The Missing Tin Box or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds

These essentially simultaneous actions would bring about the capture of Chattanooga. Andrews' Raid was intended to deprive the Confederates of the integrated use of the railways to respond to a Union advance, using their interior lines of communication. When the Union Army threatened Chattanooga, the Confederate States Army would from its naturally protected rear first reinforce Chattanooga's garrison from Atlanta.

When sufficient forces had been deployed to Chattanooga to stabilize the situation and hold the line, the Confederates would then launch a counterattack from Chattanooga with the advantage of a local superiority of men and materiel. It was this process that the Andrews raid sought to disrupt. Their plan was to steal a train on its run north towards Chattanooga, stopping to damage or destroy track, bridges, telegraph wires, and track switches behind them, so as to prevent the Confederate Army from being able to move troops and supplies from Atlanta to Chattanooga.

The raiders planned to cross through the Federal siege lines on the outskirts of Chattanooga and rejoin Mitchel's army. Because railway dining cars were not yet in common use, railroad timetables included water, rest, and meal stops.

• Item Preview.
• Our Goal is to Secure Your Identity.
• Bitchy.
• Great Locomotive Chase - Wikipedia!
• A Dragons Whisperer;
• History of the Union Pacific Railroad.

They chose Big Shanty because it did not have a telegraph office, and the stop would also be used to refuel and take on water for the steep grade further north. The raid began on April 12, , when the regular morning passenger train from Atlanta, with the locomotive General , stopped for breakfast at the Lacy Hotel. They took the General and the train's three boxcars, which were behind the tender in front of the passenger cars. The passenger cars were left behind. Andrews had previously obtained from the work crew a crowbar for tearing up track.

The train's conductor , William Allen Fuller , and two other men, chased the stolen train, first on foot, then by a handcar belonging to a work crew shortly north of Big Shanty. In addition, the terrain north of Atlanta is very hilly, and the ruling grades are steep. Since Andrews intended to stop periodically to perform acts of sabotage, a determined pursuer, even on foot, could conceivably have caught up with the train before it reached Chattanooga. At Etowah, the raiders passed the older and smaller locomotive Yonah which was on a siding that led to the nearby Cooper Iron Works.

Andrews considered stopping to attack and destroy that locomotive so it could not be used by pursuers, but given the size of its work party even though unarmed relative to the size of the raiding party, he judged that any firefight would be too long and too involved, and would alert nearby troops and civilians. As the raiders had stolen a regularly scheduled train on its route, they needed to keep to that train's timetable.

If they reached a siding ahead of schedule, they had to wait there until scheduled southbound trains passed them before they could continue north. Andrews claimed to the station masters he encountered that his train was a special northbound ammunition movement ordered by General Beauregard in support of his operations against the Union forces threatening Chattanooga. This story was sufficient for the isolated station masters Andrews encountered as he had cut the telegraph wires to the south , but it had no impact upon the train dispatchers and station masters north of him, whose telegraph lines to Chattanooga were working.

These dispatchers were following their orders to dispatch and control the special train movements southward at the highest priority. Thus delayed at the junction town of Kingston, as the first of the southbound freight evacuation trains approached, Andrews inquired of that train's conductor why his train was carrying a red marker flag on its rear car. Andrews was told that Confederate Railway officials in Chattanooga had been notified by Confederate Army officials that Mitchel was approaching Chattanooga from Stevenson, Alabama, intending to either capture or lay siege to the city, and as a result of this warning, the Confederate Military Railways had ordered the Special Freight movements.

The red train marker flag on the southbound train meant that there was at least one additional train behind the one which Andrews had just encountered, and that Andrews had no "authority for movement" until the last train of that sectional movement had passed him. Being delayed at Kingston for over an hour, this gave Fuller all the time he needed to close the distance. The raiders finally pulled out of Kingston only moments before Fuller's arrival.

Download This eBook

They still managed north of Kingston again to cut the telegraph wire and break a rail. Meanwhile, moving north on the handcar, Fuller had spotted the locomotive Yonah at Etowah and commandeered it, chasing the raiders north all the way to Kingston. There, Fuller switched to the locomotive William R. Smith, which was on a sidetrack leading west to the town of Rome, Ga. Two miles south of Adairsville, however, the pursuers were stopped by the broken track, forcing Fuller and his party to continue the pursuit on foot.

