Page:Vincent F. Seyfried - The Long Island Rail Road A Comprehensive History - Vol. 1 (1961).pdf/56

 Operations: 1867–1872

the Fox was making about twenty-eight miles per hour on the steep upgrade at that point, no serious damage occurred. However, three coaches on the Rockaway train had their platforms telescoped by the impact, and three persons who were standing outside, lost their lives by being crushed in the splintered wood. This was the first passenger fatality in the history of the road.

Soon after the road was opened, it became obvious very quickly that the dispatching of trains would be difficult if not impossible without a telegraph system in operation all along the line. In February 1868, therefore, the directors of the South Side RR Co. organized a subsidiary called the South Side Telegraph Co., allocated $2000 to the project, and floated a new issue of stock to finance the cost of construction between Bushwick and Babylon. Construction of the new telegraph line was begun almost immediately (February 1868) and the company was shortly reorganized as the L.I. Telegraph Co. in order to build branches to any other communities where the inhabitants would subsidize the cost of extension.

As early as the second week of February 1868 the poles began going up along the railroad tracks. The system was scheduled to be completed and in working order by March 23. On April 1, 1868 the line was completed between Rockville Centre and Babylon and the first message sent over the wires that day. Meanwhile the line crew was busily working its way westward to Williamsburgh. The people of Hempstead began collecting a subscription of money to defray the cost of building a branch of the telegraph from Valley Stream to that village in January and completed it by mid-May. In August a branch telegraph line was extended down the Rockaway Branch from Valley Stream to Far Rockaway.

A year later in September 1869 the South Side RR went through the legal process of formally merging the Long Island Telegraph Co. into its own corporate structure. Preparations were made at the same time to build the final segment between Babylon and Patchogue. Thelast we hear of the telegraph system is a cryptic note of April 1870 stating that the South Side RR bought in the L.I. Telegraph Co. at foreclosure sale. Lacking more definite information, we must assume that this was simply a legal maneuver by therailroad to secure possession of the wires without the encumbrances of bond and stock obligations to pay