It is the earliest recorded train accident involving the death of passengers in America.
[2] The train had been travelling from South Amboy to Bordentown at a speed of 35 mph (56 km/h), when, despite having stopped "to oil the wheels" and slowing to 20 mph (32 km/h),[3] a journal box overheated (a condition known as hot box) and caught fire, causing an axle to break on one of the carriages, derailing and overturning it.
Among the injured was Cornelius Vanderbilt, who broke a leg and vowed never to travel by train again, although he later broke his vow and eventually became a railway magnate, owning the New York Central Railroad, among others.
Another passenger was Congressman and former US President John Quincy Adams, who escaped injury, but described the accident in his diary as "the most dreadful catastrophe that ever my eyes beheld".
Irish actor Tyrone Power was also aboard the train and recorded the accident in his two-volume journal Impressions of America.