Lately I’ve been studying various tragedies in our regional history. In the process I’ve learned more about what I think are the worst death tolls for several types of events in Steuben County – though I’m ready to hear if I’ve missed anything.
*The Avoca Bus Crash, December 14, 1943, I believe to have caused our county’s biggest death toll in a HIGHWAY ACCIDENT. Orval Putnam was driving a 1936 Chevrolet bus carrying workers mostly from Avoca, but also with pickups at Kanona, Bath, and Savona, heading to Ingersoll Rand in Painted Post where they were employed as defense workers. The bus was being operated by the Steuben County War Council.
*At a bend in Campbell, the bus was sideswiped by an oncoming tractor-trailer at about 5:30 AM — still pretty dark in December. It appears that the tractor-trailer strayed over the centerline.
*The bus was thrown over onto its right side, making a second impact and also tossing passengers about, plus making it difficult to exit. In addition to that the bus also caught fire, perhaps from a kerosene heater in the front. Eleven men, including the driver, were killed (ages 27-52), eight men were injured (ages 17-57). The tractor-trailer also was badly damaged, but stayed upright. From what I can tell, that driver was not badly injured.
*Eight widows brought suit, charging criminal negligence, and the cases were eventually settled out of court. In year 2000 a monument commemorating the tragedy was erected in Avoca, and dedicated on the fourth of July.
*(The next worst highway event seems to be the August 23, 1934 single-vehicle crash in Jasper in which six members of the Cady family were killed, along with an unborn child. Three family members survived.)
*The worst RAILWAY ACCIDENT was on July 4, 1912, when a Delaware, Lackawanna passenger train, carrying holiday-makers from Hoboken to Niagara Falls, was stopped in early morning fog half a mile east of Gibson station. A second passenger train plowed into it going at least 65 miles per hour. The rear two cars were telescoped, and in all 41 people were killed.
*One of the newspapers reported that the steam locomotive “remained on the roadbed to hiss and snarl for the next three or four hours while thousands of human beings rushed to the scene of its desolation in every kind of vehicle, to lift and pry the dead and injured from their bloody berths.”
*There were also plenty of gawkers, of course, but frantic rescuers rushed the 41 dead and 88 injured to Corning and Elmira. This was our worst railroad accident, and although more people died in epidemics, it is almost certainly the worst single-incident death toll in Steuben history.
*(The August 30, 1943 sideswiping in Wayland took 29 lives, mostly by scalding with steam. Many more were injured, with hospitals as far away as Bath and Rochester taking in victims. Our second-worst rail tragedy took place in the middle of World War II; the dead included the railroad’s superintendent of locomotives – crushed despite trying to jump clear of the cab – and the production manager for Mercury Aircraft. In future columns we’ll look at our worst fires, floods, and epidemics.)