The Hartford Bridge Disaster of 1887

In the frigid early morning hours of Saturday, February 5, 1887, a Vermont Central train, the “night express,” was heading north to Montreal. Having just left the station in White River Junction, it approached the 650-foot long wooden trestle bridge across the White River, four miles north of town. The train consisted of an engine, a baggage car, a mail car, two passenger coaches, a sleeping car from Springfield, Massachusetts, and a Pullman car from Boston. All told, about 80 people were on the train that morning.

There was a jolt as the train approached the bridge abutment. The rear sleeper jumped the tracks and fell from the bridge onto the frozen river 40 feet below, taking with it the three cars ahead of it. These cars uncoupled from the front of the train, which was able to get off the bridge to safety. The impact of the fall scattered the coaches, and they almost instantly caught fire, likely from the burning stoves and oil lamps on board. The burning cars then set fire to the bridge, and it, too, collapsed onto the ice.

The Paine house where the wounded were first taken,
and where Conductor Strutevant died February 6.

Reports indicate that the temperature was nearly 20 below zero, and the ice on the river nearly 2 feet thick, so water was not readily available. Unable to abate the fire, survivors and the volunteers who had rushed to the scene placed their efforts on getting as many people as possible out of the wreckage before the flames made it impossible be near the train. Accounts vary, but approximately 35 people died in the crash and fire, and another 40 were injured, making this the worst rail disaster in Vermont.

South abutment from the ice,
showing broken trucks, etc., in foreground

This photograph of the disaster, along with several others, were taken by Hanover photographer H.H.H. Langell. During the subsequent investigation, he also photographed the section of flawed rail blamed for the accident.

Ask for the "Hartford, Vermont Bridge Disaster" photo file and the "Hartford (Vermont) Bridge Wreck" vertical file to find out more about this incident.

Audubon: Birds, and Mammals Too

As today is the 226th birthday of John James Audubon, it seemed fitting to write an entry about him. Since we've posted previously about the double elephant folio edition of Birds of America and why our set has special meaning here at Dartmouth, we turn to a lesser known, but equally impressive work, Quadrupeds of North America.

After the success of Birds of America, Audubon set out to produce a companion book focusing on American mammals. Drawing the mammals from life was more challenging than it had been with the birds, as many of the animals were nocturnal. In addition, Audubon was becoming increasingly frail and was unable to travel to the extent that the work necessitated. His health failing, Audubon could not complete all of the drawings; his son, John Woodhouse Audubon, did many of them. His son Victor Gilford created the backgrounds and most of the text was written by Rev. John Bachman, a naturalist and clergyman. The last of the three volumes appeared in 1848; Audubon died three years later.

Canada Lynx

Ask for Rauner Rare QL715 .A92 (3 vols.) to see our edition of the Quadrupeds.

Happy 300th Birthday, Eleazar!

It may not be a national holiday, but today is the 300th birthday of the Rev. Eleazar Wheelock, Dartmouth’s founder and demiurge. Born on April 22, 1711 in Windham Connecticut, Wheelock showed great promise from a young age. While attending Yale as a member of the class of 1733, he was awarded the Berkley Scholarship for academic excellence. Upon his graduation and acceptance into the Congregationalist ministry, Wheelock crisscrossed New England igniting spiritual fervor in the hearts and minds of men as one of the more successful preachers of the Great Awakening.

In an effort to supplement his meager ministerial salary, Wheelock began boarding and preparing young men for their college matriculation. One such pupil was a young Mohegan, Samson Occom, who showed such promise and agility of mind that Wheelock was inspired to found a school with the express purpose of educating Native Americans, so that they might return to their own communities as missionaries and schoolmasters. However, Wheelock envisioned a far larger undertaking than could be accommodated in his Connecticut farm house. Following a fundraising trip to Europe, led by Occom and Nathanial Whitaker, Wheelock finally had sufficient backing to found his college in the woods. Dartmouth College received its royal charter on December 13,1769, and in August 1770, Wheelock’s students marched over 100 miles to the school’s new location in Hanover, New Hampshire.

Eleazar Wheelock died in Hanover in 1779. One can’t help but wonder what Rev. Wheelock would think of his small college in the wilderness if he were able to see Dartmouth today.

Posted for Jo Meyer '11.

Leavitt's Maps of the White Mountains

Franklin Leavitt was a farmer from Lancaster, New Hampshire who supplemented his income by acting as a guide for visitors to the White Mountains.  Around 1851, apparently having concluded that there was enough interest in the region, he decided to create a map of the area and sell it to tourists.  Though his map included some rudimentary information about distances between major cities and area attractions, it was not to be used as a travel aid, but rather act as a souvenir of the trip.