Beyond the damaged section, he took command of the southbound locomotive Texas south of Calhoun, where Andrews had passed it, running it backwards. The Texas train crew had been bluffed by Andrews at Calhoun into taking the station siding, thereby allowing the General to continue northward along the single-track main line. Fuller, when he met the Texas , took command of her, picked up eleven Confederate troops at Calhoun, and continued his pursuit.

The raiders now never got far ahead of Fuller and never had enough time to stop and take up a rail to halt the Texas. It was carried on between two men, both well dressed. He, called Allen, was a tall, sharp nosed individual, probably fifty years of age. The other was a short, heavy set fellow, wearing a black mustache, and having a peculiar scowl on his face. They sat in the forward part of the gentlemen's cabin, which was but partly filled with passengers.

Two seats on one side of them were vacant. On the other side sat a shabbily dressed boy of sixteen, his hands clasped on his lap and his eyes closed. The man addressed glanced sharply at the youth. We don't want to run any chances, Allen. But Promontory Point is not where the rails were joined although this misidentification of Promontory Summit as Promontory Point dates from the time of the joining of the rails.

There were various plans as to where to put the first transcontinental railroad line in relation to the Great Salt Lake. Originally the plan was to go south of Utah's Great Salt Lake, which was also strongly favored by the Mormons who wanted the transcontinental railroad to go through Salt Lake City , but the route through Ogden, around the north end of the Great Salt Lake was shorter and that was what was built in , and where Promontory Summit is located.

A government commission's recommendations resulted in agreement and in a law that settled the matter. Lewis Metzler Clement was a railroad commissioner. Promontory Point not where the rails were joined is at the southern end of a peninsula that juts into the Great Salt Lake from its northern shore. In the location of the rail line was changed to cut across the middle of the Great Salt Lake on a long causeway the Lucin cutoff. What was the name of the first train or engine that went across the continental United States?

Several trains were present at the ceremony on May 10, Regarding the first load of cargo and passengers: A Great and Shining Road. Moguls and Iron Men. The oral history of the McDonald family records that the passengers on the first transcontinental train from the east were able to attend the joining of the rails ceremony on May 10th. Coincidentally, the cornerstone was laid for the Ogden House that same day, so a substantial celebration was held, with Mayor Bloomer leading the lengthy parade from the Ogden House to the depot where the C. Silver Horse was joined by 4 other engines.

Despite a drenching rain, the entire community joined the band, the engine whistles, and numerous cannons in a rather noisy celebration. How many Transcontinental railroads were there in ? There were many routes across North America in involving the following railroads in the West in order from North to South:. You can see all the western routes on a UPRR railroad map dated from the Library of Congress although only the Union Pacific lines are shown in bold.

Essentially all the routes contemplated by the 's in the Pacific Railroad Surveys were completed by Also, there were an even greater number of routes from the east coast to the Missouri river. For example, for the western part of the trip you could use the Union Pacific System across Nebraska or across Kansas, and could continue to the pacific northwest via the Oregon Short Line, or could go to California via the Central Pacific.

They were not lounging in the caboose or engine cab. That took nerve, coordinatiom, timing, and a perfect sense of balance to go over the top of a freight train — Winter or summer, rain, snow, sleet, ice all over the roofs, and on brake wheels and handholds. Where can I find out more about Chinese railroad workers?

What information is available about African American transcontinental railroad construction and other workers? According to "Moguls and Iron Men" by James McCague, included in the Union Pacific's mostly Irish construction workers was a " three-hundred-man force of Negro freedmen of whom little is known except that they were said to have made good workers" [p. Perhaps surprising in California, but there seems to have been a fair sized African-American community in the state back then. I've also come across mentions of the African-American community in Sacramento during that period, larger than one might expect.

Or you could write your check to the U. Department of Health and Human Services. Which would you choose — and why? I am doing a report for school on the building of the bridges and tunnels for the transcontinental R. I would like to know how many there are and how they were built? Four of these are on the Union Pacific and fifteen on the Central. The tunnels of the Central Pacific are nearly all near the summit The tunnels were blasted out of solid rock with black powder that came in 25 lb.

