Los Angeles herald., 1890-08-20

A Terrible Wreck on the
Old Colony Road.
The Famous WOllastOn Dis
aster Re-enacted.
Fifteen People Killed Outright and
Many Injured.
Rev. Dimmick and Wife, of Los Angeles,
Among the Unfortunates.-Awful
Scenes of Suffering.
Associated Press Dispatches
BosToN, August 19.--One OF the most
disastrous railroad accidents that ever
occurred in the vicinity of Boston, and
one that rivals the famous Wollaston
disaster of October 5, 1878, occurred this
afternoon on the same road, the Old
Colony, and very near the same locality.
In the Wollaston disaster fifteen were
killed and nearly $50 injured. Today
fifteen persons were killed, twenty-three
seriously injured, three fatally and
several more sustaining slight in
iuries. The train wrecked today was
the Woods Holl express which is due
at Boston at 80 p. m. 1t consisted OF
locomotive, baggage car, smoker, Pull
man car and four ordinary coaches,
heavily loaded. The train had passed
Quincy station, running ten miles an
hour, and just beyond Presidents bridge
the engine left the track from cause at
present undetermined, and plunged
down an embankment twelve feet high.
The tender, baggage car, smoker and
Pullman passed by the engine and were
stretched along for distance of one
hundred feet beside the track.
Scene of Death and Agony.
The foremost passenger coach left the
rails and fell upon it's left side upon the
engine.
The lower forward portion was torn to
pieces, and of the passengers in the car,
some fifty in number, many were thrown
into the rear corner, from which eleven
dead bodies were afterwards taken out.
The escaping steam and smoke from the
engine instantly filed the car. The for
ward cars were also forced up
over the outward bound track, COM
pletely blocking traffic all day and all
night. Only three persons on the train
ahead OF the passenger coach were
injured. These were the fireman, who
was instantly killed and buried under
the engine, the engineer and Pullman
Car Conductor Benson, who were both
badly injured. In the three rear passen-
ger coaches the occupants received no
worse injury than slight shaking up.
The first passenger coach was the
principal scene of death and agony, and
the experiences of the unlucky occu-
pants were probably never exceeded in
horror and suffering in any railroad
wreck of recent years.
The Killed and Wounded.
The killed are
Mrs. Ercutt Allen, Philadelphia.
Mrs. Mary E. Fannelly, aged 70,
Louisville.
E. J. Johnson, Montpelier, Vt.
John Ruyan, fireman of the train.
Four women, two men and two child
red, unidentified.
Mrs. A. G. Wells, Hartford, Conn.
A daughter OF II. L. Welch, Water
vile, Conn.
Alice and Catherine Fennelly.
The following were critically injured:
Mrs. Oscar Fennelly, Louisville,
scalded over the whole body.
G. M, Copp, Cleveland, Ohio, scalded
over the whole body, not expected to
live.
f. G. Bailey, OF Dorchester, formerly
proprietor of the Boston Herald, scalded
on the face and hands.
Among others seriously injured are:
Mrs. Martha f. Chase, at the head of
the Santa Rosa female seminary, Santa
Rosa, California, face and left arm
slightly burned.
Rev. 7. M, Dimmick, of Los Angeles,
face, arms and hip scalded. His wife, a
sister of Mrs. Chase, had her face and
hands scalded, and suffered a compound
fracture of both bones of the LETT leg,
between the knee and ankle.
Those seriously injured number
thirty, and the condition of two or three
is critical. 1t is reported that the names
of the unidentified dead is w. H. Grady,
and two others are Mrs. E. p. johnson
and her fifteen-year-old boy. 1t is also
reported that niece of Mrs. A. Wells,
of Hartford, is among the unidentified
dead.
Scenes at the Wreck.
Goals from the engine set fire to the
coach. but the fire was soon extin-
guished. A number OF physicians were
summoned to the spot, and as soon as
possible those living were taken from
their positions of peril, and those most
seriously hurt taken to the hospital
The dead were laid on the grass beneath
a tree until undertakers arrived. All
that human skill could accomplish was
done to soothe the last hours OF the
dying, and quiet the pain of those suffer
ing from burns and wounds.
In the afternoon the crowd became so
great about the wreck, tearing the rem
nants of the cars to pieces and securing
mementos, that officers were compelled
to drive them away and erect guard
ropes. The general impression seems to
be that the wreck was caused by the
spreading of the rails.
An Unfortunate Family.
The most unfortunate party was the