On a quiet summer morning 136 years ago this week, the peaceful community of Forest Lawn was jarred by a horrifying crash. A deadly train accident shattered the town’s calm, leaving twisted tracks, splintered cars, and a tragic story that would be remembered for generations.
August 10, 1889 was a normal day for the Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg Railroad “stub train,” which ran from Windsor Beach to Forest Lawn every morning. It had pulled into the station at 7:50 a.m., as expected, and passengers were boarding.
Unfortunately, it was not a normal morning for the “Thousand Island” express train, which was running almost two hours late. It normally barreled through the station at high speed at 6 a.m. But on this morning, as it thundered around the curve, the stub train blocked its path, and the engineer could do little to avoid the collision.
The resulting crash telescoped the stub train’s coach cars, two of which were lifted off the tracks and shoved against the station house. The express train’s engine ran off into the sand and blew up. Three people lost their lives, including a young girl, and six were severely injured.
Newspaper accounts from the time didn’t explicitly assign blame, but investigators questioned why no one anticipated that the late-arriving express train would reach Forest Lawn at about the same time as the stub train from Windsor Beach. A man should have been sent down the track to flag the train, the reports argued. Sometimes in such situations, orders are telegraphed ahead to stop at a siding, but the conductor insisted he never received any such order.
A Democrat and Chronicle article published the day following the crash noted that,
The place itself is a most favorable one for accidents. Forest Lawn is … situated on a sharp promontory. The Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg track curves sharply on each side of the station so that standing on the platform, scarcely twenty rods of track (330 feet) are visible to the west and the stretch of track between the station and the curve to the east is considerably less than that. … A flag was displayed at the rear of the stub train but to expect protection from that means would be worse than foolishness for it would give the engineer of the approaching train no time whatever in which to avert the disaster.
The Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg Railroad (better known in our area as the Hojack) has been out of business for many years, and the train station is long gone. But while trains no longer run through the Forest Lawn neighborhood, the memory of that tragic day will endure for many years.
(photo above provided by Webster Town Historian Lynn Barton)
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(posted 8/15/2025)



