Nitroglycerine was introduced in for use on the summit tunnel No. The average daily progress was 1. Many of the photographs in the Exhibits on this website show the construction of the bridges see links below. Also see drawings of the various types of bridges , the RailroadExtra page on bridges , Construction of the Central Pacific Railroad and the discussion of tunnels and bridges in the Commissioners Report. A bridge was built over the Sacramento River in Hope that this helps with your report. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.

Where can I buy copies of photographic prints of the Golden Spike Ceremony May 10, at Promontory, Utah where the rails were joined? A poster showing the famous A. The Oakland Museum website similarly states that they make available reproductions of images from their collection, including the large format A.

Books , railroad video's , and other railroad posters can be purchased via our on-line CPRR Museum bookshop. For requests for digital images as shown here, on the CPRR Museum website, see rights and permissions. Bridger, WY, May 19, Who was Lewis Metzler Clement? After a day trip by wagon train from St. Judah, to be one of his two chief assistant engineers joining Samuel S. Although he was in Washington, D.

Some such as S. Clement studied engineering at McGill University in Montreal ; UPRR chief engineer Grenville Dodge attended Norwich University in Vermont then traveled west to work on the Illinois Central Railroad and came to Iowa in as a surveyor on the Mississippi and Missouri Railroad; others were either self taught or "apprenticed" with other engineers and learned through on the job training such as S. Montague who began his career at age 22 with the Rock Island and Rockford Railroad as a surveyor's assistant. While the people in the stereographs are not individually identified, see the key to all the portraits included in the famous Thomas Hill painting of "The Last Spike.

When were the original iron rails upgraded to heavier weight steel? The original rail weight was 56 lbs. That rolled iron rail was manufactured in The rail is sometimes incorrectly described as cast iron, but is actually rolled from a cast ingot which is then forged before rolling. The 56 pound per yard iron rail was kept in use through about l, when C. Huntington purchased steel rail manufactured by Terrenoire from Paris, France. The Boston-based ship " Herald of the Morning " that brought the first iron rail from Massachusetts also brought the first Terre Noire steel rail from France.

As the engines and trains got heavier, it was necessary to get larger rail to handle the larger trains. What did the Central Pacific Railroad's corporate logo look like? We don't think that there was a single CPRR corporate logo — railroad corporate logo's were not widely or consistently used prior to the 's. Indeed, from scanning through OG's, seems to have about the same level very few as does But starting in , there seems to be a gradual buildup in the concentration of logos until they become very commonplace by As of , [the Pennsylvania Railroad] did not yet show one.

But the Erie had its familiar diamond as early as A variety of fancy typestyles were used on CPRR bank checks. The CPRR timetable does have a nice map logo. Kenitzer observes that a linen CPRR survey map has an embossed copper CPRR company seal right with a raised train logo in the center surrounded by writing around the edge: The picture in the middle is Note that starting recently, the Union Pacific aggressively protects its logos and trademarks. According to Kyle K. Railroads used heralds for most of their advertising. However, Madison Avenue types Probably what happened is that heralds were etched into zinc printing plates and glued to small blocks of wood.

These could then be handled by a compositor as a single item in page makeup. Thus it is a rather large logotype. Frederic Eugene Ives in invented the swelled gelatin process which makes a mask on a zinc plate which then can be etched in acid. This made it possible to transfer an image from a photographic negative to a printing plate. By interposing a screen between the negative and plate a halftone full range of tones between black and white can be obtained. In the process was sold commercially. Prior to this, images had to be engraved by hand, typically cut into linoleum blocks or steel plates.

This was the necessary technology that made the widescale use of heralds in printing. De Fazio comments that "The logo issue has two branches, as I've read it: I'll speak of the first first. If late-night movies are to believed, personal marks go back at least as far as the Roman empire. But personal marks are not trade marks. Watermarks on paper go quite a way back too, certainly before , and watermarks are surely trade marks.

Makers' marks on precious metal items go a long way back too, and they are surely trade marks too. Wyler, Okie or Hughes date the London assay office to I've not tried to learn whether the London assay office was the first anywhere. That's not to say that makers' marks necessarily also go back to , but it would probably be close, if not coincident in date.

