As a Candle Before a Gale - Life and Death on a Logging Railroad (Potter County)

Pennsylvania's logging era is a fascinating topic to not only study, but also to explore. While the logging camps and and mill sites have largely faded away, one remnant will be with us for generations, the vast network of logging railroad grades. Construction of these grades enabled lumbermen to haul out millions of board feet of pine, hemlock, and hardwoods to sawmills across the state. Many of these grades have now been converted into roads or trails, but the vast majority remain undisturbed to follow wherever they may lead. One such location provided a poignant reminder of just how dangerous it was working on a logging railroad.

 

This story begins with two brothers from Buffalo, NY, Frank and Charles Goodyear. The entrepreneurial brothers had arrived in north-central  Pennsylvania to harvest the region's vast tracts of hemlock for their sawmills. In order to facilitate the transportation of their logs from the woods to the sawmill, the brothers built the Sinnemahoning Valley Railroad in 1885 from a connection with the Pennsylvania Railroad at Keating Summit to the tannery village of Costello. Eventually this small railroad would grow into the 400 mile industrial giant that would be the Buffalo & Susquehanna Railroad. 

Much of the Goodyear timber lay at the top of ridges or deep hollows. Normal steam locomotives would not be able to traverse the steep grades and tight curves needed to reach the tracts. A rather new technology would be employed to surmount these challenging conditions, a geared steam locomotive called a Shay.

Goodyear Shay #12
Photo Retrieved From: Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania

One of the tracts that would be logged using these geared locomotives was along Cowley Run, a small tributary over the ridge west of the town of  Austin where the Goodyear mill was located. To reach this timber, a spur track was built up and over the ridge from the main line that ran between Keating Summit and Austin. The point where these two tracks converged was known as Cowley Run Junction. Log trains powered by a Shay locomotive were brought from the woods to the junction where a conventional locomotive could pick up the train and take it to the mill.

A Goodyear log train near Keating Summit
Photo Retrieved From: Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania

It was at this location that 19-year old John Peeling of Port Allegheny was working on June 17th, 1903. John had left his home just two-weeks earlier to work for the Goodyear's on their log trains. While in their employment, John became known as a trusted dedicated employee. 

On the aforementioned day, John was working on a loaded log train stopped at Cowley Run Junction. While in the course of his duties, John stepped between the loaded cars, most likely to adjust the handbrakes as the grade at the junction was rather steep. It was also at that moment that the slack between the couplings of the cars ran in, allowing each car to roll forward slightly until it pushed up against the car ahead of it in a domino effect. 

Cowley Run Junction- this is where the logging spur connected with the mainline between Keating Summit and Austin
Author's Photo

John was still between the cars when the movement reached him. If the train would have been empty, John may have escaped this ordeal unscathed as there would have still been space between each car. However, since the train was loaded, logs hung over the ends of the cars. As the cars he was in-between moved, John was caught in the back by a log and forced forward into the end of another log on the car ahead of him. Strong as he was, their was nothing he could have done. John Peeling was crushed to death between the logs. As a newspaper article described, "his life light went out like a candle before a gale."  

Looking up the grade from the junction.
This is where Peeling's log train would have been sitting
Author's Photo

John left behind a mother and father along with four brothers and four sisters. He was to be married the following month. His body was brought back to Port Allegheny and interred in Fairview Cemetery. 

The tragic story of John Peeling was unfortunately a common one during the logging era. It was a working environment where death hovered ever so near. How many lives were lost in the pursuit of state's vast timber will never be known, but accounts like that of young John Peeling remind us of this cost.  

Information Retrieved From: 

Taber III, Thomas. (1971) The goodyear's- an empire in the hemlocks. Lycoming Printing Company

The Cameron County Press (1903, June 19). John Peeling Killed. The Pennsylvania Newspaper Archives. Retrieved from: https://panewsarchive.psu.edu/lccn/sn83032040/1903-06-18/ed-1/seq-1/#words=Cowley+Junction