People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 September 1893 — DEATH ON A SIDING. [ARTICLE]

DEATH ON A SIDING.

A Brmkeman Unaccountably Throw* m Switch at the Wrong Time, Allowing a Wabash Express Train to Crash Into a Freight at Kingsbury, Ind.—Eleven Her. sons Killed and Many Injured. Kingsbury, Ind., Sept 23. Every bouse in the town is either a morgue or s hospital. Two trains came together on the Wabash siding just after daybreak Friday. The freight train, with twenty-two loaded cars, stood on the aide track and was headed east For more than an hour it had waited for the second section of the No. 55 passenger train, west bound. All the passenger trains have been going in sections because of the heavy world’s fair traffic. After the first section went by at 4:40 o’clock all the trainmen knew that another section was coming. Herbert Thompson was head brakeman. It was his work to look after the east switch. No man can tell why Thompson went and turned the switch after the first train had passed. It was the act of a crazy man —so say the railroad men. But he did it Thompson cannot tell, for no one has seen him since the dead and dying were thrown high iu the air with the shattered fragments. Thompson ran away. Some one saw him an hour later sitting on the iron bridge in the deep timber country to the east. He had his head between his hands and was looking down into the water. The second section came at 6:40. The switch was open, but the signals did not say so. The trains met In one instant of crash and explosion two engines and three coaches were heaped in a mountain of splinters. There followed all the scenes of blood and suffering known to railroad wrecks. Those killed are as follows:

J. H. McKenna, butcher, of Hyde Park. Mass.; Harry French, 13 years old, member of Orphans’ hell ringers, London, Eng ; Charles Birke, San Francisco; Miss Nellie B. Tucker, Newton, Mass; Conductor James Coulter, of passenger train; Engineer John Greene, Ashley, Ind., passenger train; Warren G. Rider, Phoenix, Ariz.; P. C. Zelle, Berlin, Germany; Baggagemaster Lyons, passenger train: James D. Roundy, La Motile, la. The names of twenty-one of those injured have been secured, as follows: W. Burbank, New Orleans, La., 60 years old, irms and one leg broken, jawbone fractured, will die; William Adams, 14 years old, London, England, member Orphan bell ringers, both legs broken, injured internally, will die; Miss Hattie Hutchins, Phoenix A T., bruised about head and injured internally, recovery doubtful; Fireman Barber, of Ashley, on pas senger train, leg brokon and severely burned, recovery doubtful; H. J. Vatkeney, fireman on freight train, burned and scalded about head and breast, may die; William Haskins, 14 years old, London, England, compound fracture of right leg, left shoulder broken, recovery doubtful; Edward Rush, 13 years old, London, bruised about body, head cut; Swien Canfield, Ironwood, Mich., bruised about head and shoulder dislocated: Mrs. L. Canfield, Ironwood, Mich., left arm broken, ■boulder dislocated iund head badly cut; H. W. Ryder, .Phoenix Park, A. T., head cut and leg bruised, not serious; G. S. Hodgson, Dover, N. H.. teeth knocked out, am fractured and legs bruised; Mrs. S. A. Seavly, Somerville, head cut and arm dislocated; Albert Morton, 12 years old, London, Eng., arm. hurt and two deep scalp wounds; Frank P. Dow, Fair Haven, Wash., face cutandhipdislocated; James G. Wookly, Londoa Eng., head cut and back injured; Engineer Whitman, on freight engine, right arm broken and badly burned, seriously Injured but may recover; Miss Hattie Rogers, Phoenix, A. i’., left leg fractured and injured internally; Mrs. Dolber, 458 Green avenue, Brooklyn, leg fractured and cut about the head; Miss Olivo Hill, Summersworth, N. H , injured internally and head cut; Miss Annie Hill, Summers worth, N. H.,* slight wound; Miss N. S. Kelly, Boston, severe scalp wound.

The boiler of the passenger engine exploded and hurled debris in every direction. A pair of trucks were torn apart and each half sent flying in opposite directions. One of the great pieces of iron was hurled several hundred yards away, where it crashed through a farmer’s barn. Its mate was thrown cleai across a 20-acre field on the south side of the track. The steam escaped, scalding the injured who were not able to crawl to a place of safety. When the two trains came together the heavy freight train crushed the passenger by its tremendous weight. The cars in front were filled with dressed beef. Two of these cars were demolished and the beef carcasses were thrown among the human bodies. The two engines telescoped so completely that they seemed like one shattered locomotive with twelve driving wheels. The two forward day coaches plunged forward and broke all to pieces. The third day coach, by some strange chance, was swung sidewise. The rear truck was thrown high into the air and alighted in a pasture 200 feet from the tracks. This third car, lying across the rails at right angles, crushed in the front of the first sleeper, killing the two young women from Boston' and burying a half dozen passengers under pieces of wood and broken ] glass. The two engines and the three ; cars were thus jammed together in hardly more than a car’s length. Out from this tangled mass of wreckage, through which clouds of steam were pouring, came the injured, while here and there could be seen the arm, leg or head of some unfortunate out of whom all life had been crushed. The first assistance came from those who escaped injury. Within a half-hour the awakened townspeople came running to the scene. By 6 o’clock special trains had arrived with surgeons from Ashley, Peru, Wolcottsvillc, North Liberty and Westville. The work of binding up wounds, recovering the dead and identifying the bodies continued until late in the afternoon. The railroad men say that if it had not been for the boiler explosion the loss of life would have been larger.

Burned to Death. Cbeston. fa.. Sept. 23—Mrs. Kate Robb mistook a pitcher of gasoline for water Friday morning about i 0 o’clock and poured it into a kettle of boiling water. The gasoline caught fire and she was enveloped in flames from head to foot. Engineer John White, her brother, was severely burned while attempting to smother the flames. Shs lingered till 3 o’clock in the afternoon, when death came. Mrs. Robb was the gifted wife of Hon. W. H. Robb, the well-known populist leader and editoi of the Indpendent American.