diff --git a/lib/winston-papertrail.js b/lib/winston-papertrail.js
index 17f4229..5e95740 100644
--- a/lib/winston-papertrail.js
+++ b/lib/winston-papertrail.js
@@ -229,7 +229,7 @@ var Papertrail = exports.Papertrail = function (options) {
         // make sure we prevent simultaneous attempts to connect and handle errors
         self._erroring = true;
 
-        self.emit('error', err);
+		self._silentErrorEmitter(err);
 
         // We may be disconnected from the papertrail endpoint for any number of reasons;
         // i.e. inactivity, network problems, etc, and we need to be resilient against this
@@ -248,11 +248,11 @@ var Papertrail = exports.Papertrail = function (options) {
 
             // Stop buffering messages after a fixed number of retries.
             // This is to keep the buffer from growing unbounded
-            if (self.loggingEnabled &&
-                (self.totalRetries >= (self.maximumAttempts))) {
-                    self.loggingEnabled = false;
-                    self.emit('error', new Error('Max entries eclipsed, disabling buffering'));
-            }
+			if (self.loggingEnabled && (self.totalRetries >= (self.maximumAttempts)))
+			{
+				self.loggingEnabled = false;
+				self._silentErrorEmitter(new Error('Max entries eclipsed, disabling buffering'));
+			}
 
             // continue
             self._erroring = false;
@@ -456,3 +456,25 @@ Papertrail.prototype.close = function() {
         });
     }
 };
+
+/**
+ * The goal here is to ignore connection errors by default without triggering an uncaughtException.
+ * You can still bind your own error handler as normal, but if you haven't overridden it, connection errors
+ * will be logged to the console by default.
+ *
+ * Notes: This is meant to fix usability issues #20, and #49
+ *
+ * @param err
+ * @private
+ */
+Papertrail.prototype._silentErrorEmitter = function(err) {
+	var count = this.listeners('error').length;
+	if (count > 0) {
+		// the goal here is to ensure someone is catching this event, instead of potentially
+		// causing the process to exit.
+		this.emit('error', err);
+	}
+	else {
+		console.error('Papertrail connection error: ', err);
+	}
+};
diff --git a/test/papertrail-test.js b/test/papertrail-test.js
index 04d374d..e86507b 100644
--- a/test/papertrail-test.js
+++ b/test/papertrail-test.js
@@ -33,6 +33,22 @@ describe('connection tests', function() {
       });
     });
 
+    it('should not exit process when it fails to connect', function (done) {
+      var pt = new Papertrail({
+        host: 'this.wont.resolve',
+        port: 12345,
+        attemptsBeforeDecay: 0,
+        connectionDelay: 10000
+      });
+
+		// NOTE!  We intentionally left off the error handler here, this proves
+		// the process won't exit on a connection error.
+
+		setTimeout(function() {
+			done();
+		}, 125);
+    });
+
     it.skip('should timeout', function (done) {
       var pt = new Papertrail({
         host: '8.8.8.8', // TODO Figure out how to enable a timeout test