Death of Snowplow Driver
February 17, 1939
Funeral services will be conducted Sunday for Seymour R. Rowe, 34-year-old town of Colesville [Broome Co. NY] employee, who was killed late yesterday when a D.&H. passenger train struck a town snowplow he was driving over Lovejoy's crossing, a half mile north of Harpursville [Broome Co. NY]. The Rev. Lyle Wood will officiate at services in Harpursville Methodist church at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Body will be taken to the church one hour earlier, when friends may call. Burial will be in Perch Pond Hill cemetery.
Dr. A.J. Stilson of Windsor, a county coroner, issued a verdict of accidental death. He said he had been told traffic signals at the crossing did not sound a warning, but they did work a short time after the accident when a section crew tested them.
Mr. Rowe, the father of three children, was endeavoring to drive the town snowplow over the crossing after his brother, Leland Rowe and Arthur Kane, also town employees, had helped him free a blade which had caught in the rails, when the train suddenly rounded a curve about 400 feet away. He suffered a fractured skull, crushed chest, arm and leg fractures and a puncture wound of the back.
Engine of the northbound passenger train temporarily disabled. Its front wheels were derailed. Service on the road was hampered more than three hours while emergency crews placed them back on the rails. The engine replaced by an auxiliary locomotive was towed away from the scene pending a checkup.
Chief Criminal Deputy Ross Cooley and Deputy Merle Holmes sent to the scene by Sheriff Karl J. Daniels, investigated with Coroner Stillson.
Mr. Rowe, who resided in Central Village, is survived by his widow, Amy; three daughters, Pearl, Martha and Joan Rowe, all of Center Village; his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Adelbert Rowe of Nineveh; six brothers, Ward and Grant Rowe of Harpursville, Carlton and Maurice Rose of Nineveh, E.D. and Charles Rowe of East Windsor; three sisters, Miss Mable Rowe and Mrs. Alford Andrews of Center Village, and Mrs. Ray Terry of Chenango Bridge, and a grandmother, Mars Cordelia Hubbard of Union Valley.
Victim Trips as She Runs for Her life (1935)
Sidney [Delaware Co. NY]: Mrs. Jessie York, 53, of South New Berlin [Chenango Co. NY], was seriously injured late Thursday when she fell from a railroad trestle near Sidney while running to avoid being struck by an approaching train. The injured woman had left her home a short time previously and was walking toward Sidney to meet friends. She took the short cut over the O.&W. railroad trestle, three miles west of Sidney, in order to make better time, friends said. Crossing the Unadilla River, this trestle is more than 40 feet from the ground at almost every point except the extreme ends.
Mrs. York had crossed more than half the trestle, when the engineer of an approaching train blew the whistle as the train neared the Sidney end of the span. Not having seen the train until that time, the woman turned about hurriedly and began to run to the other end in an effort to beat the train across and avoid being hit. As she approached the end of the span, she stumbled and fell to the ground, a distance estimated at 40 feet. The train meanwhile had slowed down sufficiently, it is believed, to have made it unnecessary for her to have run as rapidly as she did.
Members of the train crew saw the accident and reported it immediately to state police. Corporal Joe Miller of Troop C picked the woman up and took her to Sidney hospital, where she was attended by Dr. R.W. Loomis. Her condition today was given as serious. She suffered several fractured ribs and possibly internal injuries hospital officials said.
Former Afton People Celebrate Anniversary (1932)
Sunday, November 6, 1932, a pleasant surprise was given Mr. and Mrs. John Donahe at their home near Bainbridge [Chenango Co. NY], when over fifty of their friends, relatives and neighbors gathered at their home to help them celebrate their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. A delicious dinner was served. The bridal cake was decorated with pink and white icing, a miniature bride and groom standing erect on the top of the cake.
On behalf of those present, Miss Phoebe Whitten of Greene, Mrs. Donahe's first schoolteacher, presented the couple with money and other useful gifts. Congratulations followed, after which Miss Whitten gave a recitation, "The Tumbling Waters of Niagara." Songs, one of which was "God Be with You till We meet Again," were sung by all. There were friends and relatives present from Afton, Bainbridge, Binghamton, Cincinnatus, Greene and Oneonta. When the guests departed for their homes, they left wishing Mr. and Mrs. Donahe many more happy years together. Mr. and Mrs. Donahe lived for several years near Afton. [Chenango Co. NY]
Complete Bainbridge History
Part I (1939)
Editor's Note: With Bainbridge soon to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the settlement of Bainbridge, and the 110th anniversary of the incorporation of the Village of Bainbridge, the News is happy to present an even more complete history of Bainbridge than the recently concluded series. It is supplied to us by a friend of the paper, each chapter to be copied word for word from bound volumes of history. We believe that every person in Bainbridge will want to clip out and save each chapter of this review of Bainbridge's glorious history and traditions.
Bainbridge was constituted a town and named Jericho, February 16, 1791, at which it formed a part of Tioga County. Its name was change April 15, 1814, in honor of Commodore Bainbridge of the American Navy. It originally included portions of Norwich and Oxford, which were taken off January 19, 1793; of Greene, one part of which was taken off March 15, 1798, and another the following year; and the present town of Afton, which was taken off November 18, 1857. It lies upon the east border and near the southeast corner of the county. It is bounded on the north by Guilford and Oxford, on the east by Otsego and Delaware counties, on the south by Afton, on the west by Afton and Coventry. The surface is a rolling upland, beautifully diversified, and is abundantly watered by the Susquehanna, which crosses it diagonally from northeast to southwest, and the smaller streams tributary to it; the principle of which are the Unadilla, which unites with it on the east border of the town, a portion of which it forms, Kelsey Creek, which flows south through the west border and Bennett Creek, which flows in a westerly direction near the south line. The Susquehanna enters the town on the east border, from one to two miles south of the north line and flows in a westerly direction till it reaches the village of Bainbridge, where it deflects to the south and maintains that course until it leaves the town. The valley of the river is about a mile wide and is bordered by moderately steep hillsides. The summits of the highest hills are 400 or 600 feet above the valleys.
It is wholly underlaid by the rocks of the Catskill group, in which quarries of good building and flagging stone have been opened, two near the north line of the town, on the farms of Richard Bush and M. Frank, and a third just east of the village, on the east side of the river on the farm of Gehil Evans. From the Bush quarry excellent, massive blocks for underpinning and building purposes are obtained; while that obtained from the Frank quarry on an adjoining farm, is only suitable for flagging, the layers being thinner. From the Evans farm quarry, good massive building stone is obtained, but the superincumbent mass to be removed makes it too expensive to be profitably worked. It suppled the stone use in tthe abutments of the bridge crossing the river in the village of Bainbridge. The soil upon the hills is a gravelly and shaly loam and alluvium. Dairying forms the chief, and almost exclusive branch of agriculture. The dairies area all private ones, the largest being that of Jerome B. Sands, who milks some fifty cows. There is not a factory in the town, nor has there been. The butter product is marketed in New York
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