Memphis, Clarksville and Louisville Railroad » Key Figures in Railroad History

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.

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).

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.