page_title: Benjamin Hafner
section_title: The 1854 strike at Erie
hierarchical_section_title: Benjamin Hafner / Work / The 1854 strike at Erie
caption_attribution_description: English: First code of Erie Train Regulations, 1849
context_page_description: Benjamin Hafner known as "The Flying Dutchman" and "Uncle Ben," was an American locomotive engineer, who worked for the Erie Railway, and at the end of his life known as the oldest engineer in point of service in the United States.
context_section_description: In a way Hafner triggered the 1854 strike at the Erie Railroad. It all started early in 1854, when Daniel McCallum then superintendent of the Susquehanna division, had drafted a renewed code of rules regulating the running of trains, which he submitted to the Directors of the Company. They were pleased with it, and officially adopted it as supplementary to the existing rules. Charles Minot was then the general superintendent. The McCallum rules were adopted March 6, 1854, and Minot was directed to put them in force. He did not approve of some of them. He refused to promulgate the new code, and resigned.
  McCallum took charge as general superintendent May 1, 1854, and his new rules were at once put in force. Trouble was not long in following. The engineers objected to the new order of things, particularly to Rule 6 of the McCallum code, which declared that every engineer would be held responsible for running off a switch at a station where he stopped, whether he should run off before or after receiving a signal to go forward from a switchman or any other person. The engineer, under this rule, was expected to see for himself whether the switch was right or not, and take no person's authority for the same at stations where trains stopped. The engineer, however, had a right to run past stations where he did not stop at a rate he was willing to hazard on his own account, the Company reserving the right to decide whether such running was reckless or not. " The road must be run safe first and fast afterward," the management declared.
  The engineers also protested against the alleged " posting rule " of the Company, under which notices of dismissal of engineers was at once posted with other railroad companies to the injury of the men. An abrogation of the distasteful rules was requested, June 15, by a committee, consisting of John Donohue, William Schrier, and John C. Meginnes. Superintendent McCallum's explanation and reply not being satisfactory, the engineers struck on June 17 - the first strike in the history of the railroad. This strike on the Erie was settled after ten days' paralysis of the business of the railroad, and a loss of many thousands of dollars to the Company.
  The engineer over whose case the strike resulted was Benjamin Hafner of the Eastern Division. On the evening of June 10 ran off a switch at Turner's. He was dismissed. After he was dismissed Hafner was sent for by Superintendent McCallum to talk about the incident. Hafner refused to go unless he was reinstated first. McCallum declined to reinstate him without a consultation. The matter was taken up by all the leading engineers on the Delaware and Eastern divisions, with the above result.
caption: First code of the Erie Train Regulations from 1849 issued by James P. Kirkwood, which McCallum updated in 1854.
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