An assay office assays pieces for content and marks them 'hall mark' if satisfactory. Pieces previously had been marked with a unique maker's mark, a die-incised mark. Along these lines, many in the jewelry, precious metal and related trades marked pieces with makers' marks even if content was not controlled by an assay hall. The Hartford Insurance Co. Read, Providence axle washers ; Yale Lock Co. Mather's Sons, Mfrs, NY printing inks.

This list is not exhaustive. Ward's On the Mark: The History and Symbolism of Railroad Emblems. Ward's paper is extensive, and supported by an extensive bibliography. Ward notes that RR's started adopting emblems in the 's. Ward's Table 1 lists emblems trade marks, logos that predate Examples from Ward include: It is the responsibility of every human being to aspire to do something worthwhile, to make the world a better place than the one we found.

Where can I research an ancestor who worked for the railroad? See our Great-Grandfathers' page with links to genealogy resources. You might need the assistance of a professional genealogy researcher. Huntington genealogy My engine now is cold and still, No water does my boiler fill. My coke affords its flame no more, My days of usefulness are o'er. My wheels deny their wonted speed, No more my guiding hand they heed; My whistle - it has lost its tone, Its shrill and thrilling sound is gone; My valves are now thrown open wide, My flanges all refuse to glide; My clacks - alas!

In death I'm stopped, and rest at last. This verse had been used, with only minor differences, on three graves in England, about ten years earlier. Everytime a person dies, a library burns to the ground. Where can I find out about a train wreck? They have existed since the dawn of steam locomotion on railroads and were extant during the two previous centuries when livestock pulled the rolling stock along the track.

For another example, during the period of on the 3. By , the four engines replaced the last of the previous horse power. The pioneering steam trains killed at least six members of the public, including persons saving time by attempting to beat the train to a point of crossing the track. Benjamin Pierce, age 11, the only child of President-elect Pierce, died in a train accident while the Pierce family was en route to Washington, D. Once a date, even an approximate date within months, say is available, tracing information on significant wrecks ca.

The railroad professional journals of that day typically listed wrecks and other significant occurrences, giving not only the dates but also the most basic available details. From there, one can seek out and read the local press. A certain level of skepticism may be appropriate when reading local press descriptions. See Early railroad accidents. The first California Aquarium Car, Reports of railroad accidents between and are cataloged. Shaw, Vail-Ballou Press, , pp.

Appendix X lists significant railroad accidents from to Death Rode the Rails: American Railroad Accidents and Safety, Obamacare According to Chris Baer of the Hagley Museum and Library, starting around the mid's the Railroad Gazette available on microfilm printed a monthly synopsis of all railroad accidents which they apparently culled from newspapers or by polling the railroad companies.

The computer will do all the work. The man will feed the dog. And the dog's job? To bite the man — if he touches the computer. Why are the two rails 4 feet, 8. The railroads already existing in California with which the CPRR might likely connect were laid with a 5' 0" track gauge.

Expecting to be an extension of existing railroads, the gauge was critical. The Pacific Railroad Law itself canceled those plans by requiring initially that the CPRR build its first 40 miles on their own account, so it was imperative that the initial construction be as inexpensive as possible. Imagine the expense to the CP if they had actually tried to build 40 miles directly east from Auburn on their own—as compared to building 40 miles out of Sacramento.

They couldn't have done it. The CP management likely didn't realized immediately that this requirement really forced them to build directly out of Sacramento; it probably took a while to sink in. The gauge question was settled separately from the Pacific Railroad Law—settled by Lincoln rather than Congress. Even when they realized that they were going to have to build out of Sacramento, they would likely still have wanted to share track gauge. They likely didn't expect to acquire the other railroads, but they would probably have expected to interchange rolling stock—at least with the California Central, which they crossed at Junction Roseville.

As it was, when they did connect with the California Central in August , they were unable to interchange. There was talk of laying a third rail on the CP to enable Cal Central equipment to run into Sacramento that way. They would have to have laid two extra rails. The CP foreclosed on a mortgage on the Cal Central's rolling stock—which they had acquired from Sam Brannan , and forced the Cal Central to change its own rail—in February The locomotive Stanford was actually ordered at 5' 0" gauge, and had to be regauged before being shipped.

