Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 August 1910 — CREMATED IN A WRECK [ARTICLE]

CREMATED IN A WRECK

Many Lives Lost in a Railway Disaster in Michigan. Eight bodies were taken from the wreck of Grand Trunk train No. 14, Chicago to Montreal, which was struck by No 4 near Durand, Mich. The wreck immediately caught fire and many pf the bodies were cremated almost beyond recognition. Nearly all the dead were in the rear sleeper attached to No. 14. More than a score of passengers and trainmen were injured, some probably fatally. The wreck was one of the worst in point of horror in the history of railroading in Michigan. Although only one car was demolished, nearly every one of the passengers in the car was killed, and of those not killed outright only one escaped serious or fatal injury. He was Clinton A- Davis, a Montreal man traveling with his mother, who was ill, and a trained nurse. Both women were killed. That the wreck was due to gross criminal carelessness is the belief of local authorities based on the information obtainable from the trainmen themselves. Train No. 14 from Chicago Montreal and other eastern points had trouble with its engine and was stopped to make repairs. It was then that train No. 4, also from Chicago, crashed into the rear end of the stalled train. Charles Spencer, of Battle Creek, engineer of the second train, said that the only information he had that another train was stopped ahead was When he hit a iorpedo within only a few yards of the other train. He said there were no tail lights on No. 14. Spencer escaped death by jumping, but his fireman, George Nelson, of Battle Creek, was caught in the crash and fatally scalded. / A relief train was made up at Battle Creek and rushed to the scene of the <reck with doctors and nurses and hospital supplies.