Published in 1852, the first edition had north at the bottom of the map and included small vignettes of area hotels and local attractions. Later editions of Leavitt's maps, including the 1854 edition shown here, re-oriented the drawing so that north faced the more conventional top of the sheet and added additional illustrations.

The Willey Family Tragedy.

One of these pictorial views tells the tale of the destruction of the Willey family.  In 1826, the Willey family became concerned that a landslide might destroy their house and so built a shelter in what was supposed to be a safer location.  In a twist of tragic irony, when the feared slide did occur, a large boulder near the house diverted the slide around the house while flattening the "safer" shelter that the Willey's and their hired hands hand just taken refuge in.

Rauner holds all eight editions of Leavitt's maps, including the rare 1876 version.  Ask for Iconography 1294 to see the maps.

The Wandering Poet of New Hampshire

This blog began its life as a way to mark this week in U.S. history, particularly the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, and the week in which Lincoln was assassinated four years later, 15 April 1865. Somewhere along the line, however, it took a turn toward the work of George Gordon Byron DeWolfe, “The Wandering Poet of New Hampshire.”

According to Bela Chapin’s The Poets of New Hampshire, George G.B. DeWolfe was born in Canada in 1835. He left home at the age of twenty to come to the United States where he started his career traveling from place to place, writing verses on people and events. Many of his verses were printed as broadsides, and Dartmouth holds eight of them, including this one on the assassination of President Lincoln.

DeWolfe’s poetry documented a wide range of topics, from murder and disaster, to visits by famous people. Dartmouth’s collection of his broadsides is fairly representative of his work, including a beach gathering in Salisbury, a celebration in Londonderry and President Grant’s visit to Nashua… along with a murder, an assassination and a fire.

Sadly, the College does not own his last broadside, published three years after his death, the verse composed by DeWolfe from beyond the grave through the mediumship of Miss Lillie.

Ask for Broadside 000099 to see the original.

Selling Huck Finn

It sure looks like Huck Finn, but it's not. A closer inspection of this rather slim volume of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn reveals that it is not all there. No, it is not an expurgated edition designed to satisfy censorious school boards, but a sample volume used by book sellers to market the first edition.

In the 19th century, many rural areas did not have book stores. At that time, the traveling book seller was still a major component of the book distribution network in the United States. This salesman's sample book featured the gold stamped publisher's binding, the table of contents, a list of illustrations and enough text to get a feel for the novel. Emphasis was placed on the physical qualities of the book and nearly all of the sample pages are illustrated. Two alternate de-luxe bindings are also displayed. At the end are eight pages of blank ruled paper for orders. This copy, which we recently acquired, has 12 signatures representing orders from the town of Edinburg (perhaps Indiana). None opted for the more expensive bindings.  Take a look by asking for Rare PS1305 .A3 1885.

Bindings options

Orders

An Open Polar Sea

Early expeditions to the Arctic attempted to force their way through sea ice in hopes of finding a practical northwest trade route to the East Indies, but even after unpredictable ice conditions and extreme cold made it clear that the tantalizing shortcut was impractical, if not impossible, explorers continued to push their ships and crews into the Arctic's icy waters.

One reason for the persistence of these explorers was a theory that the seas around the pole were not covered in ice, but open and easily navigable--if the explorers could only push their way through the thick ring of ice surrounding those warmer waters.

The theory of the open polar sea was persistent, with roots stretching back to the 1600s and lasting late into the 19th century. Its proponents included many prominent figures in the history of Arctic exploration, including Danes Barrington, a powerful politician in the British Admiralty, and Elisha Kent Kane, a famous and popular American explorer.

A number of authors published books and pamphlets in support of the open polar sea theory, including American hydrographer Silas Bent. Bent writes with conviction in An Address Delivered before the St. Louis Mercantile Library Association, January 6th, 1872, upon the Thermal Paths to the Pole, the Currents of the Ocean, and the Influence of the Latter upon the Climates of the World, arguing that warm ocean currents moving north from the equator must surely create an ice-free zone around the pole.

Despite reports from whalers and explorers of impenetrable sea ice in the northern oceans, some armchair theorizers and even British naval officials remained convinced of the existence of an open polar sea well into the nineteenth century.

Ask for Stefansson G615 .B42 to explore this curiosity yourself.

Posted for Anne Peale '11