The Meteorite That Rode the Train: Newfoundland’s Celestial Visitor of 1895

Let me tell you a story.
A rock fell from space.
And a train conductor picked it up.

This isn’t the start of a sci-fi novel or an X-Files reboot. It’s a real event — buried in the yellowing pages of 19th-century Newfoundland newspapers and whispered through local heritage circles like a bedtime ghost story for geology nerds.

The year was 1895, and something strange happened near Salmon Cove, a quiet coastal nook off Conception Bay. Locals claimed a heavy, blackened stone — scorched and smooth, like it had been touched by fire — was found embedded in the earth. Unlike anything they’d ever seen before. Some said it looked like it had fallen from the sky. And they were right.

It was a meteorite, and its journey was only beginning.

“A Stone From Heaven”

In the 19th century, Newfoundland wasn’t exactly the center of scientific discovery. But even in a rugged colony where cod was king and the railway still smelled of fresh timber and coal, the stars had their say.

The meteorite was discovered near Salmon Cove, and early reports suggest it hadn’t been lying there long. A recent fall. A fresh one. Locals gathered around it, poked it, speculated. It was heavy. Metallic. Not the kind of rock you’d find on the Atlantic shoreline.

And that’s where he enters the story:
Conductor Spence. A man with a schedule, a train whistle, and, on that particular day, a rock from deep space in his baggage car.

The Meteorite Express

Let’s take a minute to appreciate the surreal beauty of this:
A train conductor transporting a meteorite through the wilds of Newfoundland, clacking over tracks that sliced through forests and coastlines.

Spence was no random passerby. He was a known figure in the region, tied to other ventures — even assisting government surveyors with mining claims around Chapel’s Cove the very next year. It makes you wonder: did he know the value of what he was transporting?

We do know that he brought it to St. John’s. The biggest city in the colony. The only place where something like this might be examined — or at least gawked at by the public.

Newspapers at the time reported the strange object with breathless curiosity:

“Meteorite found near Salmon Cove, brought into town by conductor Spence.”
It became a local sensation.

Crowds gathered.
Heads tilted.
Hands reached out to touch a piece of space.