Category: Railroad

Two Pioneering Women: Railroad Tower Operators

In the late 19th century, employment opportunities for women were largely confined to roles such as domestic work, teaching, and a few other low-paying, socially acceptable occupations.  Yet, trailblazers emerged, carving out spaces for themselves in traditionally male-dominated fields. Among these were two remarkable, pioneering women who worked as tower operators for the railroad.  

Until the late 20th century, railroads relied on signal towers along the right-of-way to perform essential operations–controlling train movement on blocks of track and switching at junctions.  These towers had to be staffed 24/7 by workers who could handle the responsibility of ensuring safety and efficiency on the railroad. It was a demanding job that required exceptional focus, resilience, and technical expertise.

A vivid description of this work came from a reporter at the Cecil Whig, who characterized the night operators’ experience:1

The night operator in the railroad signal tower has a lonely occupation and the long hours of the night drag themselves out to a weary length.  It is a position of grave responsibility and the occupation of that signal box, away off in a desolate locality, must be reliant and steady.  The loud whistle of the storm and the shrill shriek of the engine dashing by must be totally disregarded, and the attention of the midnight worker kept close upon the tick-tick of the instruments.  The peripatetic tramp must be sped along as the parting guest and his raps and threats when denied admission out of the storm, must be answered with a firm assertion of one’s determination and the nerve must be steady and strong.

singerly B&O Railroad Tower
This is the B & O Tower at Singerly in 1910. The sign says SY. The telegraph operators used the call letters SY to address matters to the telegraph operator here. (Source: personal collection.)

This position tested the nerves of even the most seasoned railroad men, and “very few women were qualified for the duties,” the visiting reporter observed. One of those ladies occupying such a position of trust and always standing at her post through storm and calm was Bertie Morrison, the night operator at the Octoraro Junction.

There, where the Octoraro Creek meets the Susquehanna River, was a critical intersection where the tracks of the Philadelphia and Baltimore Central Railroad met the Port Deposit and Columbia Road. This remote outpost stood isolated, about a quarter of a mile from the village of Rowlandsville.

octoraro railroad station
The Ocoraro Station (Source: Mickey Williams)

Working in this remote, one-person tower in 1896, Bertie Morrison began her shift every evening at 6 p.m., overseeing the junction through the long, silent hours of the night.  With nothing but the occasional rumble of a passing locomotive and the ticking of the telegraph key to break the silence,  Miss Morrison gave orders to trains, operated levers for the switches, and managed traffic in the block, while also handling the regular telegraph work and signaling usual for a block tower.  

Having been at the job several years by 1896 when the reporter visited, she informed the journalist “that she did not have any fear of intruders, as her faithful companion, a seven-shooter with a determined look, could be relied upon in all emergencies.”2

At  7 a.m., another lady showed up to relieve her.  This operator was Ida Bradley. She had learned telegraphy from her father, Lafayette, the station agent at Rowlandsville.

These pioneering women paved the way for future generations. 

Biographical Notes

Ida Virginia Bradley

Ida worked as a tower operator at Octoraro Junction for 15 years. She learned telegraphy under her father, Lafayette Bradley, the station agent in Rowlandsville. At the time of the 1880 census, she was 26 years old, living with her parents. Ida spent her entire life in the Liberty Grove area and died on June 26, 1933, at 81. She was laid to rest at West Nottingham Cemetery.3,4,5

Bertie Morrison

The 1880 census records show Bertha Morrison, aged 11, living in northwestern Cecil County. She later married George S. Loux, who was listed as a telegraph operator in New Jersey’s 1915 census.5 Bertie passed away on June 25, 1946, at the age of 77 and is buried at West Nottingham Cemetery.6,7

Notes

  1. “A Woman With Pluck,” The Cecil Whig, July 4, 1896, 3, ↩︎
  2. “A Woman With Pluck,” The Cecil Whig, July 4, 1896, 3, ↩︎
  3. “Ida Virginia Bradley,” obituary, Midland Journal, June 30, 1933. ↩︎
  4. United States Census, 1880, Ida Bradley entry,” FamilySearch (2025). ↩︎
  5. Find A Grave. “Ida V. Bradley.” ↩︎
  6. New Jersey State Census, 1915, George S. Loux, FamilySearch ↩︎
  7. “Bertha Morrison Loux,” Obituary, Midland Journal, July 19, 1946. ↩︎
  8. Find A Grave. “Bertha H. Loux Morrison.” Find A Grave Memorial.
    ↩︎

Additional Articles of Interest

From the Blog “The Parnassus Pen, “My Love Letter to Telegraph Operations and Their Heartbreaking Tragedies.

