366
HISTORY OF DUCHESS COUNTY.
cars were crushed, and the wreck of both trains set on fire by the flames communicated to the oil by the furnace of the locomotive. Three sleeping cars were attacl ed to the express train. In the first of these, the passengers were so injured and stunned by the collision, that they were unable to leave the car before it was enveloped in flames, and all perished. The passengers in the other cars were comparatively uninjured, and escaped before the flames reached them. Almost immediately. the .bridge was likewise all ablaze, and in a short time it fell with a crash, carrying with it the burning cars, and burying in the ice and water the half consumed bodies of the occupants of the first sleeping car. Between thirty and forty persons were believed to have perished. The eminences about New Hamburgh are covered with .Arbor Vitie.B Loudon, the English naturalist, says the finest specimens in the world of this species of tree are to be found here. The most beautiful are from six to ten feet in hight. They are of all sizes and forms ;—from the tall tree that shows its first stein several feet from the ground, to the perfect cone that seems to rest on the earth. Many of the readers of this volume doubtless remember that old river institution, the "horse ferry boat." = = The annexed is a representation of one of the last in use on the Hudson. In i86o there were only two of the kind—one at Milton Ferry, Horse Ferry Boat. shown in the cut, and the other at Coxsackie. Steam has superseded the horse as a motive power, and the horse ferry boat exists only in the memories of the past. To the eastward of the city of Poughkeepsie are the sites of two race courses, now obliterated. One of these tracks was in existence but a few years ago ; the other dates back to earlier times, when running matches were more in vogue than .t present. Then the people came from all parts of the * In New England, it is frequently called Hackmatack. It bears yellow cones about fire limes in length. will
Dutchess County Historical Society
