The electric train in the Thoroughfare (1906)

The first reports

On October 28, 1906, a three-car electric train derailed at the Thoroughfare drawbridge as it approached Atlantic City. The next morning’s New-York Tribune described two cars submerged and a third hanging long enough for some passengers to escape through windows. The site was a working drawbridge, not an open stretch of track; a later photograph of the wreck is preserved in the New Jersey State Library’s postcard collection.

The Tribune’s first report estimated 70 deaths. A contemporary October 29 dispatch reprinted by Genealogy Trails put the count at 53 while two known victims had not yet been recovered. Newspaper tallies continued to change as bodies were found and identified. Neither number is a final tally established by the sources inspected here.

From a loose rail theory to a jury finding

A November 5 Morning Oregonian dispatch reported that Coroner Gaskill considered a misplaced rail a likely cause after consulting an expert, while the inquest was still in progress. A November 15 newspaper account then reported that the coroner’s jury placed blame on bridge tender Daniel Stewart after disagreement over several points. The account said he would face a criminal-negligence charge; it does not establish that he was convicted or settle the bridge’s precise mechanical failure. The difference between an investigative theory, an inquest finding, and a criminal judgment matters here.