Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 August 1887 — AWFUL WRECK. [ARTICLE]

AWFUL WRECK.

Mere than Seventy-five Lives Lost by an Accident Near Chatsworth Illinois. ■ Twice That Number of Persons Wounded, Many of Them Fatally. \ Heavily Laden [Excursion Train Crashes Through a Charred Bridge in the Night The Wreck Takes Fire and Is Extinguished After a Desperate Fight. rForest (III.) special.] One of the most horrible accidents within the memory of man occurred three miles east of Chatsworth, on the Toledo, Peoria and Western Railroad, late Wednesday night. An excursion train of sixteen cars from Peoria went through a culvert and upward of 250 persons were killed and injured. So far as learned, seventy-three gersons were instantly killed and about one undred and sixty more or less seriously injured. The train consisted of engines 21 and 13, a baggage car, a special car, live coaches, .and six sleepers. Two and a half miles east of Chatsworth, a small village about seven miles east of Forest, there is a small culvert or ditch. It is about fourteen feet wide and thirteen feet deep. The bridge over this culvert was a wretched structure of wood, and the hot weather of past weeks had mode it dry as tinder. Wednesday night the supports caught lire and slowly burned until the entire bridge rested on the charred remnants of the timbers. When the train came thundering down there was nothing to warn the head engineer that the bridge was a death trap and the speed of the train was not slackened. It had steamed slowly out of Chatsworth at 11:40 o'clock, but striking a gentle down grade the throttle was pulled out and the train rushed along at a rate of forty miles an hour. HUBLED INTO THE CHASM. When the first engine struck the bridge there was a cracking of timbers, and the engine dropped. The leading engine was not thrown from the track, and continued on its way, taking its tender with it. The next engine dropped into the chasm, and then the train rushed onward and was piled in a heap, with the exception of the sleepers, which escaped without a scratch. The scene of horror and confusion that followed was frightful. There were about seven hundred people on the train, and of these fully one-half were in the coaches that now lay in a huge mass. Ten cars filled with dead and dying people were jammed into a space of two cars’ length. HOBBIBLY CRUSHED AND MANGLED. The six coaches were telescoped in the most horrible manner, and the occupants were simply crushed and mangled almost out of all Bemblance to human beings. Thirty-nine ladies were taken out from the end of one of the cars. When tne crash came they were swept off their seats by the rear car bursting in on them and crushed to death in the further end of the car. As soon as the survivors recovered from the awful shock a train hand ran back to Chatsworth for help. The news of the awful disaster spread quickly and in a short time hundreds of people from Forest, Chatsworth, Fiper City, Gilman, and the surrounding country were on the spot assisting in the work of rescue. The remnants of the bridge, which was Btill burning, received the first attention. Water was brought from farmers’ houses near by and the flames extinguished. None of the cars caught fire, otherwise the horrors of a holocaust would have been added to an’already frightful disaster. Attention was then turned to the shrieking inmates of the wrecked cars. Such was the awful momentum of the train that three of the coaches were not only telescoped, but piled on top of each other. The other cars had rolled off the track after telescoping. Fourteen trucks were piled on the east side of the culvert. In the midst of this awful mass of broken cars hundreds of human beings were intombed. One woman with Uer baby in her arms was thrown half the length of the car and killed. The baby was not injured. F<*ur colored women sitting together were crushed to a pulp. They were from Peoria. Conductor Stillwell escaped with a few injuries about the body. A man named Goodall, a butcher from Peoria, was caught between two cars and his lower limbs crushed. “For God s sake save me,” he cried to tho rescuers. “I’ll give 1100 to any one who will pull me out of here. ” But it was impossible. His body could not have been got out withont chopping it out, and the poor fellow died a few minutes later. His son is thought to have been killed. SHRIEKING GUT OF THE DARKNESS. As fast as possible the work of release was prosecuted, but about 2:30 o’clock it began to rain, and the horror of the night was complete. The black darkness, which was faintly illumined by lanternß and pierced by tho awful yells aud groans of the dying, injured, and imprisoned, was now joined by the elements, and the pouring rain, lightning, and the roar of thunder made a scene that would appall the bravest heart. One young man who was taken out with both legs broken was carried into a cornfield near by and laid down. He yelled with pain for a time, but an hour later it was found that he had killed himself by blowing his brainß out. The terrible excitement ani pain had probably driven him crazy. As fast as the victims were rescued they were placed side by side in the cornfield north of the track. By daylight sixty-five bodieß were lying side by side, silent monuments to what seems to have been a railroad company’s carelessness. The majority of the dead are Peoria people. The train contained 170 people from Peoria city and county, and of this number at least forty-one were