Page:Vincent F. Seyfried - The Long Island Rail Road A Comprehensive History - Vol. 1 (1961).pdf/59

 44 Baptist and not only opposed running trains on Sunday while he was president but also was a strong temperance man. An order issued by him in May 1870 was posted in all crew quarters of the South Side RR: "The use of intoxicating liquors, profane or obscene language, or smoking by the employees of the South Side RR of L.I., while on duty, is strictly forbidden." In January 1873 Fox sold out all his interests in the SSRR and devoted himself to building apartment houses in New York. He died on September 20, 1879 as a result of the internal injuries he received in the station platform accident of 1867. He was sixty-three at the time of his death.

Willet Charlick of Freeport, one of the most active promoters of the road, lived just long enough to see it completed. On July 16, 1869 he suffered a heart attack in New York and died. His brother, Oliver Charlick, forgave him sufficiently to personally escort the remains from New York to Hempstead in the Director's Car.

The Willow Tree Disaster of April 23, 1869 on the Long Island RR killed two other men associated with the South Side RR, Thomas C. Shanahan, the contractor who built the road, and William C. Rushmore, the treasurer. The latter's death was particularly embarrassing because many shortages turned up in his accounts after his death.

The superintendents of the road seem to have all been capable men. The first man was Robert White, ex-superintendent of the Long Island RR and himself a railroad contractor. He resided at Merrick with President Fox and appears to have been genuinely popular on the road. We read that at Christmas of 1868 the employees gave him a tree loaded with presents and White responded with a supper party thereafter. In October 1869 White left his post and acted as contractor for the New York & Hempstead road between Valley Stream and Hempstead. Charles W. Douglass of 56 Driggs Aye., Brooklyn, an engineer and a man of large experience, was the next superintendent. After three years' service Douglass was replaced in September 1872 by Walter Homan, the former trackmaster of the road.

Curiously, only one humble conductor on the South Side is ever mentioned in the press, one Robert Cochran, but he turns up often and always with favorable comment. He joined the road in 1867 and was cited often for his sunny disposition and