DAMAGES WERE PROMPTLY SETTLED
FOR, FORTY YEARS AGO.
One day, just before the Christmas holidays of 1856, a Miss
Belknap, on her way to spend the festive season with friends in
New York, was a passenger on an Erie train from Newburgh. She
had her wardrobe in a large carpet bag (they were not grips or
satchels in those days), which she placed in the rack over her
seat, and not far from one of the ventilators. During the trip
there was a smell of burning cloth in the car that could not be
accounted for, although it elicited considerable inquiry. On arriving
at Jersey City, the lady reached for her carpet bag, when she
found that instead of her presumably rich silk robes and fine
laces and snowy-white night gowns, she had a bag of ashes and
a mass of black cinders. The whole of her wardrobe was burned,
but so confined had been the fire that the cloth had charred without
blazing; but the ruin was complete, and the lady declared that
her visit was spoiled, as well as her clothes. Upon examination,
the conductor concluded that the accident had been caused by a
spark from the locomotive entering at the ventilator. He calmed
the lady's disturbed mind by assuring her that he thought the
Company would make good her loss, and asked her to prepare a list
of her destroyed property, with an estimate of its value, which
she did. She placed the damage at $60. The conductor made a report
of the case, and the documents were presented at the Company's
office in the Erie building, at the foot of Duane Street. The
claim was approved forthwith, and it was paid, the claimant being
delayed but a few minutes.
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