direction, assuming the sole and entire responsi- bility himself. Iron bridges were then in their infancy, and this one was an experiment which ought never to have been tried or trusted to span so broad and so deep a chasm. This experi- ment has been at a fearful cost of human life and human suf- fering. Unquestionably, Mr. Stone had great confidence in his own abilities, and believed he could build and had built a structure which would prove the crowning glory of an active life and an enduring monument to his name. That the officials of the railroad regarded the bridge as safe we have no doubt, as two of them were on the train that went down, and all were more or less frequently passing over it. That the fall of the bridge was the result of defects and errors made in designing, constructing, and erecting it. That a great defect, and one which appears in many parts of the structure, was the depen- dence of every member for its efficient action upon the prob- ability that all or nearly all the others would retain their position and do the duty for which they were designed, instead of giving each member a positive connection with the rest, which nothing but a direct rupture could sever. That the rail- way company used and continued to use this bridge about eleven years, during all which time a careful inspection by a compe- tant bridge engineer could not have failed to discover the defects. For the neglect of such careful inspection, the rail- way company alone is responsible. That the responsibility of this fearful disaster and its consequent loss of life rests upon the railway company, which, by its chief executive officer, planned and erected this bridge; that the cars in which the deceased passengers were carried into the chasm, were not heated by heating apparatus so constructed that the fire in them would be immediately extinguished whenever the cars were thrown from the track and overturned; that their failure to comply with the plain requirements of the law places the responsibility of the origin of the fire upon the railway com- pany; that the responsibility for not putting out the fire at the time it first made its appearance in the wreck, rests upon those who were the first to arrive at the scene of the disas- ter, and who seemed to have been so overwhelmed by the fearful calamity that they lost all presence of mind, and failed to use the means at hand, consisting of the steam pump in the pumping- house and the fire engine. Lake Erie and its hose, which might have been attached to the steam pump in time to save life. The steamer belonging to the Fire Department, and also the Protection fire engine, were hauled more than a mile through a blinding snow storm, and over roads rendered almost impassable by the drifted snow, and arrived on the ground too late to save human life; but nothing should have prevented the Chief Engineer from making all possible efforts to extinguish what fire there remained. For his failure to do this he is respon- sible. The persons deceased, whose bodies were identified and those whose bodies and parts of bodies were unidentified came to their death by the precipitation of the aforesaid cars, in which they were riding, into the chasm in the valley of Ashtabula creek, left by the falling of the bridge, as afore- said; the crushing and burning of cars aforesaid, for all of which the railway company is responsible." ===========================================================================