By Colin McEwen
Record-Courier staff writer
In the early morning of July 14, 1949, train engineer Frank O'Neil was hauling freight through Portage County for the Erie Railroad.
Bound for Cleveland from Meadville, Pa., the steam engine train was a mile long, pulling 80 cars, cutting through the July night's thick humidity.
In Hiram Township, the pin in the train's boiler slipped unexpectedly, tearing a hole in the firebox and releasing scalding steam on the train's crew.
As a result of the sudden blast, the fireman on board fell from the train and died instantly. The brakeman was scalded by the steam and died three days later at Robinson Memorial Hospital in Ravenna.
Frank O'Neil shared the same fate, dying five days after the accident, but not before walking 150 feet to find help and collapsing along the tracks.
A sad twist to the story is that O'Neil lived less than two miles away from the site of the accident.
His wife Dora was just west, in the family's Pioneer Trail farmhouse, unaware of his fate.
Fast-forward 59 years.
The train tracks are now gone, replaced with the paved Portage County Hike and Bike Trail.
A group of O'Neil's descendants from all over the country met Saturday afternoon at the location of the accident described by reports of the time, in between Limeridge and Asbury roads in Hiram.
O'Neil's only surviving daughter, Dorothy O'Neil-Derthick, the youngest of four, served as the family's matriarch at 86 years old.
She remembered how her father would blow the whistle so the family could hear it as he passed his Mantua farm.
"My mom knew the sound of his horn," she said. "It's been such a long time. I'm happy I could be here to see this. This has been wonderful."
In all, 13 members of the family made the pilgrimage from as far away as Arizona.
Duane Vild, O'Neil's grandson, organized the reunion and has kept a detailed account of the events of that night.
"Is it fate?" he asked of the July night in 1949 when he was 6 years old. "I don't think so, but it sure is strange. He was less than two miles away from his home. It's really strange."
As bicyclists rode by Saturday, the family remembered O'Neil and tried to imagine what it was like in his final moments.
They looked over a nearby railroad trestle, wondering if that was the bridge mentioned in the reports where he collapsed.
However, the family's mood was anything but melancholic.
Remembered with a fun-loving spirit, the family sang the Irish melodies the son of Irish immigrants loved best: "Danny Boy" and "My Wild Irish Rose." It is family legend that the well-built Irishman at 6-foot-3 could bench press a Model-T.
O'Neil, who was 64 at the time of the accident, was set to retire in five months.
Only months before, he had refused to engineer a diesel engine train, opting to stick with the steam engine that he drove for 48 years for the Erie Railroad.
The family hopes to place a marker at the location where fireman Earl Townsend of Youngstown, brakeman Gerald Campbell of Greenville, Pa., and O'Neil lost their lives.
They said they will be back next year to commemorate the 60 years since the accident. The family prayed together then disbanded to visit the old farm on Pioneer Trail.