Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 July 1895 — DEATH THEIR DOOM. [ARTICLE]

DEATH THEIR DOOM.

thirteen pilgrims to st. ANNE’S SHRINE PERISH. Second Section of an Excursion Train Plows Into the First—Pullman Cara Telescoped- Wheat Drops Five Cents in Chicago—Cornell Wins. Was a Fatal Crash. At Craig’s Road station, Quebec, a pilgrim excursion on the Grand Trunk road from Sherbrooke was being run in two sections. The first section stopped at Craig’s Road to cross an uptruiu, when the second section ran into it, the engine plowing through the Pullman and firstclass car. Thirteen persons were killed outright and over thirty hurt. Ten passenger cars and the engine were wrecked. The pilgrims were en route to the famous shrine of Bt. Anne de Baupre, where every summer large numbers of sick and crippled gather to invoke the saint to cure them of their diseases. The trains were made up of residents from Sherbrooke, Magog, Windsor Mills, and surrounding parishes. The forward train was making good time, having left Richmond at 10 o’clock the night before. On the rear of this train was a Pullman, in which were the priests and others in charge of the party, and it was in this car that most of the loss of life occurred. The first train reached Craig’s Road, which is fourteen miles west of Levis, about 3 o’clock and stopped at the tank to take water. Precautions were taken and the semaphore thrown to danger against the following train. Only the trainmen were out and about, attending to their duties. The Pullman in the rear was wrapped in silence and the sleepers were unaware of the terrible fate "hat was rushing upon them. Suddenly 1 there was a greatcrash. The second train coming at full speed dashed Into the rear Pullman of the first section. So great was the impetus of the colliding train that the engine embedded itself in the palace car, and the latter plunged forward and partly telescoped th? first, class car immediately in front Every berth in the Pullman was wrecked and some of the occupants who were killed never knew what happened to them. They died sleeping. Others awoke to their horrible surroundings and position, maimed, bleeding, and bruised, conscious of little else but the agony that racked them. The cries of the wounded and the moans of the dying, and the outpouring of passengers from cars that were not badly damaged, rtnd the hurrying forms of the uninjured trainmen with their flickering lanterns, all combined to make a sight seldom exceeded in its horror.