Telephone Operators Were Essential Workers in 1918

John Brown’s Body:  The Long Road to the Final Resting Place

In the annals of history, some events refuse to fade, moments that became part of the nation’s collective memory. One such incident unfolded in the aftermath of John Brown’s execution. After the hanging of the militant abolitionist in Charlestown, VA, a funeral procession embarked on a long, arduous journey across six states, destined for his farm in North Elba, NY. On this trek, the funeral train, carrying the coffin, his widow, Mary, and two companions, traveled through a divided nation teetering on the brink of Civil War. Ultimately, the funeral cortege ended on a remote, quiet farm in the heart of the Adirondacks.

This arduous trek started soon after the state of Virginia executed Brown in Charlestown, VA, on December 2, 1859. Leaving behind the gallows, soldiers loaded the body aboard Conductor Dukehart’s Winchester and Potomac Railroad train for the short run on the rails to Harper’s Ferry. At the W&P station where John Brown launched his attack on October 16, Mary Brown and two companions, James Miller McKim, a Presbyterian Minister and abolitionist, and Hector Tyndale, a Philadelphia businessman, met the coffin. As the funeral party had to wait for the overnight express from Wheeling to Baltimore, railroad workers secured the coffin in the depot warehouse.

Funeral Train Crosses Maryland & Delaware

Around 3 a.m., the B & O engine from Wheeling steamed into the station, and the plain pine coffin was placed in a baggage car. Nearly four hours later, at 6:45 a.m., the engine arrived at Camden Station in Baltimore. Only a small crowd of about 20 people waited at the depot, and there workers placed the remains on one of John McClintock’s baggage wagons, which hauled it to the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Station to wait for the 8.30 a.m. run to Philadelphia.1

On December 3, 1859, the train carrying John Brown’s body passed up the railroad between Baltimore and Philadelphia. 2

The morning express for Philadelphia departed Baltimore right on schedule, making its way through the rural landscape of the Northern Chesapeake and Delaware. As the funeral party rattled northward, they passed through the quiet countryside of Harford County, transferring onto the ferry at Havre de Grace and then passed the Elkton station at 10.40 a.m. The run through Harford, Cecil, and New Castle counties was quiet with only the sound of the locomotive breaking the quiet of fields, sleepy villages and towns along the way. However, beneath the tranquility of the countryside, the turmoil around the drama that had unfolded in Charlestown stirred and divided the nation. 

railroad ferrry boat maryland at Havre de grace
The Ferry Boat Maryland connected the railroad between Havre de Grace and Perryville.3
Brown’s Body Passes Through Philadelphia

Upon its arrival in Philadelphia at about 12.45 p.m. on Saturday, December 3, the grieving widow, burdened by the weight of recent days, planned to have an abolitionist undertaker prepare the body and place it in a better coffin. However, the reception in the Quaker city was fraught with tension as word spread that John Brown’s body was arriving at the station.

Amidst fears of unrest, as a large crowd of supporters and opponents assembled, the mayor, accompanied by a contingent of police officers, met the train and devised a plan to divert the crowd’s attention. A long toolbox from the baggage car was somberly carried to a waiting hearse. While the crowd followed the decoy, the mayor swiftly orchestrated the discreet transfer of the body onto a furniture wagon to be transported to the ferry to Camden, NJ.4

From there, the Camden & Amboy Railroad provided passage to South Amboy, where a Quaker undertaker, John M. Hopper, met the funeral party at the New York Ferry. Renting a room in Manhattan, Hopper prepared the remains for burial. The news that John Brown’s body was in the city caused a crowd to gather at the undertaker’s shop.

