If you’re coming in late one night after a day of tending to crab pots, angling the legendary bay for Maryland’s celebrated rockfish, or simply returning home from a day of pleasure out on the water, and happen to see a ghostly, headless figure wandering along the Gunpowder River Railroad Bridge searching aimlessly back-and-forth, chances are you have seen, “The Headless Tramp of Gunpowder Bridge.”
Sometime in the very early hours of May 6th, 1901, a man who to this day remains known but to God, made his way on foot across the Gunpowder Railroad Bridge; his reason for doing so remains unknown, his direction of travel has never been determined, and the true reason for his death has never been revealed.
Early on the 7th of May, George Campbell, a trackwalker for the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad, stumbled upon a bloody head lying on the crossties of the bridge rails. After a fruitless search for the headless body on the bridge and in the waters nearby, he proceeded to the Chase Railroad Station on the Baltimore County side of the river and reported his find to Justice James Gibson, who then opened an inquest into the matter.
After a very short deliberation, the assembled jury rendered its verdict, they determined it to be an accidental death. It was presumed that the unknown man must have been a tramp, and was walking along the bridge when he was hit by a passing train, severing his head, and sending his body into the muddy river below.
The head was examined and though no identification could be made, it was determined that he was most likely about 50 years of age. His body has never been found and the whereabouts of his severed head also remain unknown to this day.
Was he a tramp? Or was he a lonely, destitute man seeking a way out of his misery? How did he not hear or see a train coming down the tracks, and why not step over to the safety of the rail? We leave this story with a couple of very curious facts about the bridge over the Gunpowder River in 1901; the bridge was very narrow, with but a foot or so between the ties and the edge of the deck, supported only one rail line, and had no guardrails.
We’ll never know who this lost soul was, but if you happen to see him wandering aimlessly along the rail deck late some night when you are coming upon the bridge, provide him a little assistance by shining a light about the deck or the waters beneath him, so that he may find his lost being and finally make his way home.
Author: Lyle Garitty, Independent Regional Historian and Writer
