Rome Sentinel Nov. 14, 1876
Thursday evening ties were stuck up endwise through a culvert about three miles out of town, on the R.W.& O.R.R., and ties were piled on the track, together with a stone weighing about 1,000 pounds. The locomotive drawing the 8:15 passenger train, south, struck the pile, scattering it and breaking the ties in the culvert. The pilot and head-light of the locomotive were shattered. The following note was found in a stick by the side of the track at the culvert: “R.W.& O.R.R. This will be a lesson to you to pay your employees of the road more wages 90 cents per day and $1.00 is’t enouf we will have reasonable pay for our labor or we will run every train from the track take our advise. – Mrsrss.”
Saturday night an attempt, exactly similar, was made to wreck a passenger train on the Black River road at Deer River. A note of the same import as the above, directed to the Black River Railroad authorities, was found by the side of the culvert in which the obstructions were placed at Deer River. It is thought both attempts were made by tramps, probably by the same persons, for purposes of plunder. On the Richfield Springs branch of the D.L.& W.R.R., an attempt was made to wreck a passenger train only a few evenings since, by placing a huge rock on the track. The engineer discovered the obstruction in time to avoid a collision with it.
