Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 May 1884 — BOASTED TO DEATH. [ARTICLE]

BOASTED TO DEATH.

Terrible Accident os a Pennsylvania RailroadFifteen Lives Sacrificed. [Pittsburgh Telegram.] A west-bound freight collided with the graveltrain on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad one mile east of Connellsville. A number of laborers were killed and many were Injured. The scene of the disaster Is on a sharp curve just west of the Speer Sand Works. The freighttrain was heavily laden with ore. The graveltrain consisted of six oars. It contained about fifty men from the Pittsburgh Southern Road, and they were on their way to Ohio Pyle Falls to work on the grading for a donble track on the east end of this division. Both trains were going at a high rate of speed and came together with a terrible crash. The engines remained on the track and telesooped each other into the smokestacks, but the heavy tenders Jumped into the air and fell, the freight tender upon Its engine, and the gravel train tender back upon the first car In the rear of it. Here was the scene of death. Six men were killed outright in this car, and four others fastened down by tbe broken timbers were roasted to death, the car catching tire from the overturned stove and burning up before the stupefied survivors could comprehend the awful situation of their shrieking companions. Three men escaped from the car, and one of them said that the fire could have been extinguished had water been applied In time. The wreck itself was a ghastly sight. At the side of the car that was burned could be seen —sitting amid the glowing embers, twisted iron rods, and dead ashes -three grinning skeletons, one sitting bolt upright, apparently peering into the flames that had smothered out his life aa well as those of his companions. When the wreck was cleared away it was discovered that twelve persons had been injured and fourteen more were dead or • missing. The bodies of ten of the dead have been recovered. The others are supposed to have been completely consumed. Of those recovered only two could be positively Identified. The others were so burned as to be shapeless. One of the Injured died on his way to the hospital, making fifteen deaths.