It was chartered in and built in Authors have stated that it was originally to be built at 5' 2" gauge, but this is unverified. The charter doesn't mention gauge. The RR was actually built at 5' 0" in It was most likely built to that gauge to take advantage of the one locomotive already in California—the Elephant. This engine was brought out in see Jack White's American Locomotives, an engineering history— revised edition.

In other words, the fact that the SVRR and the Cal Central were 5' 0" gauge may have been an accidental consequence of the Elephant already being in California. Charlie Crocker had made sure of that by issuing lifetime passes to Shoshoni, Cheyenne and other local chieftains permitting them to ride the passenger cars, and had also decreed that tribesmen of lesser rank might ride the freight cars free for 30 years. They had their own ideas on how to deal with the Native Americans. When the railroad came out of the Sierra Nevada Mountains into the Nevada flat land they started running into Paiute tribes.

Central Pacific Dignitaries would meet with the Chiefs and offer them treaties. They were offered free passage on the trains, and jobs. They were also told if they gave the railroad problems that the railroad had a great army of men and would defeat them. The Central Pacific at that time started using Paiutes to work on the railroad. As they moved into Shoshone territory they began to use Shoshone workers.

The Central Pacific used both their men and women. It was written by an observer of that day that those Native American women were stronger than the men in back breaking work. The Paiute and Shoshone would work along side the Chinese workers. In , the Central Pacific Railroad reached "French Ford" founded in the late s by a Frenchman named Joe Ginacca who settled on the banks of the Humboldt River and traded with pioneers heading west on the Emigrant Trail to California and Oregon and who also operated a ferry service that transported wagons across the Humboldt which was renamed Winnemucca in honor of a famous Paiute chief.

Dodge wrote that "In In making the surveys, numbers of our men, some of them the ablest and most promising, were killed; and during the construction our stock was run off by the hundred, I might say, by the thousand. The government may take its choice. Did you know that Sohcahtoa helped build the railroad? How many buffalo were there before the transcontinental railroad was begun and how many were left after the completion of the railroad? I have recently come across an old chamber pot, or hand held toilet, that was at one time used by the Central Pacific Railroad. It's a large brass flanged pot with a large handle, and a brass plaque affixed to the front which reads "Notice to Passengers — Do not empty this toilet out of train window — Central Pacific RR.

We wondered about these for quite some time and finally concluded that these are late 20th century novelty items , not genuine antiques, that were produced in two sizes and variously labeled as a Toilet, Chamberpot , or Spittoon. Times for various cities are shown in an table. Nineteenth-Century Timekeeping in America.

I have this Railroad Pocket Watch The CPRR Museum doesn't have information about true " railroad watches " because they were a much later development:. What happened to the " Jupiter " and No. Sic transit gloria mundi:. After the ceremony the two locomotives returned to their regular duties and worked for many years before being retired. In April it was vacated from the equipment rolls and scrapped.

Its four mates had either been scrapped or sold to second-hand locomotive dealers. In President E. Harriman was busy consolidating all his railroads into one system and obviously gave no thought to No. The Central Pacific's "Jupiter" soon became plain No. It was renumbered No. The late Seth Arkills of Globe, first the fireman and then the engineer of No.

Follow the Author

Arkills had developed an affection for No. Beal, asking that the engine be preserved at Globe alongside the station. The letter accomplished nothing, for the Southern Pacific had control of the road by then and the locomotive was worth over a thousand dollars as scrap. Sentiment played no part in their thinking. From "Rendezvous at Promontory: The 'Jupiter' and No. Utah Historical Quarterly, Winter , Vol. Also see the discussion of rail cars at Promontory. Where can I find technical drawings giving exact dimensions of locomotive engines?

Iron Horses to Promontory. Copies of this book are readily available. No original plans for the Jupiter survive; plans were recreated from photographs when a replica was built for the Golden Spike National Historic Site. New York, Praeger, An illustrated vocabulary of terms which designate american railroad cars, their parts and attachments. The Railroad Gazette, New York, Hard to find, but a modern reprint exists.