killed. STORIES OF SURVIVORS. Mr. J. M. Tennery, of Peoria, was In the first sleeper, and said: “I felt three distinct shocks and then heard a grinding sound, and on looking out saw that the car in which we were was directly over the fire, which was slowly blazing on the stringers of the bridge. I got out in Bafety, and the scene presented to the eye and ear was one I wish I could forever efface from my memory, but I know I never can. The shrieks of the dying and the glaring faces of the dead will always stay with me. To add to the horror It was pitch dark save for the fitful light of the fire under the sleeper, which lighted the faces of those about only to make their fear and anguish visible. On the mouths of most of the corpses could be seen foam, which showed that they died in agony. At last we secured some feeble lights, but the wind blew them out, and about 2 o’clock the rain poured down in torrents on the unprotected dead and dying in the hedges and cornfields adjacent. Onr efforts were divided between trying to put out the fire and rescuing the dying whose cries for help were heartrending, indeed. Mothers ran wildly about crying for lost children and wives for husbands. btrong men were weeping over the forms of their beloved wives. Prayers, entreaties, and groans filled the air until daylight, when relief parties got to work and removed the dead and wounded from the scene. The bridge was on fire before the train struck.” C. Falroth, who was one of the fortunate ones occupying a berth in next to the last sleeper, says that to put out the fire no water was to he had. All went to work with a will with such tools as could he found on the cars to further destroy and tear away all the woodwork possible. and with dirt, weeds, dry grass, coats, and clothing; in fact anything that would act as a weapon against the fierce fames. After a terrible struggle the fire was put out. Mr. Falvorth, on passing one of the coaches, was requested, “For God's sake take my child,” a babe, which he immediately did, and, leaving it in as safe a place as could be found, went into the car and found the mother, Mrs. Neal, of Mosaville, just dead.

The scene in the cars was beyond description. One young child was found fastened near the roof of the car head down, where in the jar and concussion it had l een thrown, and was dead when taken down. Others were found in aLI conceivable shapes, all were thrown off their seats and piled in the ends of the aisles of the cars, bleeding from gashes in the face, arms, or other portions of the body. It was, Mr. Falvorth says, the most sickening sight he ever witnessed. William Ellis, one of the badly injured, says he was thrown four or five seats forward aud stunned, and when be recovered himself he found others lying upon him. His watch was smashed, and had stopped at 12:13. He is of the opinion that the bridge was set on fire by loungers aronnd there whose motive it was to plunder the dead, as he saw gome of these sus-picious-looking fellows taking rings from fingers and money and valuables from the pockets of others not able to resist. H. W. White, of the Peoria Journal, gives the following account: “I was in the second sleeper, and we were going along about midnight when there came a peculiar jostling. I thought that we had been derai.'el. Our porttr said, ‘We are all right,’ when some one said, ‘There is a fire ahead.’ I got up and went to the front. The head engine had rushed over the chasm. The second engine had tumbled into it. It had telescoped, and the engineer was a shapeless mass. The first car was turned at right angles with the track, and the remaining eleven cars had telescoped and piled up in one heap. “Several of us climbed on tne cars with axes and lanterns and went to work. The first man we found was Billy Stevens, the confectioner. He was dead. We pnlled him out after some efTort, and then pulled his daughters, Emma and Ida, out. They were all dead. Every one was groaning and crying. Their feet seemed to be jammed. Most of them had their legs broken. After an hour and a half we cleared the car. lhey were offering *SO each for relief. Probably there were a’dozen bodies taken out. Mrs. Deal was one of these. “I then went down on the ground and assisted in taking the dead down. The people on the ground put a plank up and the bodies taken out were slid down the plank. The dead were put in one pile and the living in another. Every live person seemed to want to see their families at once. “One little boy, the son of the Methodist minister at Abingdon—Frank Snadecker, about 12 years old—was found on the bosom of his dead mother. His left leg hung by the skin, his right arm was broken, and one eye was put out. They pulled him out and tried ’to give him a drink of brandy. He refused to take it and said: ‘Give me water.’ He never uttered a groan. 