An outing to the Tuscarawas County Fair turned tragic when Somerdale friends unknowingly stepped in front of an oncoming train. Several residents of the small Tuscarawas County mining village of Somerdale set out for a day at the county fair in Canal Dover in the autumn of 1912. Among them were John Abel (1886–1912) andContinue reading “Somerdale Mourned: The Train Tragedy of 1912”
Tag Archives: railroad accident
A Family Lost: The Swartzwelder Tragedy of 1923
A young family’s hopeful life in Tuscarawas County ended tragically at a rural railroad crossing near Strasburg, Ohio. Charles and Florence Corbett Swartzwelder, a young couple from Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, arrived in Tuscarawas County, Ohio in 1921. Charles was born on September 2, 1897, in Pine Township, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, the son of William JamesContinue reading “A Family Lost: The Swartzwelder Tragedy of 1923”
A Local Tragedy on the Cleveland & Pittsburgh Railroad
Five local railroad workers boarded their train in New Philadelphia early on a Saturday morning in October 1910 for a routine trip to Cleveland and back. Only two of the men would return home alive. The Cleveland & Pittsburgh train crew gathered in the early morning hours of Saturday, October 8, 1910 for a freightContinue reading “A Local Tragedy on the Cleveland & Pittsburgh Railroad”
One House’s Story: Gershom & Mary Kilgore of Port Washington
I once again decided to try to tell a story from the history of a house depicted in the Tuscarawas County Atlas of 1875, hoping to be able to find something interesting worth telling. I was not disappointed by the story that can be told about a house recorded in the Atlas as the “Res.Continue reading “One House’s Story: Gershom & Mary Kilgore of Port Washington”
Tuscarawas County Stories 