The Hillsborough Recorder

Remarkable Preservation.—A late Niagara Sentinel mentions that a stage in crossing "deep hollow," near Rochester, was overturned in the night, on the brink of a precipice, and although the descent was from thirty to forty feet, no one was seriously injured.—The editor of the Chronicle has been furnished with an extract from a letter by one of the passengers, giving the particulars of this extraordinary escape.

N. Y. Chron.

We left Rochester in the stage at 8 A. M. perfectly dark—no lamps—ten passengers, myself the only female. We had proceeded a little more than a mile and a half from the village when the driver lost his direction, and while crossing a causeway, made over a gulf about seventy feet deep, we were precipitated down a precipice of thirty feet—the stage rolling over and over like a log. It first struck a light railing that had been placed as a guard—the top was broken through, and we went over again and again till we rested on a small level where a stone breast work a foot or two in height had been made. That corner of the stage in which I sat stuck into the earth, and the whole weight of its contents came on me. The unutterable horror of the moment you cannot conceive. I expected to die in an instant, from the awful, the amazing pressure. It was as dark as it ever is, and it rained violently. Each thought the others dead, and it was not till the persons above began to move, that a word was uttered. In releasing themselves two or three stepped upon me, and one climbed out by resting his foot upon my head. All but myself at last were extricated, and I, from the shock, had lost the power of moving; besides, the sand and earth poured in upon me so that I could not lift a foot. I heard my husband calling my name in agony, and some crying out, "where is the lady," and others replying she is dead. For a few moments I lay buried in the wreck, unable to speak or move. At last a man found, in the darkness, where I lay and lifted me out by main strength. But we were now in an awful uncertainty respecting our situation, and what would be our fate; for we supposed, when we turned over, that we were going off the bank of the Genesee, which was in fact only a few rods from us,— and the precipice of that is at least 150 feet. Where we rested, it was just on the brink of another descent of nearly forty feet, at the bottom of which was a stream with rocks and bodies of trees; we afterwards saw the place by daylight and therefore know. Had we gone over the little breast work, our death had been inevitable.—As it was, our preservation is justly considered a miracle. We remained in this condition nearly an hour, not daring to move at all, lest we should plunge we knew not where. At last a light was brought and we walked through the mire a quarter of a mile, to a house, where we waited till day. We then took seats in another stage, and rode to Canandaigua, a distance of eighty miles. All the passengers were somewhat injured, but none so much as to be unable to travel. Not a bone was broken except the poor horses' ribs. Our preservation was beyond all human calculation. God had mercy on us—no other reason can be assigned why we were not killed on the spot.