Some of Watertown's more prominent citizens — men with fancy, noisy motoring machines — gathered on a Wednesday in August 1910 for a clambake near Henderson.

Among them was James B. Wise, who had been Watertown's mayor and, as owner of J.B. Wise Co., manufactured brass plumbing products.

So was District Attorney Fred B. Pitcher, the region's future state senator.

Also joining the outing were Wayne H. Hadcock, secretary and treasurer of Remington Clothing Co.; Abraham Lincoln Grant DeCant, an owner of Black River Traction Co.; William J. Mills, vice president and general manager at H.H. Babcock Co.; Watertown City Clerk Fred W. Streeter, and a couple pharmacy operators, Samuel Felt and William George.

Another of them wouldn't make it back to his Keyes Avenue home that night. Fifty-five-year-old James R. Smith, a well-known furniture dealer, was destined to become a statistic for Jefferson County, the first in a number that will continue to grow as long as there are vehicles and highways.

Mr. Smith became the first to lose his life in a motor vehicle accident, the victim of a "joy ride."

Motorized vehicles had been puttering along in the county for about 14 years, since Will C. Greene, a bicycle shop operator, had in 1896 driven his new machine from Syracuse to Watertown. Anticipating this creation as a replacement for the horse and buggy, he transformed his business in 1900 into a garage on Washington Street.

Louis W. Moore, associated with his father, William Moore, in operation of a five-and-dime store and eventual shareholder of F.W. Woolworth Co., bought a horseless buggy in 1900 — a $1,000 Foster & Co. steam Stanhope that he had shipped by train from Rochester.

Also in 1900, Will L. Gould, at the time a farm equipment distributor, partnered with C.M. Gray to drive a new Oldsmobile into town. Within two years, he and brother Albert were selling Oldsmobiles at Gould Brothers on King Street near Public Square.

"At that time, when you wished to sell a car you would pick out a man with money and take him for a ride," Mr. Gould told an interviewer for the Watertown Daily Times. "You had to get him enthused in spite of the fact that you had to stop every time you met a horse."

He told of driving to Gouverneur to show a car to a doctor.

"We went up towards Edwards with the car. The road was awful. We had to get out and push the car in the sand on one hill. But in spite of that I sold him the car."

By 1910, cars were catching on. The men with money whom Mr. Gould had targeted were now riding the dirt and stone roads with their wheeled status symbols. In the past 11 years, such buggies had been tied to 3,554 deaths around the country, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, but in rural Jefferson County, not a life had been lost, coroner reports indicate.

That streak came to an end late the afternoon of Aug. 10, 1910, at Roberts Corners in the town of Henderson, about 19 miles from Watertown.

As the party broke up and the men headed home to Watertown, one of the first vehicles to pull away was a Matheson 6 touring car owned by Mr. DeCant, driven by his chauffeur, Carl Kapser of Cape Vincent. Mr. Hadcock and William R. Zimmerman, formerly of Watertown but more recently operating a store in Peoria, Ill., were back-seat passengers. Mr. Smith occupied a little seat extending over the mudguard, on the left side of the auto.

Although it was about dusk, objects along the road could be plainly seen, the Watertown Times reported. Mr. Kapser was "speeding along" at 20 to 30 mph on what is modern-day Route 178 when he pulled to the right to give room to a farmer who was going toward Henderson.

The car ran into the stone pile, causing the chauffeur to lose control. It crashed into the small bridge. The car's rear wheels were torn off, and all five men were thrown out.

The car plunged off the bridge into the ditch.

Three or four minutes passed before Mr. Wise, accompanied by his passengers Fred Pitcher and Samuel Felt, came upon the scene. Simultaneously, several farmers with lanterns in hand were converging.

Mr. Pitcher's description of what he saw was quoted in the Times.

"The car was lying in the ditch, its wheels torn off, and three men were lying on the ground unconscious. I went over on the little bridge, where Mr. Smith was lying, and he was totally unconscious. I placed my hand over his heart and could detect just a slight flutter. I went to Zimmerman's side. He was groaning and I asked him if he knew me. He did not seem to utter any sound which could be understood. I grasped him by the hand and squeezed it, and there was an answering pressure in return."

As more vehicles arrived, drivers trained their lights on the "ghastly sight," the news report continued. A bit beyond the bridge, Mr. Hadcock could be seen lying by the road, but he eventually recovered his bearings. Dazed from shock and with bruised face and legs, he later said he didn't have the slightest idea of what happened after the car hit the stones, "except that he shot through the air and picked himself up," the Times reported.

The chauffeur and Mr. DeCant were on their feet, but they "were overcome by the accident and could give no coherent account of what happened."

Mr. Pitcher observed, "The car must have swerved when it struck the stone pile and crashed into the bridge, tearing off the wheels and throwing the party out. It was an unavoidable accident on the part of the driver."

The district attorney added that he thought the piles of stone extended into the road for a distance.

The state highway was under construction, and several piles of crushed stone, about 2 feet high and 10 to 15 feet apart, lined the south side of the road, the Times reported. The bridge, spanning a 2-feet deep ditch, consisted of planks placed across stringers.

