Metuchen Edison History Features

Recollections of

Boyhood Days

In Old Metuchen

By

David Trumbull Marshall

Published by The Case Publishing Co., Flushing NY 1930

(Second Edition)- (c) 1930

Moving the Railroad Station.

Some time in the summer of 1888 the Pennsylvania Railroad Company desired to move the passenger station from its location on Lake Street to Main Street, where it is now.

The workmen had started to remove the shingles from the roof, one by one, so as to use them again.

A lawyer who owned considerable property in the neighborhood of the station .was much opposed to having the station moved.

When he saw the men at work he hurried to Trenton to get an injunction restraining them from demolishing the station.

Somehow word reached Jersey City of the lawyer's errand to Trenton. Orders came back to Metuchen to tear down the station at once.

A great rope was fastened to the roof of the station and another end was hitched to a locomotive which at a signal started down the track and yanked the roof clean off.

Next the rope was fastened around the lower part of the building.

When the engine started off there was a tremendous ripping and smashing of timbers and the old station came down like a house of cards.

Mark Twain tells a humorous story of a certain individual who lived on the line of a railroad at the West.

This man was continually suing the railroad company for damages on one pretext or another.

Finally the railroad company paid him to move away from the line of the railroad altogether.

Just before the man moved, the railroad had occasion to remove their passenger station, which was done in the manner of removing the station at Metuchen, i. e., by hitching a locomotive to the building and pulling it down.

The habitual damage-suer happened that day to be standing, leaning against the station. When the station was pulled away the man fell on his back, was injured and again sued the railroad for damages.