On
the evening of the 12th day of March, 1857, one of the saddest
calamities that Hamilton has ever been visited with occurred at the Desjardins
canal. The train from Toronto, due in this city at 6 o’clock, with 90
passengers on board, went down through the bridge into the canal and 59 lives
were lost. There were two passenger coaches in the train and a combined baggage
and mail car. The train approached the bridge over the canal at a slow rate of
speed, and when the locomotive ran to the bridge, the wheels left the track,
and cutting through the timbers of the bridge weakened it so that it broke when
the engine passed the center, and the engine, baggage car and the first
passenger coach tumbled into the canal, breaking through the ice, which was
nearly two feet thick. The bridge was sixty feet above the level of the canal.
The first passenger coach turned over in its descent, and went into the canal,
roof downward, and in it were about sixty of the passengers. The second coach
fell endways with its hind trucks hanging to the end of the bridge. Of the four
trainmen who were in the baggage car, one escaped by jumping before the car
left the bridge, and the other three went down into the canal but miraculously
escaped with but slight injuries. The engineer and fireman went down with the
engine and their bodies were not recovered for a couple of days. It was but a
few minutes after the accident till word reached the town, and the fire alarm
was rung and hundred rushed out to the canal. Two companies of the local
volunteer militia were got together, under Capts. Booker and Macdonald, and did
good service in keeping back the crowds who were pressing to the front to the
hindrance of those who were at work rescuing the living and taking the dead
from the cars. Locomotive headlights were lined along the bank of the bay,
giving light to the rescuers. Those who were in the last coach dropped down to
the lower end, and while a majority of them were saved yet they were badly injured.
There was a family consisting of father and mother and four children, and only
one of the children was saved. One, a little girl four years old, was taken out
of the car smiling prettily as if she had been dreaming sweetly when the
accident occurred, and had been launched into the eternal sleep of death before
the smile and the dream had passed. Nearly every passenger in the first coach
was either drowned or killed, for of the 90 who were on the train only 59 could
be accounted for when all the bodies had been identified.
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Among the dead were seventeen whose
homes were in Hamilton, namely: Donald Stuart, merchant and ex-alderman; John
Sharpe, book peddler; Rev. Alfred Booker,
pastor of the Baptist church; Erastus W.
Green; Edward Duffield, ex-mate of the Europa; the two year old daughter of Mr.
Clare, merchant; Rev. Mr. Heise, Episcopalian minister of the Germans; Mrs. P.
S. Stevenson, John Henderson, Captain James Sutherland, Adam Ferrie, Mary and
Ellen Devine, and Mrs. Beck and two children. Mr. Clare, the merchant, whose
two year old daughter was killed, received severe injuries.
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The pulpits in Hamilton were filled in
those days with men of eloquence and learning, and among them was Rev. Alfred
Booker, who had been pastor of the Baptist church for more than twenty years
when death came to him. It was his custom to hold services at Wellington Square
every Thursday afternoon, and it was when returning on that fatal evening that
his life went out in the first coach that tumbled into the canal. At the
funeral services, held on the following Monday, Rev. Mr. Harper, a Methodist
minister in this city, conducted the services. The artillery company, of which
the son of the deceased was captain, acted as guard of honor in the funeral
procession and at the grave in the cemetery. The Park street Baptist church was
crowded, and at the close of the service, it was suggested that a collection be
taken up to assist in erecting a monument
in the cemetery in memory of the beloved pastor, and only $90 were
contributed.
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The Monday following the night of the
accident was solemnly set apart by the mayor as a day of fasting and prayer,
when all business was suspended in order to give opportunity to attend the
funerals, many of the killed being buried on Monday afternoon. In those days an
accident such as happened was looked upon as “the stern and seemingly decrees
of the Almighty,” and the Young Men’s Christian Association held a meeting on
the same night, and the subject for discussion was “The certainty of the
fulfillment of God’s threatened judgments and promised mercies,” which was
considered by the committee as one very appropriate for a day of humiliation
and prayer. People have learned a brighter theology in the past 46 years, and
great calamities are not charged as the wrath of God. “God of our father, what
is man!” was the exclamation of the Spectator the morning after the accident.
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The ghouls were at hand on the night
of the accident to rifle the bodies of the dead, but they were not successful.
One thief was caught in the act by a railroad man and was felled to the ground
with a blow, from which he did not recover till he was in the hands of the
police. The valuables found on the bodies were taken charge of and placed in
safe keeping.
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Samuel Zimmerman, a wealthy railroad
contractor and banker, whose home was at Niagara Falls, was one of the victims
of the accident. He was on his way home from Toronto. An American by birth, he
came to Niagara Fall about 1843, and only a poor laborer when he arrived in
Canada, but he was a man who was bound to climb up the ladder. He became a
subcontractor and then a contractor, and when the Great Western railway was
being built, he was successful in making money. Being a prominent Mason, that
order gave him a large funeral, which was attended by Masons from this city.
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Alexander Burnfield, a native of
Perthshire, Scotland, aged 29 years, was in charge of the ill-fated engine, and
George Knight, the fireman, was 18 years of age. Both of them could have saved
their lives by jumping from the engine when the wheels began to bump on the
timbers, but the engineer, probably, hoped to stop the engine and save his
train. A monument was erected to their memory in the cemetery, and stands there
today as a reminder of the terrible loss of life 46 years ago. On the top of
the monument is a model of a locomotive engine, emblematic of the calling of
the brave Burnfield, who lies in the grave alongside of it. Knight was buried
in Windsor, the home of his parents.
While all was excitement after the
accident, there was talk of a memorial shaft, to be built by public
subscription, to commemorate the sad event. Plans were submitted and estimates
made of the probable cost, about $14,000; but the accident was soon forgotten,
except by those who had been bereaved by the loss of friends, and the movement
was also forgotten.
Negotiations were begun looking to the
closing of the canal as a navigable water course, and the building of a
permanent bridge across it, as the swing bridge was liable at any time to get
out of place and cause another accident. The Dundas people consented to the
plan on condition that the Great Western would build a track out to the town
and give them direct railroad communication to the center of the town from
Hamilton. For a time this was under discussion, but finally abandoned. At the
time, small steamers were run from the wharves in Hamilton to Dundas, handling
all the freight that came up the lakes for that port, and bringing down
passengers for the early morning boats to Toronto and Niagara Falls, and for
evening excursions on the bay and out into the lake.
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