05-18-23

Hometown History

May 18, 2023

135 Years Ago
Just below the Plains Crossing, near this village, early in the week, the body of a black cat was found upon the track, cut in twain by the cars. “I wouldn’t be in the engineer’s place what run over that cat for all the money the company’s got,” said a railroad employee. “It doesn’t often happen that a cat gets caught, but to run over a black cat means death every time.” Whether he referred to death to the cat or the engineer we did not learn. Subsequent inquiry revealed that it is no uncommon thing for the bodies of small animals, such as cats, dogs, muskrats, woodchucks, and the like, to be found mangled upon the railroad track. Black cats, however, are rarely run over.

May 1888