Dale Brumfield

Special to The News Leader

The current restoration and preservation efforts of the old Blue Ridge Tunnel near Afton harken back to a terrible incident that occurred there 106 years ago, involving a pretty 18-year-old woman named Virginia Roncoli who panicked inside the tunnel — with horrible consequences.

Her father, Fracesco Roncoli, a remarried widower, came to America from Italy in 1906, settling in Tidewater, Virginia. On Aug. 8, 1910, he and his second wife gathered their four adult children (two boys and two girls, the youngest being Virginia) to move to Cleveland, Ohio.

They boarded a segregated car filled with fellow Italian immigrants on Chesapeake & Ohio train no. 3 in Norfolk, and rode uneventfully through Richmond and Charlottesville, then up the mountain to Afton. Sometime after midnight, while the passengers slept, the west-bound passenger train entered the famed Blue Ridge Tunnel.

The tunnel was considered a miracle of modern engineering when it opened in 1858. At 4,237 linear feet, it was the longest railroad tunnel in the United States. Engineer Claudius Crozet supervised excavation with pick-axes and black powder from both ends, finally meeting in the middle on December 29, 1856 less than one inch apart.

'In the blackness of the tunnel, all was confusion'

So astonished was the veteran editor of the Charlottesville Jeffersonian newspaper at the meeting, the Richmond Dispatch reported “he vented himself in some very astonishing capers for a man of his years.”

But the tunnel was not well-ventilated, requiring train passengers to keep the windows closed while passing through to prevent smoke from entering the cars.

Apparently not understanding the conductor’s instructions to keep their windows shut, smoke entered the car, awakening the passengers. Thinking the train was on fire, they threw the windows wide open, filling the car with more smoke.

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According to the Aug. 9, 1910 Staunton Spectator newspaper, “A general stampede followed in the crowded coach among the wildly excited foreigners, some of whom attempted to make their exit and finding the front door fastened, began breaking windows. This admitted more smoke, and added to the disorder.”

Details are sketchy, but supposedly there was a rush to the back door of the car, and for some reason Virginia was the only passenger to get the door open. She leaped from the car, and “dropped down between the vestibule and the express car” of the moving train and was instantly killed under the wheels. “In the blackness of the tunnel, all was confusion and no coherent account of just what occurred could be obtained,” the Spectator reported.

When No.3 stopped at the Basic City station, the grief-stricken Fracesco, his wife and oldest son Garibaldi disembarked and traveled (in an unknown manner) back to the tunnel to retrieve the “frightfully mangled remains” of their beloved young daughter, bringing her back on “no. 13.” A Chesapeake and Ohio claims agent named M.I. Dunn arrived and assisted with the removal and burial of the girl’s body somewhere in Basic.

While in Basic, Garibaldi related the “distressing events of the morning in the most pitiable manner” in “very good English” to the Spectator reporter. The residents of the town were “comforting and sympathizing with the bereaved survivors to the best of their ability.”

“The father and mother of the girl are prostrated over the death of their daughter,” the story concluded, adding that after burying the girl the family continued on to Ohio that night.

A search in July 2015 failed to locate Virginia’s grave.

— Dale Brumfield is an author and digital archaeologist in Doswell. He can be reached at dalebrumfield@yahoo.com.

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