A slow and tedious rescue mission began. Mr. Wise drove to a hotel about a quarter mile away and telephoned Adams for doctors. He transported Dr. O.F. Buell to the scene, while Dr. Alfred Goss came in his own car. As soon as they arrived they summoned Dr. Frederick R. Calkins, who left Watertown at 9:40 p.m., accompanied by two nurses from the House of the Good Samaritan. They reached the scene 50 minutes later.

Mr. Felt's drug store at 114 Court St., was contacted to send medical supplies, and Mr. Streeter drove to pick up Mr. Smith's wife, Harriet, to bring her to the scene.

Mr. DeCant went to Adams, telephoned the railroad dispatcher in Watertown and arranged for a special train to bring the men to Watertown. Two milk wagons were commandeered and improvised into ambulances with cots to bring Mr. Smith and Mr. Zimmerman to Adams to meet the train, which, throttling to about 60 mph, delivered them to Watertown shortly after 2 a.m.

Mr. Smith's death in the hospital at 5:30 a.m. was attributed to a brain hemorrhage. Besides his wife of 26 years, he left two daughters, Hazel, 22, and Leila, 25.

Mr. Zimmerman lived another three years. He had suffered a fracture of the ninth vertebra, with bone depressed upon the lacerated spinal cord. The day after the crash, he underwent surgery, with Dr. James H. Glass having come from Utica. Dr. Calkins assisted.

The patient, whose wife, Anna, had died in 1899 while giving birth to a son, George, was paralyzed. He eventually hired a personal attendant, Francis L. Ruddy, later the operator of a private hospital in Watertown. Mr. Ruddy at times had to carry him on his back, no simple task since Mr. Zimmerman weighed nearly 300 pounds.

Mr. Zimmerman was 56 when he died Sept. 11, 1913.

Despite having to investigate the first fatal motor vehicle accident in Jefferson County, the 46-year-old county coroner chose not to conduct an inquest.

Dr. Herbert L. Smith wrote in his report: "All the evidence pointed to the fact that it was simply what is called a 'joy ride,' and, while I feel men should be censured for thus endangering not only their own lives but also the lives of others whom they may chance to meet on the public highway, I felt that in this terrible accident the participants must all share the responsibility alike and that the anguish of mind sustained by the members of the party who were uninjured was all the punishment any one need ask them to endure."

A United Press story in December 1941 reported that the nation's first highway fatality occurred on Sept. 13, 1899, in Manhattan. After stepping down from a trolley on 74th Street, Henry H. Bliss, 68, a Wall Street real estate broker, was struck by a car.

Since then, through 2006, 3,369,440 people have met the same fate as Mr. Bliss, Mr. Smith and Mr. Zimmerman, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

New York's Department of Motor Vehicles has data going back only to 1972. In 34 years, the state's highway death toll stands at 71,370.

We have compilations back to 1938 for fatalities in Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence counties. Of 3,828 deaths, including accidents last year, 1,850 were in St. Lawrence County, 1,492 in Jefferson, and 486 in Lewis.

Continuing with the numbers game from the available sources, 1972 was the worst year nationally and in New York, with totals of 54,589 and 3,238 respectively. We go back to 1941 to find the most tragic year in the tri-county area, with 90 people killed.

While the 1970s proved to be the nation's most dangerous decade for travelers — 498,356 died — New York's worst decade was the 1980s, with 22,330 dead. The tri-county region's high was 698, occurring in the 1960s.

Although the highway slaughter continues, there is good news: the numbers are on a downhill slide. New York's toll of 1,410 in 2005 was a 33-year low, and nationally, yearly counts now rarely exceed 43,000. Between 1966 and 1973, the annual count averaged 52,712.

The trend locally shadows the national figures. In the 1980s, there were 460 people killed on the highways of Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence counties. The count dipped to 376 in the 1990s, and in the current decade, there have been 286 fatalities through last year.

Elly Martin, spokeswoman for the traffic safety administration, cites several factors that are influencing the decline, despite increases in population and vehicles on the road. Enforcement of seat belt and drinking driver laws tops her list, but she also mentioned improved safety features in automobiles and better highway design.

"But there are still other distractions that make driving even more challenging," she said, "including the use of cell phones and too many drowsy drivers."

Hazel Smith, a daughter of James R. Smith, married a soldier who was stationed at Madison Barracks. Her husband, Walter Hale Frank, eventually advanced to major general and served in both world wars, spending about two years of the second war as commander general of the service command of the Eighth Air Force in England. In 1944, he was assigned to an Army inquiry board investigating the Pearl Harbor attack. Following his retirement from the Army, he became president of the South America division of Sears, Roebuck & Co. Mrs. Frank died Aug. 1, 1968, and is buried with her husband in Arlington Cemetery.

Leila Smith married Franklin P. Wadley 15 months after her father's death. She died in June 1977 in Syracuse.

Research into county coroner reports conducted by Julia E. Gosier, director of the Lyme Heritage Center, fueled this story. We were also assisted by city clerk and historian Donna M. Dutton; Timothy J. Abel, director of the Jefferson County Historical Society; Kenneth Brown, spokesman for the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles; Elly Martin, National Traffic Safety Administration, and Times librarian Lisa Carr.