How many died building the Central Pacific Railroad? While the number is uncertain, probably about Chinese died building the railroad this based on the very specific reports at the time , including some who died in Nevada from smallpox. The engineers reported that 15 or 20 workers died in an avalanche , a year earlier two workers froze to death and were not found until the following spring, and apparently there were a limited number of casualties in the construction of Cape Horn which required the Chinese workers to be lowered on ropes over the cliff edge to blast away the rock, but as best as we can determine descriptions of " thousands David Bain comments that despite the dangers that made transporting nitroglycerine illegal in California, the CPRR "had a surprisingly good safety record" with nitroglycerine manufactured on site by British chemist James Howden to complete blasting the longest summit tunnel.

Unfortunately, there is a myth that "thousands" of Chinese died building the transcontinental railroad that likely arose from a dubious short newspaper article "Bones in Transit" that appeared in the Sacramento Reporter of June 30, see right , which reported "about 20, pounds" of bones shipped by rail for return to China which it equates to "perhaps 1, Chinamen. These inconsistencies have been troublesome.

Newspaper article courtesy G. Wendell Hufman has found another newspaper article that appeared in the Sacramento Union of June 30, above, left , stating that there were only the bones of about 50 Chinese on that train, not 1, as stated in the Sacramento Reporter of June 30, article published by the other Sacramento newspaper on the same day. Moreover, it is important not to lose sight of the sixty-fold reduction in the passenger death rate when travelling by train rather than by using horses — so that the railroad's completion undoubtedly saved vast numbers of lives.

Jack Chen writes in The Chinese of America: From the Beginnings to the Present. No one has recorded the names of those who gave their lives in this stupendous undertaking. It is known that the bones of 1, men were shipped back to China to be buried in the land of their forefathers, but that was by no means the total score. The engineer [John R. Gilliss] recalled that "at Tunnel No. The year before, in the winter of , two wagon road repairers had been buried and killed by a slide at the same location.

The Southern Pacific Railway Co. Partridge, who worked on the line, describes how 3, Chinese builders were driven out of the mountains by the early snow. An old barn collapsed and killed four Chinese. A good many were frozen to death. One is astonished at the fortitude, discipline and dedication of the Chinese railroad workers. Construction Superintendent Strobridge testified: In many instances our camps were carried away by snowslides, and men were buried and many of them were not found until the snow melted the next summer.

Similarly, Stan Steiner, paraphrasing others writes in Fusang: The Chinese Who Built America:. The Chinese death toll was high, though no exact records are available for verification. The Sacramento Reporter of June 30, , reported that a train bearing the accumulated bones of 1, Chinese workers on the Central Pacific passed through Sacramento. Perhaps this can be considered a minimum figure of the loss in Chinese lives.

The Missing Tin Box; Or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds by Edward Stratemeyer - Free Ebook

Then snow fell to such a depth that one whole camp of Chinamen was covered up during the night and parties were digging them out when our informant left. Years later, some of the Chinese railroad workers would journey back to the Sierra Nevada to search for the remains of their colleagues. On these expeditions, known as jup seen you "retrieving deceased friends" , they would hunt for old gravesites, usually a heap of stones near the tracks marked by a wooden stake. Digging underneath the stones, they would find a skeleton next to a wax-sealed bottle, holding a strip of cloth inscribed with the worker's name, birth date, and district of origin.

Elko Independent , Jan. Six cars are strung along the road between here and Toano, and are being loaded with dead Celestials for transportation to the Flowery Kingdom. Six cars, well stuffed with this kind of freight, will be a good day's work. The remains of the females are left to rot in shallow graves while every defunct male is carefully preserved for shipment to the Occident.

A letter dated January 20, from Charles Crocker to Collis Huntington regarding track laying gangs states that: Photos of her, from on, show the effects of the disease on her face. It is unexpected that there would be significant casualties in flat Nevada where the dangerous aspects of the Sierra construction such as blasting, avalanches, and mudslides were lacking. Perhaps these were not construction casualties, but instead were due to the January, smallpox outbreak among the CPRR workers.

In California, as well as Nevada, in , The Chinese cemetery in Auburn today contains only a few bodies, apparently, as in the 's most graves were entered, and the remains shipped to China. The Chinaman ran to the house and gained admittance at the back door.

