B
Benjamin Bartle
Benjamin Bartle was the engineer on August 6, 1860, when the first Memphis, Clarksville & Louisville Railroad train crossed the bridge over the Cumberland River in Clarksville, Tennessee. The bridge represented a major hurdle in building a vital portion of the rail line linking Memphis and Louisville.
In October 1860, Bartle traveled to Philadelphia “where he had been to receive a fine new locomotive just finished there for the” Memphis, Clarksville & Louisville.
Frank A. Bissett
Ed Boone
Thomas J. Bradley
Thomas J. Bradley was at the throttle of Memphis, Clarksville & Louisville Railroad locomotive No. 9 on February 10, 1870, when its boiler suddenly exploded.
The blast sent Bradley “whizzing through the air for some distance” into a telegraph wire, nearly severing his body in half.
Bradley, who was also the master mechanic at the railroad’s shops in Clarksville, left behind a wife.
Gilbert C. Breed
Gilbert C. Breed (November 17, 1829-November 17, 1886) held a series of posts with the Memphis, Clarksville & Louisville Railroad.
A native of Stonington, Connecticut, Breed was elected Clarksville, Tennessee, city engineer circa January 1858. He resigned from the railroad by November 1858 to form a business partnership with contractor A.J. Harrison.
By February 1860, Breed was secretary of the Memphis, Clarksville & Louisville Railroad.
In October 1861, Superintendent George B. Fleece appointed G.C. Breed as master of transportation and assistant superintendent in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
In about April 1862, Memphis, Clarksville & Louisville President Robert W. Humphreys apparently dismissed Breed for his pro-Union sentiments.
After the Louisville & Nashville company took over the Memphis, Clarksville & Louisville, Breed was the general purchasing agent with headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky. He was later the assistant general manager of the Louisville & Nashville. In his last years, he was the auditor of another railroad.
F. H. Britton
C. A. Brown
Simon B. Brown
William Brown
William Brown was appointed master mechanic of the Memphis, Clarksville and Louisville Railroad in July 1866.
C
John Cain
John Cain, a native of Clarksville, Tennessee, was appointed conductor on the Memphis, Clarksville & Louisville Railroad after its completion.
After the Civil War, Cain went to work on the Louisville & Nashville and the Memphis & Tennessee railroads. He moved to Arkansas in the late 1870s.
He was killed during a March 1883 train robbery on the Little Rock & Fort Smith Railroad, where he worked as a conductor.
G. A. Calder
John Calhoun
Thomas Campia
David B. Cliffe
David B. Cliffe served as receiver of the Memphis, Clarksville & Louisville Railroad from January 22, 1868, until November 30, 1869. He earned an annual salary of $5,000 until July 14, 1868, and an annual salary of $3,000 until November 30, 1869.
Joshua Cobb
Robert Linah Cobb
Robert Linah Cobb was born March 5, 1840, in Cumberland Iron Works, Tennessee.
He was educated in the local schools and at Stewart College. After completing his studies, he became a rodman on the Memphis, Clarksville and Louisville Railroad. He soon became Assistant Engineer on this road, and in 1859 and 1860, was the city engineer of Clarksville, Tennessee.
He served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War and was ordered to Fort Donelson. After the fort’s surrender, he reported to General Johnson at Nashville.
After the war, he became division engineer of the Memphis, Clarksville and Louisville Railroad, and in 1867 was appointed Chief Engineer of the Winchester and Alabama Railroad. Two years later, he became assistant engineer of the Memphis and Ohio Railroad, from which he went in 1869 as a division engineer to the Memphis and Little Rock Railroad, where he remained until 1872, serving part of the time as acting chief engineer.
In 1881 and 1882, he was the chief engineer of the Texas and St. Louis Railway, now the St. Louis, Arkansas and Texas. After four years in manufacturing machinery in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1886, he was appointed chief engineer of the Indiana, Alabama and Texas Railroad, and upon the absorption of that line in 1887 by the Louisville and Nashville Railroad.
In 1890, he was appointed the chief engineer of the Clarksville Mineral Railroad, and in 1892 went to Ohio as the Chief Engineer of the Ohio Southern Railroad.
Based on the “Proceedings of the American Society of Civil Engineers Volume 22” by the American Society of Civil Engineers (1896).
Tim Conway
Jonathan Cousins
Jonathan Cousins was the fireman on Memphis, Clarksville & Louisville Railroad locomotive No. 9 on February 10, 1870, when its boiler suddenly exploded, killing him and the locomotive’s engineer.
He and another fireman “were found, bruised and bleeding, beneath the fragments of the wreck, and conveyed to the National Hotel, where the best of medical attention was rendered to alleviate their intense suffering, but all was in vain. …They were gathered in the cold embrace of death at a late hour that night.”
Cousins, a resident of Providence, Tennessee, left behind a wife and two children.