1 found a head hanging from a truck. It was apparently that of a man who had been caught by the hair. “I found several headless bodies. Those who recognized the dead immediately ticketed • them. “One of the most awful sights was that some of those released robbed the dead of their watches aud valuables, and some people held the theory that the bridge was set on hre in order to thus perpetrate robberies.” W. Gucker, one of the Galesburg passengers, relates a singular experience. His wife and he were in the rear of a chair car, the tenth car of the train. They had no warning of what was to come. The train was running at the rate of thirty-five miles an hour. Mr. Gucker was aroused by the terrible crash of glass and breaking timbers. Tl:e end of the car was poised twenty feet in the air. He crawled through a broken window and slid down the slanting side of the car. His wife followed safely. Several Galesburg people who were in that end of the car escaped without serious injury. The top of the car parted in the center. The other end was crushed like an egg-shell. P. P. Van Liew, who walked from the safe end of the car the moment before, was caught and dangerously injured. “There were thirty in the car,” said Mr. Gucker, “and only six survive. Out of one party of nine only three live. One man who had lost his wife and child and was badly injured himself went into an adjacent cornfield and committed suicide. Six young men from Canton who were in the first car were saved by being thrown up through the parted roof. ’’ A woman seated near Mr. Gucker thrust her head through a car window and was decapitated. The pockets of a number of those injured were picked by unfeeling rowdies.” B. G. Bisser, of Kankakee, who was at the scene of the wreck soon after the disaster, says: “I was at El Paso and missed the excursion train by less than five minutes. Twenty-six minutes afterward I took a freight train, and when we got to Forest the conductor had orders to bring all the physicians he could. When we arrived at the wreck we found the most heart-rending and indescribable scene ever witnessed. Every one was begging to be taken from the wreck, as they were afraid of it catching fire. The bridge w r as on fire and no water was at hand to put it out. All the trainmen and such passengers as could went to work to smother the fire. We had nothing to work with except our hands, and had to carry dirt as best we could. “At about 1:30 a. m. a shower of rain put\out the fire and we turned our attention to relieving the people in the cars. We worked until 8 a. m and took out sixty-ene dead bodies, besides scores of wounded people. They were terriblv mangled. Belief trains took the dead and wounded to Piper City and Chatsworth. The city hall and school-house at Chatsworth were improvised into a hospital and the citizens came to our relief with coffee, bread, and butter, and everything possible, especially bandages and medicine for the suffering.” Mr. Bisser said he stood the sickening work of relieving the wounded and getting out the dead until he came to the dead bodies of two girls about the age of his own, when his humanity gave way and he was compelled to stop. THE DEAD. The news of the disaster was brought to Chatsworth by one of the passengers about midnight, and the inhabitants aroused. Buggies, lumber-wagons, and every kind of vehicle were used to reach the fatal spot. As fast as the corpses were taken from the wreck they were laid out on the side of the track. Before midnight the work of recovering the dead and moving them to Chatsworth was begun. As soon as the corpses were received” they were placed in a large vacant building lately occupied as a store; also in the public school house and in the depot-waiting room. The residents of the town threw open their houses for the reception of the dead and wounded, but the former were all taken to the improvised morgues. Friend and relatives of the dead came to Chatsworth with the remains, and the scenes in the different places where the bodies lay wore heartrending. As the day passed bodies were being continually brought from the scene of the wreck, the majority of them being mangled in the most frightful manner, many of them having their faces entirely torn away, leaving their brains exposed, while their jaws, fingers, and legs had been torn off. NOTHING TO LIVE FOB. There was one incident of the accident which stood out more horrible than all of those horrible scenes. In the second coach was a man, his wife, and little child. His name could not be learnt d, hut it is Baid he got on at Peoria. When the accident occurred the entire family of three were caught and held down by broken woodwork. Finally, when relief came, the man turned to the friendly aid and feebly said: “Take out my wife first. I’m afraid the child is dead.” So they carried out the mother, and as a broken seat was taken off her crushed breast the blood which welled from her lips told how badly she was hurt They carried the child, a fair-haired, blue-eyed girl of 3, and laid her In the corn-field, dead, alongside of her dying mother. Then they went back for the father and brought him out. Both his legs were broken, but he crawled through the corn to the side of his wife, and, feeling her loved features in the darkness, iressed some brandy to her lips and asked her how she felt. A feeble groan was the only answer, and the next instant she died. The man felt the form of bis dead wife and child, and cried out: “My God, there is nothing mere for me to live for now 1” and, taking a pistol out of his pocket, pulled the trigger. The bullet went surely throught the brain, and the three dead bodies of that little family are now lying side by side in Chatsworth waiting to he identified. Cne man with both legs croken dragged himself away from the wreck and took out a pistol and shot himself In the head. bu per in ten dent Armstrong of the Wabash, accompanied the excursion with his special ear, with several officials of the road. None of them was hurt From the latest reports it is said that 13* were killed aud about three hundred wounded, making it one of the worst railroad accukatA eV q| known in this oouutry.