Pair of researchers seeking more information on train wreck from 111 years ago

HAMLET — Dr. E. Victor Maafo and historian Eddie Davis hosted a Zoom call on Wednesday that commemorated the 111th anniversary of the Hamlet Train Wreck of 1911.

On the morning of July 27, 1911, according to accounts from the Charlotte Observer and the New York Times, a dispatching error at Hamlet caused a passenger train to collide with a freighter and several Durham passengers were killed or injured.

“There were at least seven people who lost their lives instantaneously,” Davis said. “And there were many more people who were seriously injured, 25, who had to be transported.”

Many of the injured were members of St. Joseph’s AME Church. They were located in an inferior, wooden passenger train due to segregation laws at the time. Grant said it’s not clear exactly where the church-goers were headed.

Injured blacks could not be treated in local hospitals and were transported 75 miles away to Good Samaritan Hospital in Charlotte.

“It is our understanding, that across racial lines, there were lots of people in Hamlet, Rockingham and other responding areas, that responded to the accident without regard to race,” Davis said.

Dr. Maafo and Davis, located currently in Durham, are looking to continue their research into the matter and secure more information from the Hamlet Depot & Museum, the Hall of Fame Museum for Railroads, local city councils and newspapers.

When Dr. Maafo, who is 95-years-old, was a pastor in Hamlet, he encountered many people who had some memory of the incident. He wants to document the event on a larger scale.

“We obviously recognize the area of segregation that existed in Hamlet and across North Carolina and across the South. But we’re not so much trying to dwell on that,” Davis said. “We are much more interested in trying to honor the multi-racial reaction, the multi-racial response, to the incident that occurred.”

It’s the goal of the pair of researchers that during the next 12 months, they can visit and interact with the people of Rockingham and Hamlet to gather any information from the community. They also said they’re looking to partner with either the Board of Commissioners or Hamlet City Council to somehow recognize the incident.

“We look forward to coming to Hamlet,” Davis said. “We don’t want to praise and glorify an accident, but we do want to make sure that we can indeed give honor to the people that lost their lives and make sure that we can better historically document what we know of July 27 0f 1911.”