The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-04-01
OLD BOLIVAR. THE ROCK.
It Leaves Its Bed on the Mountain
and Plays bob With Railroad.
From the New York sun.

special pride of the Erie Railway Com
pany when referring to the scenic attrac-
tions of its line, said man from Han
cock, "but the chances are that the com
pany is wishing now that at least one of
those hills hadn't been quite so pictur-
esquely ribbed with rock That hill is
between Stockport and Lordviue. IL is
$40 feet high. The railroad runs be-
tween the Delaware river and the base of
the hill, the roadbed being high en-
bankment. The space between the en-
bankmeut ana where the hill begins to
rise Is ABOUT twenty feet, and has the ap-
perance of big ditch. The hill rises
Tor forty feet in gradual slope and then
lifts itself up at steep angle. Where
the slope ends and the eScarpment begins
a wagon road is cut in the face of the
hill, which is wooded from top to bot
tom.
The point of this conspicuous elevation
is set with enormous rocks, fashioned in
most picturesque and striking shapes.
The one that always particularly caught
the eye OF the tourist was greaU boulder
that stood sharply outlined among the
resi-, almost at the summit of the ridge.
1t could be seen Tor miles. The guideLook
writers We're especially fond of that giant
rock, and don't know but what il was
their persistence in calling it by fantastic,
romantic, anu poetlcal names that made
1t tired, and caused it TO do the desperate
thing it did the other morning.
"Owen Connolly has been night watch
man and track walker along that part of
the track Tor many years. His shanty is
only couple of hundred yards east of
the place where the big rock stood like a
sentinel. Connolly was tamilir with the
rock, and called IL Ola Bolivar A few
minutes before O'Clock last Tuesday
morning and only few minutes after a
train had passed this spot, Connolly heard
what sounded'like d daybrake salute of
cannon. 1t was followed instantly by
sucn swapping and cracking and cash
ing and smashing ana shaking up of
things generally that the watchman tum-
bled rather than ran out OF his shanty.
Then he saw sight. The air on the size
OF the mountain was filled with the
trunks and branches of flying trees which
being MOVED down like grass before a
cythe by something that was tearing
down that steep like a dozen runaway
locomotives.
Holy Moses = exclaimed the watch
man. old Bolivar has broke loose!'
And so Old Bolivar had. The great
rock at the summit had suddenly left the
place where for ages and ages it had been
at rest, and was playing the part OF a de-
mon tobogganer down the steep mountain
side. Big trees went down before it in
its terrific descent. Nothing in its path
could resist it. When it came to the wagon
road near the base of the hill the rock
made one tremendous bound and landed
fifty feet below against the side of the
railroad embankment. Then the most
curious of things happened The road
bed was Instantly changed by the force
of the rocks impact from a straight
stretch of track into a curve so acute that
it could, without eXaggeratiOn, be COM
pared in shape to a horseshoe. This was
extraordinary enough but it wasn't as
extraordinary as the fact that this sud
den twisting of the railroad out of shape
had not only not broken rail, but not
one was disconnected from the other.
'Now, at Just about the time that this
gigantic boulder came down and collided
with the railroad freight train from the
west, and one from the east were due to
pass that spot. They were on time
Watchman Connolly heard them both
coming. The one from the west had only
the risk of the strangely made curve to
encounter, and the. watchman thought
that the train might round it all right
But the west train had a greater
danger. The protruding shoulder Of the
great rock barred the way on that track
and any train that tried to pass that OBJ
struction was bound to come to certain
disaster. 1t was impossible to warn both
trains, so Connolly hurried back and
stopped the west-bound train The train
coming east was Conductor McPake's
through freight. Frank Delaney was the
engineer. They were coming along at a
lively rate, as they have right to over that
stretch of road. When Engineer De
laney, looking ahead, saw that eccentric
curve in the road, instead of STRAIGHT
run, to say that he was dumfouuded is
putting it very mild. He was onto the
curve before he had time to think, and if
he had had time it wouldn't have made
any difference, he couldn't have stoned
the train. They struck the curve. and
the locomotive rounded it as slick as a
whistle; but the locomotive was the only
thing in the train that did go round it,
The head freight car in the train left the
track and broke loose from the engine 1t
ploughed along and had to stop. Then
the cars behind it began to pile up There
were siXtyfour cars in the train In less
time than it takes to tell it thirty-two of
those cars were doing the greatest act Of
ground and lofty tumDling that any train
of cars was ever called upon to
do. All but four of them. after somer.
saulting about until the air was filled
with brake beams, detached wheels, and
miscellaneous freight cargoes, pitched
down the embanklnent into the Delaware
river. All the rest of the day people
along the river for twenty miles were
busy gathering the folsom Of this curious
railroad wreck. Traffic on the road was
delayed until O'Clock in the afternoon at
which time the company's wreckers had
succeeded in blasting the big rock away
and putting the road bed and track where
it was before the 200 tons of Old Bolivar
came down and disarranged things The
sudden impulse of this giant rock will
cost the company not less than S75, 900.