Charles Mygatt, Age 19
Charles Mygatt, Port Jervis, NY
From the March 30, 1878 issue of the Port Jervis Evening Gazette:
Last Thursday locomotive No. 33, C. Mygatt engineer, with train One, made good time. The train passed Pond Eddy 42 minutes late and arrived in Susquehanna only 11 minutes behind. The train run from Narrowsburgh to Susquehanna, 70 miles, in one hour and 57 minutes, making three stops. There were seven cars in the train.
From the January 22, 1881 issue of the Port Jervis Evening Gazette:
Engineer Charles Mygatt is looking supremely important today. The fact is, a young engineer made his appearance at Mr. Mygatt's residence Monday night (Feb. 21), and he has come to stay, too.
From the July 2, 1881 issue of the Port Jervis Evening Gazette:
Charles Mygatt's Dog
Engineer Charles Mygatt of this village has a dog which he thinks a good deal of. This dog has thus far wandered through this vale of tears successfully under the cognomen of Daniel Webster Don Pedro Mygatt. Two or three weeks ago Daniel W.D.P.M. went up to Susquehanna, his former home. Last Wednesday, he got tired of visiting, and without the formality of "with your permission, sir," went to the depot to meet the train and got on the engine, and came to Port Jervis.
From the April, 1907 issue of Erie Railroad Magazine:
Charles Mygatt, one of Erie's veteran engineers, is a railroad man by heritage. His father, Joseph Mygatt, had the contract to build the four miles of the Erie road from Hale's Eddy on the Delaware Division to Deposit, where the Erie memorial monument was erected something like a year ago. Mr. Mygatt and his wife were guests of the Erie road on that occasion.
Charles Mygatt completed a half century of engine driving on October 13, 1906, and he says the proudest and happiest day of his life was on that October day in 1856 when he was given an engine of his own to run. It was a wood-burner of the type then in use, and on one of which he had acted as fireman for 3 years before he was given an engine. The smaller picture published herewith gives an idea of how Mr. Mygatt looked when he got his first engine.
That Mr. Mygatt is of a railroad family these facts will show. One of his brothers worked for the Erie 12 years as a machinist and then took an engine. One of his sisters is the wife of E. P. Ward, who has been Station Agent at Deposit for 31 years, and the mother of Charles Ward, First Assistant Auditor of Traffic, at 11 Broadway, New York City. Another nephew, H. E. Ward, is on the Belt Line in Chicago. Another sister is the wife of Solomon Jones, a Dispatcher on the Northern Central. An uncle, J. B. Gerard, was the first Agent at Chester for the Erie. A. T. Farmer, a brother-in-law, is Superintendent of the Union Pacific at Kansas City, Mo.
When Mr. Mygatt took his engine, Hugh Riddle, who at the time of his death was President of the Rock Island, was Supertendent of the Delaware Division, and Mr. Mygatt remembers Mr. Riddle as an axeman on the corps of engineers that built the Delaware Division.
Although now 69 years of age Mr. Mygatt is rugged, hearty and vigorous as any of the youngsters on the line and takes his trip from Port Jervis to Susquehanna and back, 210 miles, as regularly as any of them. He voluntarily retired from the express passenger service a couple of years ago, after a service of 44 years, in which time he never had a passenger killed on his train, never ran off a switch or by a signal and never had a debit mark placed against his record. He had an opportunity to become road foreman of engines in 1886, but preferred to stick to the throttle as he has done.
On March 10, 1870, while pulling train No. 5 over the Delaware Division, the flange came off the leading wheel of engine No. 70, and she ran about l00 feet on level ground at Long Eddy and landed almost bottom side up in the Delaware River. Mygatt's fireman, Thomas Eaton, jumped off the engine and was run over and killed by the train. Mygatt stuck to the engine. There was not even a glass broken in the cab window. In 1862, while running along at Hankins on a foggy night, with engine 45, he struck a caboose and engine, toppled over down the bank, striking a rock in the river and his boiler exploded. All hands got off uninjured on this occasion.
