Photographer Betty Steele took this image of Train No. 198, the last New York Central passenger train to Syracuse to leave the Ogdensburg depot.
Mary Farrell was a participant in history almost 62 years ago. At some point, Lera Wright Bertrand was along for the ride. I was an observer but probably didn’t realize it. And Wayne Latham and Clara Scott Warren were savvy enough to preserve it.
We were all witnesses to the last passenger train chugging through Morristown on May 21, 1961.
The New York Central beeliner crept out of the Ogdensburg depot – adjacent to The Freight House restaurant on Market Street – at 6:25 p.m. that Sunday. Train No. 198 announced its departure with the sounding of its whistle and was saluted by a volley of car horns.
Cargo is loaded at the Morristown depot with station at left and Comstock Hotel perched on the hill on a site now occupied by Ella’s on the Bay.
The diesel-powered locomotive clicked and clacked along the St. Lawrence River shore, passing cottages along its iron rails while lakers were churning through the two-year-old Seaway channel. It passed through Terrace Park and slowed on the curve at Wright’s Marina in Morristown before grinding to a halt at the Morristown station, located at the bottom of the hill behind Ella’s on the Bay.
Ernest Fleming of Watertown, the road foreman of engineers, conductor Earl Daly, and the train’s engineer – simply identified as Reynolds – climbed down from their iron horse and posed for a picture along with two of the last nine passengers – Ida Sheldon of Odgensburg and a Morristown girl, Mary Farrell, presumably about 10 years old. Farrell had been driven to Ogdensburg to make the last train ride into Morristown. Sheldon said she had never ridden the train before; she just wanted to participate in an historic ride.
With the photo recorded for the Ogdensburg Journal, the engineer blew the whistle, the couplings banged, and the train passed south through the outskirts of the village, crossing Route 58 and veering off to Brier Hill and Hammond en route to Syracuse.
Passenger service to a once-bustling village had ceased after 80-plus years. It made financial sense during the last half of the 19th Century when Dr. Morse’s Indian Root Pills factory, located next to the train depot, was shipping patent medicines around the globe, and ferrying them to Brockville for Canadian distribution. But what made sense in 1875 was supplanted by Dr. Morse’s declining market and the rise of inexpensive automobile travel.
Coincidentally, three graduates of Morristown’s Class of ’69 figured in this account. Farrell may have taken the last ride, but Lera Wright Bertrand holds fond memories of train rides. My older sister, Maureen, had a role too within our family.
Our home was situated on a bank above the tracks, at the mouth of Morristown Bay. When the trains crept out of the station, headed for Ogdensburg, I can remember Maureen and Mary Nora leading the chorus of pleas for the engineer to throw us a treat. We weren’t allowed to venture past the backyard fence but I recall a glimpse of the engineer waving and a pack of gum making it into Maureen’s hands. As the oldest, she ruled the batting order – herself (10), Mary Nora (8), Fran (5) and me (3 ½). Matt was only two and Anne Marie was an infant so I’m sure there was a fifth piece of gum that our foursome argued over.
Maureen’s classmate and fellow cheerleader, Lera Wright, doesn’t recall the sounds and smells of the train to Ogdensburg, but she remembers stopping at Brown’s Dairy. “We each received a chocolate milk in a little glass bottle.’’
“The other trip I took was when I was about 5. My mom, Elisabeth Wright, took me along when she chaperoned the Fresh Air children back to New York City. It was exciting going to the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. While there, we went to the Bronx Zoo and to Jones Beach on Long Island.’’
Wright’s uncle lived in New York “so he picked us up and we stayed a few days there. The train trip and hotel for us was paid for in exchange for chaperoning.’’
After a stint near Rochester, Wright and her husband, Bernie, built a home on the English Settlement Road in 1982, raised three children, and opened a construction business. Today, they enjoy eight grandchildren.
Clara Scott Warren has warm memories of the train “clanking on the tracks’’ during the ride to Theresa to visit her grandparents, and the trip to Ogdensburg.
“When I was in second grade, Mrs. Crawford, our teacher, took us on a class trip on the train to Ogdensburg. When we got there, we saw the Ogdensburg depot then one of our school buses picked us up. We visited Brown’s Dairy and then the bus took us back to school.’’
When passenger service ended in 1961, the depot was torn down by Dick and Allan Bogardus in 1964, the same year the tracks were moved along the line. But Warren and Wayne Latham have kept memories alive as local train buffs.
Latham grew up in Syracuse, where he played with and maintained an extensive model train set with his father.
“The railroad ran behind my Dad’s camp in Morristown,’’ Latham said. “I used to put pennies on the tracks for the train to run over and flatten. Seeing the trains go by was exciting and the engineer would wave at me.’’
When Latham learned his cousin, Al Bogardus, had preserved some of the depot wood, he was inspired to build a replica of the Morristown station in 2010 on his property at 9264 State Route 58, noticeable for its two red cabooses visible from the highway.
The station rates as a worthy field trip for school classes. It includes railroad art, calendars, flattened pennies, route markers and the two cabooses.
“People call us and we set up an appointment for viewing,’’ Latham said. “Sometimes someone stops, and if we are home we take them through.’’
Latham and Warren are keeping the trains running through Morristown.
Morristown native Jim Holleran is a retired teacher and sports editor from Rochester. Reach him at jimholleran29@gmail.com or view past columns under “Reflections of River Rat’’ at https://hollerangetsitwrite.com/blog/
Holleran Gets It Write 
My grandparents(Wylie) lived near the tracks in Morristown late 1950’s. We would wave at the trains. Surprised when stopped running and they took out the tracks.
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