The Ambassador's Final Ride

All aboard, MMers! We've got a story for you about Maine's deep history of rail roads. This one is a little gruesome, so prepare yourself.

Central Maine Railroad

Maine has a rich history of trains. It may not seem like it nowadays, but the in the late 1800s/early 1900s train tracks crisscrossed the state.  The famous Boston & Maine brought thousands of people to the state. A little less familiar is the Maine Central Railroad which ran from Waterville to Portland along tracks known as the Low Road. Our story comes from 1921 and deals with a train, the Ambassador, full of passengers coming to Waterville to enjoy the Opera House and Colby College's football from points south.

Unbeknownst to the the passengers one person on the train, Edward Clarence, had advanced leprosy. Discovered thirty miles south of Waterville, the conductor immediately made the decision to lockdown the passenger cars. The train continued into the Waterville station where the conductor, Thomas Granger, informed the operators of the infection. Doctors were summoned, but no one was allowed on or off the train. 

In the end the entire train was quarantined. The goods carried in the boxcars were unloaded and the cars were unhooked. Then the passenger cars with all of the passengers and all of the employees were transported to a distant section of the rail yard. There, they were locked in, under guard from the Waterville police.

The fear of spread, kept everyone under lockdown. If leprosy were to infect the surrounding towns, it would be catastrophic. So despite the please of the passengers, they were kept under watch while the infection ran its course.

The crew of the Ambassador, 1921

Edward Clarence was the first to succumb to the disease, but by then he had already infected many of the others. Leprosy generally takes between one and five years to kill its victims, but the passengers on the Ambassador didn't have to wait that long. Soon the food and water supplies ran out. That's when things got really awful.

Robin Thatcher, Professor of American History at Colby College in Waterville, and author of The Day the Trains Stopped: A History of the End of the Line for Railroads in Maine sat down and talked with us about the Ambassador Incident.

"When the food and water ran out passengers went mad. Combine that with the leprosy coursing through their veins and their fear of the inevitable end, and things got out of hand. That's an understatement. The people started smashing the windows of the train. The police - these were Waterville police, remember. They were used to some drunk college kids or the occasional car crash, not something like this. They kept boarding up the windows. Then some of the calmer heads on the train tried to stop the rioting. That's when the mob turned on each other."

In her book, Thatcher describes how the passengers of the Ambassador "began tearing each other apart." Using whatever they could find to use as weapons, including their own hands and teeth, a violent battle tore through the cars. The attacks raged for three days and nights. The policemen endured listening to the horrible screams of the wounded and dying. One officer was reported as saying, "This is what Hell sounds like. I will hear this forever." Finally, after three days the cars grew quiet.

They remained locked up for two months. When the boards were finally taken off and the door unlocked, what they found was worse than anyone could imagine.

"They had started to eat each other," Thatcher explained. "In the end, with no food or water, they had turned to the one thing they had - each other."

Site of the old rail yard

In the end, every passenger on the Ambassador died. After a year of further quarantine, the bodies were finally returned to the families. The Ambassador was burned in a farmer's field not long after the bodies were removed. Thomas Granger, the conductor, remained in the engine's cab the entire time. It was determined that he was the last to die so dehydration. Soon after the popularity of the rails declined tot he point that many shut down for good. The horribly tragedy of the Ambassador Incident was soon swept under the rug and everyone did their best to move on from it.

But workers at the rail yard claimed for years that they could hear screams, especially at dusk, right before the sun set. Even now, when the rail yard is long gone, visitors still hear screams of rage and pain. Reports of "lunatic sounds" come in at all times of the year. Perhaps the spirits of those who died on the Ambassador's final ride linger close to the spot of the tragedy.

Stay safe out there, Maine!