Compiled by PHILO HALL

for the Northfield News

125 Years Ago The Northfield News

February 9, 1887 3 cents a copy/ $1.50 a year George H. Richmond, Editor

The most terrible accident that ever occurred on the Central Vermont railroad happened Saturday morning about 2:50 o’clock, about two miles this side of Hartford station. The Boston mail train, No. 50, due at Northfield at 3 o’clock a.m., Smith Sturtevant conductor and Charles Pierce engineer, was wrecked while passing over what is called the Woodstock bridge, and a large number of lives were lost…The train pulled out of White River Junction something more than an hour late and was driving ahead at probably more than the usual rate of speed. Just before the bridge was reached the breaking of a rail threw the hind car from the track, the engine, tender, mail and baggage care got safely across the bridge but this last car on the train pulled the others from the track and the two passenger coaches and two Pullman cars were thrown off the bridge into the ice below, a distance of over fifty feet. To add to the terrible condition of things the stoves soon set the cars on fire and communicating with the bridge that structure was soon in flames and in a short time the cars and bridge were in ashes, and half the passengers at least were burned to death. Brakeman George Parker jumped from the platform of one of the cars before it went down and although badly bruised he succeeded in alarming the people in the vicinity and at White River Junction, who hastened to the scene…The scenes at the disaster when the fire broke out were terrible and the unwilling witnesses of the horror each have a story of the sights they beheld, the recital of which causes the blood of their listeners to run cold…There is much doubt as to the number who have perished in this disaster… The statement of the number found also varies; the railroad officials claimed Monday that there was less than one hundred passengers on board the train and that 28 were killed together with 5 employees…Mr. P.B. Albee, a commercial traveler… stated at the Northfield House, Monday evening, that he went into the morgue Monday morning and counted 38 bodies which together with the bodies afterwards found…would bring the total to nearly fifty...The work of putting up a trestle bridge is going rapidly forward and trains will be running as usual by the middle of next week.

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The President has approved the interstate commerce bill, in spite of the many predictions that it would be vetoed. The bill has been ably supported and as ably opposed, but now that it is a law we have only to wait to see the benefit and disadvantages of the measure throughout the country.

100 Years Ago The Northfield News

February 6, 1912 3 cents a copy/ $1.50 a year Fred N. Whitney, Editor

Never was there a better exemplification of the true spirit of democracy than in Cardinal Farley’s refusal to dance attendance upon the Connaught ducal bunch that sojourned in New York for the better part of last week. As the son of his worthy mother, the late Queen Victoria, the Duke of Connaught is entitled to the same respect that should be given an equally unobjectionable son of an equally worthy mother. The class, however, to which Connaught belongs has never been kind to the land from which Cardinal Farley and the many thousands of great Irish Americans sprung. The new prince of the Catholic church in America did just right.

75 Years Ago News & Advertiser

February 11, 1938 5 cents a copy/ $2 a year John E. Mazuzan, Editor

A total of $445.38 has been raised by Northfield in the recent flood relief drive. The local executive board of the Red Cross expresses its appreciation of the generous response made by the whole town and of the splendid cooperation of the canvassers, who were under the leadership of Mrs. K.M. Woodin.

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The Chamber of Commerce at its February meeting at the Legion Home Monday night…decided to further press the matter of securing a swimming pool for Northfield…when it was learned there is a possibility that the brook which comes down from Paine Mountain north of Slate Avenue may afford a site for a swimming pool.

50 Years Ago News & Advertiser

February 8, 1962 5 cents a copy/ $2 a year John E. Mazuzan, Editor

Featured at the business meeting of the Ladies’ Reading Circle held at the Margaret Holland Inn Monday was the report of Mrs. Clayton Wells on her work as chairman of the community treesaving project. She had been in conference with Mr. Simon of the State Forestry Service and is investigating the possibility of having Northfield elms sprayed. • Today’s the day Gov. F. Ray Keyser, Jr. receives the $10,000 study report from the Coverdale and Colpitts on the Rutland Railway, strikebound now for 130 days. We haven’t seen it, but best guesstimates are that it’ll show that IF the striking workers would go back to their jobs at the pre-strike pay scales, and IF management somehow could attract back the same volume of freight traffic they had a year or so ago, then the Rutland Railway might be able to operate in the black…the report may show that if 1920-style featherbedding practices could be eliminated, the little Rutland could become a reasonably profitable operation. But in light of the facts…the sooner Interstate Commerce Commission grants the abandonment application, the sooner Vermont will see rail service resumed. The operating brotherhoods, not only in Vermont, but nationally, want the railroads to operate under the same rules that worked back in the ‘20s when the railroads DID enjoy a monopoly. But with the razorkeen competition that exists among the freight-haulers today – air, truck, and rail – the railroads just don’t have the gravy train they had 40 years ago.

25 Years Ago Northfield News

February 12, 1987 25 cents a copy/ $2 a year Erik Nelson, Editor A planning Commission hearing will be held March 2 on two Norwich University proposals. Norwich wants permission to land helicopters on Disney Field, and also wants to build a cemetery on Dole Hill for Alumni and other University personnel. • Leslie G. Seaver, President of the Northfield Savings Bank, announced that the bank enjoyed record earnings of $3,285,777 in 1986 compared to $2,759,015 in 1985. This strong operating performance increased the Bank’s capital position from 6.83% on December 31, 1985 to 7.45% on December 31, 1986.