Our monastery annals say
three sisters arrived from Erie, Pennsylvania on June 3, 1859 to begin the
foundation of St. Walburg Monastery. On August 2 Sr. Alexia Lechner with
another sister arrived. I have always wondered how these first sisters of our
community got here. Our annals do not mention their mode of transportation.
I had in my fantasy that
they came down the Ohio River on riverboat and landed at the Covington Public
Landing. That fantasy was dashed when I did some research and found that they
would have had to come from Pittsburgh to arrive on riverboat.
I next emailed the
current archivist, Sr. Theresa Zoky at Mount St. Benedict Monastery in Erie to
ask if she had any information about how the early sisters traveled. She said
it was oral tradition in the community that the sisters who went to Covington
traveled by train. I started to look at the history of trains in the United
States in the mid-19th century.
Quickly
finding that history to be more complicated than I could easily comprehend, I
did find a map of US trains in 1859 the Library of Congress. But I didn’t have enough information to make sense of it. I
needed to find a train historian. In my Internet search I found the Railroad
and Locomotive Society and took a chance and emailed Peter Hansen, the editor
of Railroad
History. To my atonishment he emailed back within two hours with all
kinds of information. He told me to look at the Library of Congress map I had
already found at . https://www.loc.gov/item/98688395/ . Then he
translated the map for me. He said Mother Alexia’s journey mostly likely would
have been:
·
Westward on the
Cleveland & Erie Rail Road between its namesake cities.·
The Cleveland,
Columbus & Cincinnati Railroad, but only between Cleveland and Columbus;
the CC&C wouldn’t reach Cincinnati until 1872.
·
The Columbus &
Xenia west to Xenia. (I’m not sure why it’s spelled “Yenia” on the map;
it’s probably a typo.)
·
The Little Miami
Railroad from Xenia to Cincinnati.
·
A ferry from
Cincinnati to Covington. Although the map shows that the Kentucky Central ran
between those two points, it’s important to remember that the Roebling Bridge
was the first to span the Ohio River at Cincinnati, and it wasn’t finished
until 1866. If the railroad advertised service between Cincinnati and
Covington, it would have been on a ferry. So-called car ferries, with railroad
tracks laid on their decks, were pretty common everywhere in the country before
bridges spanned major rivers. [Who knew?]
So grateful to have received this
wonderful information, I wanted to know more. I wanted to know:
- How long
the trip would have taken?
- Were
tickets arranged according to class?
- What kind
of railroad cars were typical of the time?
- Where
would the passengers have gotten food?
- Sleeping
arrangements and how the trip would have felt?
 |
| Sister Alexia Lechner |
Peter’s answers were wonderful. The total train ride would have
about 28 hrs. Most likely the sisters were in coach class. The cost of the
travel varied and I will have to see if the state historical society has any records.
The cars were universally of wood
construction. In 1859, ventilation would have come from open windows. Smoke
could indeed blow in through the open windows, but in 1859, almost all
locomotives were wood burners, so it wouldn’t have been sooty, as later coal
smoke was. There were no automatic “knuckle” couplers of the kind used
today; couplings were done with an iron pin inserted through an oblong link
connecting the cars. This tended to make the cars jostle a great deal when
starting and stopping. Another safety feature, air brakes, hadn’t debuted yet;
cars were braked by means of a wheel on the outside platform of the car, which
were turned by the brakeman upon a whistle signal from the engineer. It was
pretty primitive.
Budget-minded passengers [as of course
the sisters would be] often brought their own food. Dining cars didn’t exist in
1859, but trains did stop at trackside eating houses, most of which were of
poor quality. Sleeping cars were pretty basic in 1859, where they ran at
all. The passenger got a hard wooden platform to lie down upon, and may or may
not have had a mattress, bedding, and curtains. Sleeping cars took a quantum
leap forward in the next decade, becoming quite luxurious, more private, and
attended by well-trained porters. Such innovations were largely absent in 1859,
however. It was considered somewhat disreputable for women to use the sleeping
cars — and scandalous if the berths didn’t have curtains, which was often
the case in 1859. Both Peter and I wonder if the sisters might have stopped
overnight along the way, perhaps at a hotel, a convent, or even a rectory.
Peter’s
final suggestion was to read a book titled Wet Britches and Muddy Boots: A
History of Travel in Victorian America, published by Indiana University
Press and written by John H. White, Jr., curator emeritus of transportation at
the Smithsonian. I haven’t read the book yet.
I was so
pleased to get this information about train travel in 1859 and I owe a great
debt to Peter Hansen for cheerfully providing all this information. He gave me the insight I wanted in the experience our sisters had in traveling from Erie, Pennsylvania. Thank you, Peter! My next
project will be to see what the city of Covington was like when the sisters
arrived.
Sr. Deborah Harmeling, OSB
Recently with increasing age
and increasing disabilities I have been contemplating end of life issues at the
behest of my primary doctor. Many know
that Henri Nouwen and Thomas Merton have been
my favorite companions for many years; likewise my spiritual director for 20
years Louis J. Lipps SJ who is currently enjoying his reward in heaven. My OSB Benedictine Monastery has also been
rich in fertile ground for contemplation and spiritual
enrichment through examples of holy women in their pursuit of holiness in
becoming one with Jesus. Much of the following thoughts are coming from reviewing some of my past
journaling.
