Kanona & Prattsburgh Railroad Poem
The following poem was submitted by Stanley A. West, a former Prattsburg resident. The poem appears to have been published in a Penn Yan newspaper, and was transcribed by Mr. West. He retained the typos and other errors without the usual [sic] notation, it should also be noted that there is no H in Prattsburg.
Mr. West notes that newspaper clipping is undated and brown with age. However, the back of the clipping shows that the article was published when egg producers received $0.20/dozen and consumers paid $0.35 or $0.40. You date it!
The following written by an agent who visited this place Feb. 22nd, was handed one of our townsmen while in Penn Yan recently.
KANONA AND PRATTSUBURGH
A half a dozen trav'ling men,
On Washington's birthday,
Said good bye to Kanona, and
For Prattsburgh moved away;
The walking was so very bad
They couldn't stand the strain,
And so they did the next best thing--
They took a Prattsburgh train.
It was an interesting sight
To see that faithful crew
Make up the train for Prattsburgh,
While the moments swiftly flew.
'Twas due to leave at 3:15,
But here I'd like to state,
When it was ready for a start,
'Twas fifty minutes late.
There were box cars and flat cars, too,
And cars of every kind;
The freight cars they were all ahead,
The passenger behind.
The engine made an awful fuss
To draw the train along,
We feared 'twould "bust its biler",
'Cause it wasn't very strong.
It drew the train quite fast at first,
Displaying lots of power;
We hope to make that Prattsburgh run
In about half an hour.
But soon it settled to a pace
No faster than a walk;
And once or twice it acted queer,
We feared 'twas going to balk.
Then suddenly 'twould gather strength
And up the grade would climb,
But when it had to whistle,
It would stop most every time;
For when it to a crossing came,
Where whistle had to blow,
It took its strength for whistling,
So it left no power to go.
That Prattsburgh engine surely
Kept us guessing all the time,
And that is why I tho't to try
To write its pranks in rhyme.
It forward went, and backward, too,
And acted like a clown;
Then once or twice it stopped quite short
And jumped right up and down.
The grinding of those air brakes
Kept the train in constant quiver;
Cold chills run up and down our spines,
And caused us each to shiver;
There never was a bronco
Could perform so many feats;
We got so interested that
We couldn't keep our seats.
Our tickets all were limited,
So 'twas our great desire
To reach our destination
Ere our tickets should expire.
We got quite tired and hungry, too,
Yet we were all alive
When we arrived at Prattsburgh,
Fifteen minutes after five.