People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 February 1896 — SEVEN MEN KILLED. [ARTICLE]

SEVEN MEN KILLED.

FATAL COLLISION ON ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD. Passenger and Freight Trains Meet Near Doncola —Accident Dae to Mistake la Order*—Workmen Fall with a Defective Structure. Centralia, 111., Feb. 12.—A disastrous railway collision occurred at the Cairo division of the Illinois Central at 6:47 Tuesday morning. It was a head-end crush between a north-bound passenger train and a south-bound stock train, which met on a sharp curve near the village of Wetaug and resulted in great loss of life and wholesale destruction of property. The killed are: WJLLIAM HUNTINGTON, engineer on the passenger. GUS ANDERSON, his fireman. FELIX ARMSTRONG, baggageman. CURTIS E. ADAMS, fireman on the freight engine. W. R. M’LEAN, brakeman. TWO UNKNOWN STOCKMEN, beneath the wreck. The cause of the accident is due to the careless observance of orders on the part of the passenger crew, which left Wetaug at 6:45. The passenger train, in charge of Conductor Andy Odum and Engineer William Huntington, had orders to wait at Wetaug twenty minutes for the arrival of freight train No. 55. Upon arrival at Wetaug . Conductor Odum saw two freight trains on the side-track and supposed one of them to be train No. 55, for which he had orders to wait. He made no inquiry, but proceeded with his train. About one-half mile south of Dongolia.in a sharp curve, the collision occurred. The trains were going at the rate of t'wenty-five miles an hour when the two engines came together with a crash.

FELL WITHOUT WARNING. Five Workmen Seriously Hart by a Collapsing Bridge. Cleveland, Ohio, Feb. 12. —Three temporary spans of a new bridge erected across Tinker’s Creek for the Akron, Bedford & Cleveland Electric railroad, ten miles south of this city, fell Tuesday afternoon, precipitating eight workmen into the creelt, a distance of sixty-five feet. The collapse of the structure came without warning, and not one of the men had a chance to escape. It is miraculous that all were not instantly killed. As it was, five were seriously hurt, one of them now being in a dying condition at a hospital. The names of the victims are: William Newman. Canton, arm crushed and left leg torn apart at the knee joint; head bruised and internally injured; cannot recover. Charles Greib, Canton, seriously injured internally. J. C. McMillan, Twinsburg, left foot crushed and badly h,urt internally. Charles McCarty, Canton, bruised. Janes Freeman, Cleveland, ribs broken and side crushed. The engineer in charge of the work is unable to account for the accident. The bridge was being constructed on the site of the one which fell under an electric car a short time since, fatally injuring two employes of the road.