"Legend of the Church Hill Tunnel"
                      (Bob Harrison Music-1996)

Bored thru the marl of old Church Hill
It was the spring of 1873
When the last spade full was dug
Ending two years of sweat and blood

She was the longest tunnel of her day
From Richmond's tracks of Fulton Yard
To Shockoe Creek near Lumbpkins Jail
Yeah, thirty nine hundred feet of cold steel rail

It's said that progress has a price
I don't doubt that it's true
"Cause a new James River viaduct
Shut her down in nineteen two

But with longer eastbound coal trains
With the passing of every year
By the summer of '25
A call back to service was near

The C & O had a plan
To shore it up for the bigger trains
To put the tunnel back on line
After decades of decline

But what the railroad didn't know
Was time had taken its toll
In the bracing deep under 24th Street
I guess only God could see

It was October 2 of '25
A gray day, wet and cold
Tom Mason fired up the old steam train
Engine 231 we're told

Sixty feet under 24th Street
Stopped the work train with her crew
Having dropped the cars, Tom started on
At that instance fell a brick or two

"Watch out, Tom, she's comin' in,"
Fireman Mosby cried
And, boy, she did that fateful day
Burying the train and crew along the way

Mosby crawled out at Fulton Yard
Burned by the engine's steam
Said, "Tell my wife that I'm all right
But old B.F. Mosby died that night

How many men were buried that day
Well, the C & O says just three
Mason, Richard Lewis and an man named Smith
But survivors say it's many more, you see

Fresh labor hired that rainy morn
Were buried, some rail men say
Not yet on the company roles
Now entombed in the bud and clay

Tom Mason's son stood in Jefferson Park
Above the sink hole that remained
Consumed with anguish, fear and doubt
Askin', "Who's gonna dig my daddy out?"

C & O put a shovel on the hill
A smoke belchin' steamer just eatin' dirt
But with ground beneath it giving way
They'd try hand-=dug shafts the following day

People came from miles around
As men dug day and night
Under the watchful eye of Tom Mason's boy
Don't ya' know that boy refused to leave the site

On the ninth day came the clank of steel
They'd found the buried track
Just a few feet ahead of the old steam train
It's cab just a few yards back

Well, they found big Tom J. Mason
Pinned by a lever in the cab
Of an old steam engine, once so grand
His gold train watch clutched in a lifeless hand

For days and days they searched and dug
A vigil all in vain
When ground gave way overhead
Decided the leave the train and the dead

1926 cast in stone
When she was sealed the following May
An abandoned and forsaken tomb
No mention of that tragic day

Years went by, as we know they will
And with then the sorrow and pain
Until November eighteenth of sixty one
People hardly ever heard of that Church Hill train

Bertha Williams lived up on 24th Street
The night Church Hill began to shake
Said it woke her fro her sleep
Said she heard the rumble, said it sounded deep

Said she stepped out on her front porch
Lights a'flickerin' and dogs a'barking'
Smoke and steam a'risin from the park
Sparks a'piercin' the clear, cool dark

Old rail men flocked to the park
Saw the new hole that remained
Swore the ghosts of Lewis and Smith
Had fired up that danged old train

Yeah, 36 years of waitin'
Forgotten by the world outside
They tried to break the crypt's death-hold
They took that final ride

Stoked the boiler for all she's worth
'Til it roared with an eerie sound
Said a prayer and crossed themselves
Then slammed the hammer down

Yeah, she was the longest tunnel of her day
3900 feet of man's resolve
A forsaken spirit, some have said
Never tamed and left for dead

Tormented spirits to this very day
In the haunted tunnel, a train and crew
No peace, no rest, they're in there still
As the fires of Hell burn in that hill

Yeah, noe you've heard about the tunnel
I'm hear to say it's true
But seein' is a'believin'
So I'll tell you what you can do

Take you a day down Richmond way
A'hind the old ice house on 18th Street
If you look real close then you will find
Her gravestone overgrown with weeds and vines

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I'm all done story tellin' now... Will answer questions... Might make the song available... I donno???

B~