Caldwell County MO Archives History .....SHE SAW THE FIRST TRAIN IN THESE PARTS 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Karen Walker khw4@yahoo.com September 4, 2008, 1:04 pm

SHE SAW THE FIRST TRAIN IN THESE PARTS
	Narrator:  Mrs. Mary Jane Eichler, 94, Braymer

     Mrs. Eichler was born in Mirabile Caldwell county 1841 and was 94 in Jan 
1935.  She was in Utica Livingston county (a few stations east of Hamilton) 
the day the first train on the Hannibal and St. Joseph track came through in 
1858, and says it was quite a gathering of people from far and near.  All were 
anxious to see the new train.  It was the first train which most of them had 
seen.
     She with her first husband Franklin Cox and their son Joseph F. Cox, her 
father Conrad Oster, and Warren Hays (great uncle of little Joseph) stood 
looking for the engine to come.  When the train did come, little Joseph in 
fear began crying, urging his Uncle Warren to take him up, lest the train go 
over his feet.
     At this time, there was a general store and one drug store at Utica, 
Utica being their closest town, for a trading place.  They drove there in a 
farm wagon, sitting on boards, no spring seats, and it was a twenty-five mile 
trip from Elk Grove Caldwell County where they lived.  Whenever they made the 
trip from Elk Grove to Utica, they had to stay over night, for you could not 
do 50 miles a day with horses and a lumber wagon.  It meant two days away from 
home and a hard trip, so they seldom went; but to see a railroad train and 
cars, why it was worth it. 
     Mrs. Eichler is descended from a Revolutionary ancestor Pliney Hays of 
Virginia, who served with Washington.
     Interview  1934.


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