From time to time over the past few months in this space we’ve looked at Steuben County’s worst train wreck (Gibson, 1912), highway wreck (Campbell, 1943), fire (Bath poorhouse, 1878), epidemic (Spanish influenza, 1918-19), and flood (June 1972).

*And certainly there were other very serious examples of each type of disaster. But there’s one tragedy worth noting that’s very difficult to classify. It’s not exactly a highway accident, and not exactly a railroad accident. Perhaps it’s the worst rail vehicle/road vehicle crash, and almost certainly the worst accident involving draft animals.

*The tragedy began to take shape on January 29, 1905, when Hornell’s First Universalist Church celebrated its first service in its new facility – still unfinished at the time. The Ladies Aid Society took advantage of leftovers from the celebration and moved up the date of planned sleigh ride. They would ride on February 1 to the home of Mrs. Martin Baldwin, outside Arkport, where their gathering would double as a 68th birthday celebration for Jane Graves.

*After a fine visit they left a little after six, as the dark was gathering, packed into two sleighs. South of Arkport a third sleigh fell into line, just by coincidence.

*At a railroad crossing occupants of the first sleigh saw a locomotive’s headlight, but the driver assumed that it was in the distant Shawmut rail yard. He crossed the tracks safely, but by then it had become clear that this was on oncoming train… in fact, the Angelica Express, steaming along at about 30 miles an hour.

*Those in the first sleigh shouted and waved for the second sleigh to stop. Maybe it was their unexpected noise and frantic activity, maybe it was the oncoming train, maybe something else known only to horses, but both animals drawing the second sleigh spooked. Driver Elijah Quick stopped them, then tried to get them moving again. But the inertia of a heavily-laden sleigh was too much. The train slammed right into the sleigh, finally managing to stop (inertia at work again) about a hundred yards down).

*The passengers had been able to see the train coming, but heavily bundled and packed tightly into the sleigh, none of them were able to jump out in time. The driver of the third sleigh raced to alert St. James Hospital, while someone from the first sleigh found a phone in a nearby farmhouse. Most of the dead and injured were lain in the baggage car and the train backed up to Hornell – with two women still trapped in the locomotive’s pilot.

*When all was said and done ten women died, including Mrs. Graves whose birthday it was. Three other women were injured, along with the driver. Both horses appeared unscathed.

*Ten such deaths would be devastating to any community, but in this case there was also the smaller church community. Back where I come from in Rhode Island, Christ Episcopal Church in Westerly lost ten members of its mothers’ group, plus a young boy who had gone along with his mother on their picnic, when the 1938 hurricane crashed in by surprise. The church still keeps their memory alive.

*And First Universalist would do the same, no doubt, if it could. Despite the loss they finished their edifice, installing a Tiffany window honoring the dead. But neither congregation nor edifice (which was diagonally across from the Baptist church) still exist today. The window was sold into private hands, but has lately been exhibited in a Chicago Museum.