Harry B. Chase, Jr. Papers

<a href=https://archivessearch.lib.uconn.edu/repositories/2/resources/302 show="New" actuate="OnRequest">Harry B. Chase, Jr. Papers finding aid </a>. The collection consists of several writings by Harry B. Chase, Jr.: "'Boston & New York R.P.O Train 500,' Letters from a New Haven Railroad Signal Maintainer to his Soldier Son in Wartime, 1942-1943. Excerpts from letters written by Harry B. Chase. Transcribed and edited by his son Harry B. Chase, Jr." The typed manuscript is 47 pages long. Highlights of the letters include Chase's comment on 3 February 1943 about the interest in the New Haven Railroad's popular advertisement, "The Kid in Upper 4." He also comments about the railroad workers request to the federal government for a pay increase (9 February 1943) and his service as an air raid warden. Chase writes of witnessing the derailment of New Haven Railroad Engine 3342 in Walpole, Massachusetts, in April 1943, with a poem he wrote about it. The papers include an unpublished manuscript titled "Mixed Train to Providence: A History of the Boston and Providence Rail Road, the Taunton Branch Rail Road, and Connecting Lines, with Emphasis on Mansfield, Massachusetts." The typed manuscript is 792 pages long. Other writings include "A Visit to the Scene of the Derailment of Freight OB-4 Canton Junction, Massachusetts, 15 December 1968," "Tales of the Old New Haven Railroad, An Oral History," told by Harry B. Chase, Sr. and Recorded by Harry B. Chase, Jr., ca. 1941, Transcribed to PC by Harry B. Chase, Jr., 2001," "Train Observations 1932-1956: Engines and Trains on the New Haven R.R. Providence-Worcester Line, at Whitins (Linwood) Mass, 1932, 1938, 1939," "A Collision on the Boston and Providence Rail Road at Roxbury, Massachusetts," "Railroad Documents: Revised Date Index of Locomotives of the Boston and Providence Rail Road," "Labor Day Trains, NYNH&HRR, Shore Line, 3 September 1956," "A Visit from St. Nicholas" [a version of the Christmas poem by Harry B. Chase, Jr., in which a signal maintainer clears the railroad tracks to allow Santa's train to come through on Christmas Eve], "Kilometer Posts on [the] Boston & Providence Rail Road," " New Haven Railroad Steam Sightings, 1947-1951," [diary entries of personal observations of steam trains], "'The Light That Failed:' The Wreck of the New Haven Railroad's 'Owl' at Mansfield, Massachusetts, 23 May 1926," and "Locomotive Fuel on the Boston and Providence Rail Road." The papers include "Impressions of the Boston & Providence Rail Road: A Poetic Work by Elijah Dean of Mansfield, Massachusetts, ca. 1837, with editorial comments by historian Jennie Freeman Copeland in The Mansfield News, 1931." This writing is not by Harry B. Chase, Jr. The papers also include four printouts of photographs of Harry B. Chase, Sr., in 1946, and Harry B. Chase, Jr., in 1943.