Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 21, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 November 1899 — THREE WILL DIE. [ARTICLE]

THREE WILL DIE.

TRAIN WRECKED NEAR ALEXIS, MICHIGAN. Deliberate Work of Thieves Who Had Hoped to Profit by Robbing the Bodies of Victims—Fishplates Holding the Bails Removed. Train No. 310 on the Michigan Central was wrecked about 8 o’clock Thursday night three miles north of Alexis, Mich., evidently for the purpose of plunder. The plates holding the rails together had been removed, and as the heavy train passed over them they spread, throwing the six coaches into the ditch. Three persons were fatally injured and a large number were hurt more or less severely. Other passengers were bruised and shaken up, some of them receiving slight wounds. William Hamilton, the engineer, was thrown through the window of his cab and was badly bruised by the fall as well as cat about the face and head. He retained, however, sufficient presence of mind when he recovered from the shock to hurry to his engine and draw the fire, thus preventing an explosion. The train left Toledo at 7 o’clock under command of Conductor Harkens. It was running at high speed when Alexis was passed and dashed off the track while going at the rate of forty miles an hour. The crash sent passengers in every direction, and it was at first thought that many were killed. That none lost their Jives was due to the fact that the coaches were very heavy apd withstood the shock. After the wreck two men were detected in pilfering and were chased two miles. They had taken two overcoats, and these were recovered. The men were not captured. Two freight trains had passed over the road in safety a short time before. Where the rails were spread it was found that the bolts that held the fishplates had been unscrewed. The nuts were lying on the ties and the threads of the bolts were not marred in any way. A couple of big wrenches, such as section hands use, were found lying beside the track, indicating how the rails had been loosened. The early reports of the wreck were alarming, and the railroad company summoned every available physician from Toledo and elsewhere. A special hospital train was ordered from Detroit, and- the injured were taken there. Some of the less seriously hurt were taken to Toledo on a Lake Shore train.