trackman started their tour of inspection. The train, consisting of the W. L. Wood and one car left the flooded Hempstead depot at 8 P.M.
Near Woodfield station the trainmen approached Schodack Brook and observed the large lake against the railroad embankment. The trains, which were running backward for lack of a turntable at Hempstead, moved over the brook slowly. The light coach passed over the spot, but the engine suddenly collapsed through the roadbed and tumbled into the water below, dragging the coach with it. The boiler on the engine exploded with a roar, tearing a hole in the embankment and blowing the car to pieces. Four of the crew were killed almost at once, and three injured.
The subsequent investigation disclosed that the dirt under the track had been washed away sufficiently to fit a barrel into the space. Evidently the frozen earth held up the track sufficiently to permit the light coach to pass safely, but the heavier engine broke through. It is interesting to note in passing that the Woodfield disaster is the oldest railroad wreck on Long Island of which an actual photograph survives.
The accident shut down the Hempstead Branch altogether, there being no other rolling stock. In June the court opened hearings on the bond dispute between Smith and White, and when White was called to the stand, some interesting testimony was elicited. White testified that he had received only $5000 of the $100,000 promised to him to build the branch. He alleged that Vandewater Smith borrowed the bond book of the company at the time the road was completed in September 1870, took it to New York, and when the book was returned to him, $80,000 in bonds had been cut out. They were soon heard of in Wall Street and White found out upon investigation that the bonds had been pledged with a well-known banker. To protect himself, White then had taken the engine off the road, whereupon the directors arrested him for stealing the locomotive, but he was discharged. Subsequently, he commenced an action to recover the bonds, the result of which was in his favor. It was then that the Brooklyn Trust Co. had given a loan on the road, and shortly afterwards, it fell into the hands of the South Side RR to operate. White, rather than pay storage for his engine and cars, allowed them to use the equipment. The South Side purchased
