At 6:05 a.m. on the morning of Sunday, Sept. 2, 1900, a train holding 875 men, women and children pulled out of Union Station in South Bethlehem, PA. On board, excitement about the cool ocean breezes awaiting them in Atlantic City, N.J., was palpable as they sped along the tracks.
They would never meet their destination.
Historian Larry Stevens will reveal the true story of The Hatfield Horror: The Story of the Great Hatfield Train Wreck of 1900 in a free event hosted by the Lower Makefield Historical Society on Sunday, Oct. 4. This presentation, open to the public, will be held from 2 to 3 p.m. at the Lower Makefield Township Community Center, 1550 Oxford Valley Rd. in Yardley.
In the dense fog, the shore-bound locomotive was unable to break in time for a train stopped at the Hatfield Station in nearby Montgomery County, where farmers loaded their milk into a freight car headed for Philadelphia. Seventeen people were killed, including a father and daughter, a young woman to be married upon her return, and William C. Blackburn, the proprietor of the Ambler Inn in Ambler, a prominent local businessman.
Larry Stevens, founder and president of the Hatfield Museum and History Society, will detail the full story of the Hatfield horror from the early morning hours that day through the aftermath of the criminal trials that followed.
To learn more about this and other events, visit the Lower Makefield Historical Society at lowermakefieldhistory.org/events.
