Now
and Then
(Memories
of the
Warbasse
Farm)
by
Harold Coriell
In
the Dec. 22 issue of the Herald, in the "Out of the Past" section,
was shown our picture of the famous Old Sussex Railroad engine, the
"John
I. Blair". In the description of this photo we said the engineer
was Elmer Decker, which was true, but Miss Olive Baker, of Sparta,
writes that her father, known as "Billy Baker", was the first engineer
of the "John I. Blair" and his fireman was Elmer Decker. Mr. Decker
was later engineer of this noted fast locomotive himself. Miss Baker
also questioned whether this engine was a wood-burner, as we stated.
It is believed to have been a converted wood-burner, and was using
coal as fuel when the picture was taken at Branchville.
Miss
Emma Warbasse of the well-known Warbasse homestead farm near Branchville
Junction, tells us that as a little girl she remembers seeing the
"John I. Blair" on the woodyard siding at the Junction. Wood for all
the Sussex Railroad engines was in those days supplied from the sawmill
and woodyard at Branchville Junction. Miss Warbasse, who has managed
the homestead farm and its dairy herd in a most able manner, since
the death of her father, Samuel Warbasse over 20 years ago, has always
taken a keen interest in the railroad. The original Warbasse farm,
in the family since 1800, comprised 235 acres, but was reduced by
65 acres when parts of it were sold to the Sussex Railroad for its
Branchville line in 1868, and for its Franklin line about the same
time. Acreage was also sold to the New York, Susquehanna and Western
Railroad which built through the farm around 1882 on its way to Stroudsburg,
Pa.
Thus
the Warbasse farm was a real railroad center for many decades, and
back around the era of the First World War, as many as 30 trains a
day would pass through the property. Railroading was then in its heyday,
with lots of passengers riding the rails of the Lackawanna system,
which absorbed the old Sussex Railroad back in the eighties. Branchville
then had about six passenger trains each way daily, with the Franklin
line having as many more, while the Susquehanna ran four passenger
trains daily each way between New York and Stroudsburg. In addition,
there were many freight, ore and limestone trains over the pikes,
all passing through the Warbasse farm. The Branchville Junction and
Warbasse stations, both located on what was formerly Warbasse farm
land, did a thriving business, and for many years there were at Warbasse
station a store, post office, coal yard and a creamery. Where the
Susquehanna crossed the Lackawanna's Franklin branch, there was a
signal tower, employing two men, to control the trains on each line.
This also was on the edge of the Warbasse farm.
In
the big blizzard of 1888, several trains were stalled on this farm
for several days and about 24 railroaders, comprising the crews of
the snowbound trains, were fed bounteously in the commodious and hospitable
Warbasse homestead. There was plenty of fuel at the Branchville junction
wood and coal yard, so steam was kept up in the engines until rescue
crews arrived to shovel out the stalled trains. The crews did not
mind their enforced imprisonment on the Warbasse farm because of the
tasty meals they enjoyed.
In
those days, Miss Warbasse recalls, farm folk did not get to the town
stores very often and the farmhouses were well stocked with provisions
of all kinds, often enough to last for several weeks. The only food
item they ran out of, as Miss Warbasse remembers, was bread, and for
this they substituted buckwheat pancakes which made a big hit with
the railroaders.
Back
in the early nineties, the Lackawanna's famous Boston Flyer would
roll through Sussex County each evening, its beautiful chime whistle
reverberating through the pastoral valleys and wooded hills, its many
brightly-lit windows giving forth an enticing glow and the lure of
distant horizons. How did this noted train get to Boston from Sussex
County? After roaring into Branchville Junction from Hoboken, it then
passed over the Franklin Branch into the famous old mining town, then
rolled over the Lehigh & Hudson to Maybrook, N.Y., where it was
switched to the former Central New England Railroad (now the New Haven).