1. The Missing Tin Box or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds;
2. Verführt von einem Highlander: Roman (Children of the Mist 2) (German Edition).
3. On Jealousy and Envy (With Active Table of Contents).
4. Othon (French Edition)?
5. Identity Theft in Ogden and Brigham City, UT;

Another Chinaman come to assist him, who was beset upon by Burke and Williams, knocked down and bruised in such a way that he died in about an hour afterwards. The first Chinaman will probably not survive. The Chinamen were off duty at the time, and did not deem it their duty to help.

The men went to Toana and gave themselves up, and were brought down and incarcerated in jail on Thursday, to await the action of the Grand Jury. Chris Graves notes further that "There were a lot of Chinese workers in the mines in northern Nevada in For example, the Federal Census, June, for Placerville Nevada says that there were 37 Chinese dwellings in Placerville; of the residents in the town, were Chinese males living in the 37 dwellings; total number of dwellings were 52 in the town.

Two of the Chinese were the town cooks, one was a laborer, four did washing, and were miners. Who is to say that the 6 rail cars, strung out between Elko and Toano weren't picking up some deceased miners, too? This battle took place in May or June, He goes on to say "the soldiers dug a large grave 12 feet square and quite deep, into which the bodies were thrown and it is to be plainly defined by the mat of wild rose bushes that grow in the sunken spot More difficult to validate.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, , page 97, says in part "travellers coming over the road afterwards report finding unburied bodies of Chinese lying exposed along the route. The Mexican War of according to the US War Dept had 1, deaths due to battle, and 10, deaths due to illness.

I shouldn't wonder that if one were to compare the experiences of the soldiers in the War and the railroad workers of , similiar hardships would be surfaced. Chew, great-grandson of two CPRR workers, and author of Nameless Builders of the Transcontinental Railroad attempts to calculate total deaths by adding up numbers he found published in the secondary literature totaling approximately reported fatalities plus the "possibly " reburied figure noted above to reach an estimated total of 1, Chinese workmen killed, but it is not correct to add the number reported killed plus even if correct the number of bodies reported reburied to reach a total, as this double counts the reported fatalities.

Additionally, his estimate is dominated by the single report of "possibly " which seems to itself be an estimate based on an approximate weight of 20, lbs. It is speculation as to what weight should be estimated per corpse, and whether the weight includes a casket, but dividing 20, lbs. While his reliance on secondary sources and calculations of an estimated total Chinese workforce and number killed appear dubious [Supt.

Strobridge's 19th century testimony was that our maximum strength Chew's book likely will be of very great interest, as he has for the first time extracted much detailed information about the Chinese workers from the recently available primary source CPRR payroll records at the California State Railroad Museum.

See William Chew's Rebuttal. Was there any soft tissue, fat with in the bone, adherent dirt, etc. Time in ground, soil type, and any number of other variables will influence the weight of a skeleton. My recorded burial weights are from 5 lbs, to ca. The lighter ones have been in the ground some years and the heavier, in the ground a year or two. Your material is anybody's guess. Edson T Strobridge comments that "The agreements that the Central Pacific made with the Chinese Six Companies was that the bones of Chinese were to be returned to their homeland and that they were.

But to get concerned about a newspaper article reportedly published in without any supporting information is nothing more than an interesting story. The Chinese Six Co. No photographs, no reports, no written records, nothing in all the reminisces written by key people in later years, nothing in the newspapers. Nothing at all reporting the slaughter of two men per mile.

So where do we go from here? For one, I am a skeptic Even then, no nationalities or numbers were reported. Gillis reported "At Donner pass I only recollect two accidents [using nitroglycerine] and those would have happened with powder. I , pg The report that nearly all that went into the Pest Cars died suggests an unusually virulent strain of smallpox.

The Control of Communicable Diseases Manual , 18th edition, states that "Two types of smallpox were recognized during the 20th century. So it seems that the notion that "thousands" died building the CPRR is an exaggeration of a possibly miscalculated estimate taken from an newspaper account about the weight of exhumed bones being shipped to China. Although any loss of life is tragic, this small number would be an excellent safety record considering that they were working in the mountains in blizzard conditions and across deserts away from civilization doing incredibly difficult and dangerous work with only manual labor, black powder, and nitroglycerine manufactured on the spot.

The descriptions of individual fatal incidents see above are so specific that it is hard to imagine that there were so many others that weren't mentioned by the engineers actually in charge of the construction.