Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 November 1889 — FELL DOWN AN INCLINE. [ARTICLE]

FELL DOWN AN INCLINE.

A HORRIBLE ACCIDENT AT A CINCINNATI TRAMWAY. A Loaded Car Hur>l from Top to Bottom of the Steep Grado-Flve Instantly Killed and a Number Badly Injured. At Cincinnati, a car on tha Mount Auburn inclined plane at the head of Main street, which rises between 230 and 300 feet in a space of perhaps 2,000 feet, became unmanageable, rushed down the plane, and was dashed to pieces. Eight persons were locked up in the car, of whom five were killed and all of the others badly hurt The dead are: Judge William M. Dickson, aged 63, Michael Kneiss, Mrs. Caleb Ives, Mrs. Mary G. Errett, and Joseph McFadden, Sr. The wounded are: Mrs. Agnes Hostetter, Miss Lillian Oskamp, fatally, Joseph McFadden, Jr., seriously, George Miller, fatally, and Joseph Huette, aged 14, badly cut. Several other persons who were near the scene of the disaster were hurt by flying fragments. Miller was standing on the corner of Mulberry and Main streets and was struck by the roof of the car. He is still unconscious. Huette was badly cut about the legs by flying fragments of the car. There are two tracks upon the inclined plane, over which two cars are drawn—one ascending and the other descending—by two steel-wire cables wound around a drum by an engine at the top of the hill. The ascending car having reached tho top of the incline, Charles Goebel attempted to forco down the lever which shuts off the steam and stops the engine. For some reason the apparatus refused to work, and the car rushed on upon the iron railing. Goebel bent all his strength upon the lever, but it failed to bulge. On the car rushed madly with the tremendous Dower that drew it on. The iron work pierced deep into the wood flooring, and still the cable tugged. Finally, with a grating noise, the cable slipped from tho brasaclamps that held them, the bolts that secured them opened, and the car was free. The passengers unconscious of the doom impending, were about to step from the vehicle as it shot dowhward on its mission of death. The passengers, who had arisen, fell together on the flooring of the car. Down the plane of several hundred feet it shot, and, plunging fiercely upon the railing at the bottom, dashed it to pieces. The car struck, shot far out upon Main street, and was shivered into a thousand fragments. The iron gate that formed the lower end of the truck on which the car rested was thrown sixty feet down the street. The top of the car was lying almost as far away in the gutter. The truck itself and the floor and seats of the car formed a shapeless wreck, mingled with the bleeding and mangled bodies of the passengers. Mrs. Ives was dead when taken from the wreck. The others named in the list of killed died of their injuries soon after. The intensest excitement prevailed and numberless inquiries were made by friends who feared members of their families might be in the fated car. The horror of the passengers locked in the other car and compelled to await the coming of the doomed car and its inevitable crash beside them at the foot of the track may be imagined. Judge Dickson, who is among tho dead, was one of the first of the wounded to die. He was a retired lawyer, and had been a warm personal friend of Abraham Lincoln. He was crushed, and his head and face were cut He was conscious when taken from the wreck, but unable to talk. Mr. Kneiss was a tea-her in the third intermediate school, and lived at 14 Euclid avenue. Mount Auburn, with his family. He was on bis way home to dinner. His body was badly disfigured and was removed to the morgue. Mrs. Ives was the wife of Caleb Ives, treasurer of the Globe soap works at 35 Water street, and lived at Riverdale. She was on her way to visit her son, Franklin Ives, and his bride. Her neck was broken. Joseph McFadden, Sr., was a stone cutter of 110 Sannders street, Mount Auburn. Miss Oskamp is the daughter of Henry Oskamp. Charles Goebel, who was at the lever and had the unspeakable horror to find himself unable to stop the engine, says that he complained that the “cut off” was not working properly. “I told the engineer about it this morning,” he said, “and the engineer told me he had repaired it. But it was evidently still out of order, and this must have been what was the cause of , the accident. ” Engineer Howard Worden could not be found, although this is not to be considered as evidence that he is hiding. The inclined plane on which the disaster happened is the oldest in the city. It was built twenty-one years ago, and this is the first accident attended with the loss of life at any? of the four inclined planes that are in almost constant use. It is too early for an examination into the trouble with the engine, but there have been only two similar cases in the history of inclined planes here. In both the others the engine was got under control before the cables were broken. James M. Doherty, secretary of the company operating the Mount Auburn inclined plane, says that the cause of the accident was a little piece of iron in the cut-off valve and was found the next day after the mi hap by the men who had taken the machinery apart How it came there no one yet knows. It was not broken off any of the surrounding machinery as far as has yet ’ been ascertained. By occupying a space required for the rod to move in it so disarranged the machinery as to render it impossible for the engineer to shut off the steam.