The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1886-11-04

from his mouth ana ears, put ne was
giying orders to the men about un.
coupling the sleepers from the burn
ing coach. Poor fellow, he did his
duty well. Had he not applied the
brake as soon as he saw the danger
the result would have been worse,
and heaven knows 1t is bad enough.
The baggageman told me that when
the accident occurred his stove door
was open, and that the shock threw
Goals oAt upon the floor. 81 could
easily have extinguished the fire
them" he said, "but was under a
trunk with my leg broken. and was
consequently powerless. ., The flames
Instantly communicated to the
coach. By this wreck lost my bag
gage and money, but when l think
of the people in that burning coach
say nothing.
The limited was running about
fifty miles an hour, and the engineer
could not see the switch light until
within few rods of it. There were
forty-one passengers In the sleepers
and not one of them was injured.
The conductor and brakemen who
caused the wreck Immediately left
and have not yet been found. Two
wrecking trains worked twelve hours
before the track was cleared.
j. r. Stonesipher of GAINESVILLE,
Ohio, gave a thrilling description Of
the scenes and incident at the wreck,
in which he said:
1t was the most terrible sight i
have ever witnessed. The passen-
ger car was crushed as if it was an
| egg shell, and saw humaa beings
writing in Intense agony in it. In
| the corner near me were three wo-
men, jammed in the wreck and wholly
unable to extricate themselves. The
coach was burning fiercely: there
were men there besides myself, one
| of whom had an AK and hammer,
trying to lIberate them. Another
went to the fence to get board. /
had no tools of any kind to help
them out. tried to help them and
got hold of one of them, but could
not do anything. About this time l
saw MISUNDERSTANDING gentle
man come up with an AK. He com
menced cutting on the car. I then
ran back TO the sleeper. When !
got back the women were dead. The
gentleman who was making such
frantic efforts to save the victims, l
learned, was Bishop Whipple. When I
first got to the car the women seemed
to be in perfect health only they were
fastened so they could not get out.
They were wringing their hands
piteously, and calling on God to help
them. In few minutes they were
dead. There seemed to be no differ
ence of opinion out there as to the
responsibility. They all believed it to
be negligence on the part of the
officers of the freight train. The
engineer of the express train, stand
ing at his post and putting on the
air brakes, probably saved greater
loss of life by preventing destruc-
tisn of the sleeper.
Capt. John Ames uf Mortified
who was in the wreck, describes it
as the most awful one that ever &C.
Cured in the Northwest. His story
is very graphic
We were a little behind time and
our train was running certainly
forty-fve miles an hour. Just a
short distance west of Rio freight
train had left the main track and
taken a switch. This switch was left
oren. The first known of the acct
dent by the passengers was three
solid jerks to the cars, after which
the train went about three lengths
and then came to a dead stop. AS
soon as we were on the ground we
saw that four to six feet at each end
and that fire had broken out in it,
This all within less than minute.
Then the horrors began. We none
of us knew how many there were in
the passenger coach, but by COM
pairing notes we came to the con.
clusion that there were from fifteen
to twenty.three. or these only three
escaped. The first, a young man
J crawled through hole in the top OF
the car, and there were two children
belonging to Mrs: Scherer of Winona
taken out by Mr.. McGinns of Morris
and Bishop Whipple. The heroism
of these two men was something
wonderful, working as they did tt
save not only the children but
others. McGinnis' bravery was un
exampled. When he got out of the
sleeper, he found Mrs. Scherer, hel
! mother-in-law and her two children
at one of the windows of the burning
coach. The two women were pin
Toned down by the seats. Mrs
! Scherer passed out one of the chill
dren to McGinnes and Bishop
Whipple got the other
They then attempted to liberate
the women, but it was impossible
The seats held them firmly in ant
the flames drove the rescuers away
Mr.. Scherer's clothes caught on fire
and the flames ran up to her head
There was shrieks and groans TO
perhaps seven minutes, and then al