John Quincy Adams Digital Diary

8. V. Friday.— From New-York to Philadelphia.

Blessed! ever Blessed be the name of God! that I am alive, and have escaped unhurt from the most dreadful Catastrophe, that ever my eyes beheld— We arrived at New-York, at half past six this Morning— I took leave of Mr Harrod, his daughter, my niece Elizabeth, and Mr Gourgas—took a Hack with Mr Potter, and crossed from the East to the North-River; put my baggage into the Steam-boat Independence Captain Douglas and walked to the City Hotel— I found that my wife and family proceeded thence last Monday on their way to Washington— There was a card of invitation, to attend a public dinner to be given to Commodore Chauncey to-morrow, to which I wrote a declining answer. I then returned to the Steam boat, which left the wharf at eight and landed the Passengers at Amboy about twenty minutes past ten. The boat was crowded almost to suffocation; and people of every land and language seemed congregated in it— Among the rest a whole tribe of Wild Irish, whose language I now for the first time heard spoken. The only persons of the passengers whom I knew, were David B. Ogden of New-York, and Dr. M’Dowell, whom Dr Condict introduced to me last winter at Washington, and who was then a Professor at Princeton College; but has since left it, and has removed to Philadelphia— There were upwards of 200 passengers in the Rail-road Cars— There were two Locomotive Engines, A and B. each drawing an Accommodation Car, a sort of moving Stage, in a Square, with open railing— A Platform and a row of benches holding forty or fifty persons—then four or five Cars, in the form of large Stage Coaches, each in three Compartments with doors of entrance on both sides, and two opposite benches on each of which sat four passengers— Each train was closed with a high quadrangular open railed baggage waggon, in which the baggage of all the passengers in the train was heaped upon the whole covered with an Oil-Cloth— I was in Car B N. 1. and of course in the second train— Of the first ten miles, two were run in four minutes marked by a watch of a Mr De Yong in the same Car and division with me— They stopped, oiled the Wheels and proceeded— We had gone about five Miles further, and had traversed one mile in one minute and 36 Seconds, when the front left wheel of the Car in which I was, having taken fire and burnt for several minutes, slip’d off the rail— The pressure on the right side of the Car then meeting resistance, raised it with both wheels from the rail, and it was oversetting, on the left side; but the same pressure on the Car immediately behind, raised its left side from the rail, till it actually overset, to the right, and in oversetting brought back the Car in which I was to stand on its four wheels, and saved from injury all the Passengers in it— The train was stopp’d I suppose within five seconds of the time when our wheel slip’d off the Rail; but it was then going at the rate of 60 feet in a second, and was dragg’d nearly two hundred feet before it could stop. Of sixteen persons in two of the three compartments of the Car that overset, one only escaped unhurt— A Doctor Cuyler— One side of the Car was staved in and almost demolished. One man, John C. Stedman of Raleigh, North Carolina, was so dreadfully mangled, that he died within ten minutes. Another named I believe Welles, of Pennsylvania can probably not survive the day. Captain Vanderbilt had his leg broken, as had Mr West; Minister of the Episcopal Church at Newport Rhode-Island— Mrs Bartlett wife of Lieutenant Bartlett of the U.S. Corps of Engineers, and her Sister dangerously hurt—her child, about three years old, is not expected to live. Mr and Mrs Charless of St. Louis, Missouri, severely cut and bruised; a Mr Dreyfuss of Philadelphia, cut in the head, and sprained in the back and six other persons, among whom are Doctor M’Dowell, and a young 179Lady with him gashed in the head and otherwise wounded— The Scene of sufferance was excruciating. Men, women, and a child, scattered along the road, bleeding, mangled, groaning, writhing in torture and dying, was a trial of feeling, to which I had never before been called—and when the thought came over me that a few seconds more of pressure on the car in which I was would in all probability have laid me a prostrate Corpse, like him who was before my eyes, or a cripple for life—and, more insupportable still,—what if my wife and grandchild had been in the Car behind me! Merciful God! how can the infirmity of my Nature express or feel the Gratitude that should swell in my bosom, that this torture, a thousand fold worse than death, has been spared me— At my request a Coroner’s inquest was called upon the deceased.— The other dying man, was left at Hightstown, 3 miles beyond where the disaster happened, and after a detention of nearly three hours, the train was resumed, and leaving the two broken cars behind, the rest proceeded to Bordentown 35 miles from Amboy. The Coroner’s inquest held by a magistrate, of the County had been sworn, and I had given my testimony before we left the fatal spot— Several of the wounded were left at Hightstown— The rest were transported on Cushions from the Cars over the Rail-way to Bordentown; and thence with us in the Steam boat New Philadelphia, to Philadelphia— On reaching the wharf, the Revd. Mr Brackenridge came on board, and told me he had heard I had been seriously injured, by the Accident on the Railway— Apprehensive that such rumours might circulate and reach my family, I wrote on board the Steamboat, to my wife at Washington and to my Son Charles at Boston, and despatched the Letters to the Post-Office at Philadelphia. We landed at Chesnut Street wharf between six and seven in the Evening, and I took lodgings with Mr Potter at the United States Hotel— I resolved to proceed on my Journey to-morrow morning, but called and spent an hour of the Evening at Mr John Sergeant’s— Mr Crommelin came in, while I was there.