The wreck of June 27, 1859: the Night Express at Springbrook

1859 · THE RECORD OF THE DISASTER

The event, soberly, from the record: On the night of 27 June 1859 the eastbound Night Express from Chicago to Toledo, carrying about 150 people on the Michigan Southern & Northern Indiana, was due in Mishawaka at 11:27 p.m. Heavy rain that afternoon and evening had swollen the stream at the Springbrook Ravine, just west of today's Ironwood Drive; the culvert under the embankment blocked, the embankment dammed the water, and as the train crossed — at 25 to 30 miles an hour by the city history's account, at 10 to 20 by the press-derived accounts, the difference printed as it stands — the embankment gave way and the whole train plunged into the chasm, thirty feet deep and a hundred feet wide by the city history's measure. The engine was buried in the opposite bank; the tender, baggage and express cars and two second-class cars were shattered; the first-class cars were torn to pieces and carried down the stream; the sleeping car, though it made the leap with the rest, was less injured. Church bells rang about half past midnight and woke both towns; Mishawakans and South Bend citizens rushed to the scene, but swift, deep water and darkness thwarted the rescue. Thirty-two dead were first laid out beside the track and later brought to the Mishawaka depot until they could be claimed; fifteen victims were buried in Mishawaka City Cemetery, and all but the Tidswell family — a mother and her children — were later exhumed and taken home by their families. Service resumed after a stronger bridge was built over the ravine. Mishawaka's city history calls it, plainly, "the city's greatest tragedy"; it is also remembered under the name the Great Mishawaka Train Wreck.

The toll, printed as the conflict it is: The first dispatches counted 33 dead and 57 wounded. A week later the count stood at 41 dead. Mishawaka's own history gives "at least 39 people killed" and 42 injured. Some accounts ran as high as 60 or 70 dead. The settled modern figure in the wreck's compiled record is 42 killed and 50 injured. All are printed because all stand in the record; the file harmonizes none of them. The wreck lists likewise spread the date across the midnight it happened at — 27 June in the histories, 28 June in some compilations — and the date is printed as 27 June, the night the train was due at Mishawaka at 11:27. No second wreck of record on Mishawaka ground stands in the accident compilations reached: the Springbrook disaster is the only Mishawaka entry they carry.

Sources:

1. Peter J. De Kever, Mishawaka: A History — the train due in Mishawaka at 11:27 p.m.; the washed-out embankment and culvert at the Springbrook Ravine just west of today's Ironwood Drive; 25–30 miles an hour; the chasm thirty feet deep and a hundred wide; the bells at about 12:30 a.m.; 32 dead laid out and brought to the Mishawaka depot; fifteen buried in Mishawaka City Cemetery and all but the Tidswell family later exhumed; "at least 39 killed" and 42 injured; "the city's greatest tragedy."
2. The wreck's compiled record and the contemporary press transcriptions (the Chicago papers and the Davenport papers of 28 June–4 July 1859) — the Night Express, about 150 aboard; 33 dead and 57 wounded in the first dispatches; 41 dead a week later; estimates of 60 to 70; the settled modern figure of 42 killed and 50 injured; the site close to the present Ironwood Road and Lincolnway West.
3. The Michigan railroad wreck compilation — the wreck listed at Mishawaka, 41 dead, dated 28 June (the variant printed in the entry).
4. South Bend's Trains and Major Events sections — the same disaster from the other town's record, cross-referenced; offenses and their aftermath belong to Crime.