Mr. Mygatt's familiarity with Erie history has led one of his associates to call him "a walking New York Tribune in two editions." It is certainly true that he has this end of the road's operating history at his tongue's end. And he also has other stories. Thus he said of his early days and of a stuttering fireman he once had:
"We had wood-burners then, and it was hot work feeding them. Probably that was why my fireman left me some time afterward to work on the canal. The canal was a great rival of the Erie, at that time. A few years later I saw the same fireman and asked him what he was doing. "'F-f-f-f-f-feeding a h-h-h-h-hay burner,' he replied. "'What's a hay burner?' I asked. "'A m-m-m-mule,' says he." Mr. Mygatt saw the first engine that came into Deposit and says of that experience, "When the first locomotive came through the town, hauling a train of cars, I was about ten years old. The engineer pulled his tender up alongside a pond in the town, and men, women, and children, with pails, dippers, milk pans, and pitchers helped fill the water tank. They shouted to each other that they were 'giving the iron horse a drink.' Engines in those days had trouble in carrying 1,500 gallons of water. Yet the tender on a big one of today will carry 8,000 just as easy as you and I will hold one drink."
One day lie was telling of his experiences with conductors, particularly of Charley Greene, who, in the old days, was considered the dandiest man on the road. "I've had all kinds of them," he said, "good and bad, too. Some of them liked to ride fast and some of them slow. Their dispositions ran as irregular as a ram's horn. Did they ever complain of me? Sure. A Pullman agent once complained that I smashed $1.57 worth of his dishes in making time between Susquehanna and Port Jervis. You see I had my training before the days of the dining coach. Funny, wasn't it? I never thought of plates and saucers at all. What was my answer? This: that the train had the regulation bell cord, and if the boss behind didn't like to ride so fast all he had to do was to yank it. Never heard anything more from that Pullman man."
From the October, 1908 issue of Erie Railroad Magazine (Port Jervis News):
Charles Mygatt has at last retired from Erie service after having been with the road for 55 years. Some 13 years ago he asked to be retired from passenger service, since which time he has run the milk train on the Delaware Division. Mr. Mygatt retires on account of having reached the age limit, though he as strong and rugged, to all appearances, as he was when he began running the milk train.
From the January, 1909 issue of Erie Railroad Magazine (Port Jervis News):
Retired engineers Edwards and Mygatt have been placed in charge of air-test engines at Yard "A."
From the February, 1923 issue of Erie Railroad Magazine:
Charles G. Mygatt, for sixty years a locomotive engineer in the employ of the Erie Railroad on the Delaware Division, who was retired from the service several years ago, died at his home, 83 Hudson Street, Port Jervis, NY, on the morning of December 28 (1922), after an illness of two years, at the age of 85 years.
Deceased was a native of Deposit, NY, where he was born in 1837, a descendant of Joseph Mygatt, who came from England and settled in Hartford as a member of the Newton Colony. At the age of 14 young Mygatt began work with his father, Horace Mygatt, who was a contractor in the building of the Erie Railroad at Deposit. In 1848 he witnessed the passing of the first Erie train through Deposit.
C.D. Ward, auditor of the New York Region, is his nephew.
In 1853 he became fireman and in 1856 locomotive engineer, which occupation he followed during the greater part of his life on the Delaware Division, both in freight and passenger service. Later he ran an engine in the Port Jervis yard. For many years he ran the milk train between Port Jervis and Susquehanna.
When the monument at Deposit was dedicated, marking the spot where rails were first laid on the Erie, Mr. Mygatt was among those present in connection with the ceremony. This was in 1905, at which time he was in good health and a guest of the Erie Railroad.
On October 13, 1906, Mr. Mygatt completed his 50th year as an engineer, and he always referred to it as the happiest day in his life when, in 1856, he was given an engine of his own to run. It was a wood burner, which he had fired three years before becoming its engineer. Hugh Riddle was at that time superintendent of the Delaware Division, and Mr. Mygatt remembered him when he was an axe-man in the engineering corps that constructed the division.
Engineer Mygatt had many close calls in accidents, but no passenger was ever killed on any train he ran, and had no black marks registered against his record. He had opportunities to rise above his position of engineer, one being an offer to become road foreman of engines. This he declined, preferring to run an engine.
His familiarity with Erie history led one of his associates to refer to him as "a walking New York Tribune in two editions." As an Erie employee he was always faithful and loyal, and was held in the highest esteem by the company's officials and employees alike.