Members of Hose Company 14 constituted themselves “into a guard of the dead. . . . All Sunday night, the hose company kept watch around the undertaker’s makin’ all their arrangements skillfully and systematically just as if they had been appointed by the police or by the county, the sentries of the dead,” the New York Sunday Mercury reported. Later that night, members of Hose and Engine companies No. 16 and Hook and Ladder No. 4 volunteered to assist the original guard as the long night wore on.5

Hudson River Railroad to Troy

After a day of rest on Sunday, Mary Brown and her companions resumed their journey at 5 a.m. on Monday, December 5, embarking northward aboard the Hudson River Railroad. As the train chugged along, newspapers chronicled the solemn passage, noting the tolling of church bells and the gathering of crowds along the route, bearing witness to the funeral train’s passing. By noon, they arrived in Troy, NY; the party was greeted by a reception marked by reverence and curiosity.6

The following morning, Tuesday, December 6, the cortege pressed onward to Eagle Bridge, NY, where the Rutland & Washington Railroad tracks took them to their evening destination, Rutland, VT. They departed for Vergness the following day, from which a ferry crossed Lake Champlain. A procession of carriages escorted them to the lake, where, with church bells ringing, they boarded the ferry.7

On the other side of the lake at Westport, NY, a wagon awaited to take them to Elizabethtown over an old plank road. Tuesday Night was spent at Adam’s hotel in Elizabethtown, NY, where Brown’s body lay in state at the Essex County Courthouse with an honor guard.   

The Journey Reaches Its Conclusion

The journey’s final leg commenced at the dawn of the next day, December 7. The coffin and the mournful cortege made the arduous trip to Brown’s farm in two wagons. Over a day, they covered the 20 miles to North Elba.8,9

Here on John Brown’s farm, the final journey reached its conclusion. On December 8, 1859, after a long, arduous trek across a nation being torn apart by the issue of slavery, the fiery abolitionist was laid to rest. As the sun sat on remote, northern New York and the farm, the nation stood on the brink of upheaval. Sixteen months later, the Civil War erupted.   

john brown's body laid to rest at burial
The burial of John Brown at North Elba NY.10
Endnotes
  1. “Passage of the Remains of John Brown,” The Sun, (Baltimore, MD), December 5, 1859.[↩]
  2. Map of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad, c. 1850.[↩]
  3. Charles P. Dare. Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad Guide. (Philadelphia: Fitzbiggon & VanNess, 1856), 57.[↩]
  4. Oswald Garrison Villard, John Brown, 1800-1859, a Biography Fifty Years After (London: Constable, 1910).[↩]
  5. “John Brown’s Body . . . in New York,” New York Sunday Mercury, December 18, 1881, reprinted article by the blog Harry Hill’s Gotham.[↩]
  6. “Arrival of John Brown’s Remains at Troy.” New York Times. December 7, 1859. 1.[↩]
  7. Tony Horwitz,  Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War, (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2011), 260-261.[↩]
  8. Rev. Joshua Young, D.D. “The Funeral of John Brown.” New England Magazine, An Illustrated Monthly, Vol., 30 March, 1904-August, 1904, 229-243.[↩]
  9. “On the Trail of John Brown,” American Heritage Museum Exhibits, accessed May 19, 2024, https://ahmexhibits.omeka.net/exhibits/show/on-the-trail-of-john-brown–wh/on-the-trail-of-john-brown–wh.[↩]
  10. Thomas Nast, “Burial of John Brown.” New York Illustrated News. December 24, 1859, via Wikipedia.[↩]

Hillside Arizona Santa Fe Railroad Station

THINGS FOUND IN AN OLD PHOTO ALBUM —

This July 2, 1929, photo of the Santa Fe Hillside Arizona train station came from an album full of pictures I purchased thirty to forty years ago. An unidentified adventurer compiled the images as he motored across the country. His series of albums had been dumped in a secondhand shop in Newark, DE. But, one containing photos from Maryland and Delaware Caught my attention, so I purchased that volume, which also had pictures of his western trips.

An internet search revealed that the Santa Fe opened the station in 1902. It was moved to Prescott, Arizona, much later. There the Iron Springs Cafe occupied it, but they closed not long ago. Hillside, an apparently abandoned community, is in Yavapai County.

Here is a link to a 2011 photo of the station when the Iron Springs Cafe occupied the structure.

hillside arizona santa fe railroad station
Santa Fe Railroad Station Hillside Arizona