Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 186, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 August 1911 — Three Acts of Bravery That Earned Coveted Hero Medals [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Three Acts of Bravery That Earned Coveted Hero Medals

BORGE H. WILLIAMS of W ’Braintree, Mass., a locomotive I engineer on the New York, J New Haven & Hartford railroad, is the only New Englander to have received one of the Carnegie medals of honor. On December 11, 1905, his train, 5114, northbound, for Boston, arrived at Quincy. Mass., at 10:59 a. m. With his engine standing still at Saville street crossing he noticed a woman and young girl running across the tracks, evidently with the purpose of catching his train. They were Mrs. Jennie M. Hill and daughter of Quincy. They had to cross a ’ south-bound track on which an eipress train was approaching at high speed. Williams realised that they could not cross in time, and that they were unaware of the nearness of the express. Leaping from bis engine he ran toward them as fast as he could, shouting at the same time a warning. The girl citossed the .track .safely, •but Mrs. Hill stepped between the rails' almost in front of the train, when she was pulled back by John G. Menchin, * the gate tender. At the same instant Williams reached her. He assisted in shoving her off .the track, but before he could himself escape the locomotive struck him, hurling him 20. feet and Injuring him ' He was laid up for three months. Brave Act That Saved Child. Charles M. Haight of Utica, N. Y., an engineer on the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, who received one of the medals, was running his train of milk cars down a steep grade, into West Winfield, N. Y. Glancing from the cab window he saw a little girl on the track a short distance ahead. He applied the brakes and reversed his engine, and then scrambled out •on the running board and down onto the pilot The tracks were slippery

and wet and the brakes on the steep grade did not hold. But Haight reached the “cowcatcher” in time, grasped the child and swung her up Into the air ahead of the engine. In doing this the girl’s head struck him a sharp blow over the heart, bearing him backward upon the pilot beam, where he had great diffculty In hanging on with his burden until the train came to a stop. The fireman, who was on the back end of the tender, did not know what had happened until the rescue had been made. Woman Proves a Heroine. It must have given the Interstate commerce commission, cold and mechanical though It is, satisfaction to have awarded her the next medal. It went to a woman, Miss Mary Guinan, a worker in a shirt factory at Middletown, N. Y. One day in the winter of 1906 she was standing at noon at the Montgomery street -crossing of the Erie railroad. The gates were lowered and the warning signal bells were ringing, for trains were passing in both directions. At this juncture Miss Guinan was horror-stricken to see John Runyon, a venerable old man of seventy-four years, start to cross the tracks. He walked around the end of one of the gates and, apparently unaware of the danger, darted nervously across the lines of shining rails. As he reached the central space between the east and west-bound tracks he seemed to realize his danger at last, and was completely bewildered. Miss Guinan saw his perilous position and his confusion. She sprang across the tracks toward him between the two tracks and grasping him firmly held him between the two tracks while two trains passed each other. The space was measured afterwards It was —exactly 36 inches wide, and the tracks there made a 14 degree curve. It was declared to be a most dangerous spot.