Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 October 1887 — CHATSWORTH RIVALED. [ARTICLE]

CHATSWORTH RIVALED.

Storj of the Collision on the Chicago and Atlantic Railroad at * Route, Ind. The Blame for the Wreck Lies Be* tween the Crews of the Two Trains. [Special telegram from Routs, Ind.l The worst horrors of Chatsworth were duplicated here Tuesday. A dozen bloodstained, smoke-begrimed, injured victims of railroad carelessness or blundering were brought into the village’s little stationhouse, and nine charred corpses, victims of the same blundering or carelessness, were laid upon the station platform, while three miles west, down the track of the Chicago and Atlantic Railway, near a lonely old water tank, piles of fearfully tangled debris marked the spot where a collision seldom equaled for terrible results had occurred. Boone Grove consists of a station building and a simple little store. It is fortynine miles out of Chicago ou the Chicago and Atlantic road. The roadbed enters on a heavy down grade, which runs two and a half miles west of the State ditch. On the north of the track is a large water tank. The country thereabouts is a wide prairie, relieved but infrequently by sparse growths of stunted trees. There is no habitation within a mile of the water tank, immediately in front of which Tuesday’s terrible accident occurred. Conductor Parks was in charge of the train when it left Chicago. The train proceeded without accident to Hulbert’s, six and one-half miles west of the scene of the accident. There one of the eccentric straps of engine 26 broke, and Engineer Barney Connors disconnected one side of the engine and ran, as it is termed in railway parlance, “on one leg,” or with only one piston rod. He pulled his engine into Boone Grove thus crippled. He telegraphed tidings of the accident to Huntington and then resumed his run, with half force. He passed the water tank on the prairie, then reversed his engine and went back for water. Half a mile back, as a warning to trains following, stand the semaphore lights, which were properly turned. At 8:15 o’clock a freight train composed of refrigator cars laden with dressed beef and fruits left Chicago. 'lt was due at Boone Grove at 11:08 o’clock. John Dorsey, the engineer, had instructions to “rush through.” The night was heavy and foggy as he pulled out of Boone Grove a few minutes late and started down the steep grade, unmindful of any danger until he had passed under the semaphore lights and caught a sudden glimpse of the danger signals dangling from the rear of the passenger train. He reversed the engine, sounding several piercing blasts of warning which sent the trainmen scurrying over the cars to set the brakes. But the impetus of the heavy train was beyond such trifling control. The engineer and fireman jumped for their lives only a few seconds before the engine crashed through the Pullman sleeper. The passenger train was driven its own length ahead and then the rear coach forced its way through and on top of the coaches in front. The freight engine was wrecked entirely. Its tender was thrown over the engine and onto the coaches, while eighteen refrigerator cars were strewn zig-zag across the track or piled in an indescribable mass —one within the debris of another. Dressed beef sufficient to feed an army was scattered in the adjacent fields, while fruits lay about as plentiful as though rich orchards had yielded their bounty to the earth and been spirited away. The ready and dangerous stove in the second coach responded at once to the deafening invitation the crash of the collision offered to join in the wreck of destruction and death, for the heavy Pullman had scarcely settled into position after its terrific plunge through the two coaches when fire added its horrors to the already terrible scene. All the fatalities were from the flames, which instantaneously enveloped the shattered cars. Conductor Parks, Engineer Connors, and all the trainmen escaped miraculously, and immediately set about the rescue of the doomed people imprisoned in the burning wreck. They worked in the face of the flames, drawing away from their grasp all within reach until they were compelled to desist by the fire’s dangerous advance. On either side of the tangled wreckage, reaching out from its midst, were the heads, arms, or feet of the passengers who begged piteously to be released before the flames took them in their fatal embrace. Little Herman Miller was found under the foremost coach, his arms extending above his head. Visible through the splintered timbers were the other members of his family, already in the throes of death from the breath of the hot flames encircling them. In broken English the boy begged of those endeavoring to save him to save his mother and sister. The boy’s head was split open, but he retained his consciousness until he, free himself from further danger, gazed back at the quivering forms of his father, mother, and sister encircled in flames.