Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1891-06-18
ITO be continued.)
A HAUNTED ENGINE.
Locomotive Which Has a Weird and
Blood Curdling Reputation
Mascoutah, ILL.,, cor. Globe-Democrat.

Mascoutah, ILL.,, cor. Globe Democrat.
There is locomotive on the New Or
leans division of the Louisville and Nash
| vile railroad that is said to be haunted.
In 1877 the engine was No. and was a
| freight engine on the old st. Louis and
Southeastern railroad. It3as since been
rebuilt, however, given a new number and
put into the passenger service in the south
There are many railroad men who know
the haunted engine. The engine pulled a
heavy freight train into Mount Vernon,
Ind, on che night of the terrible lynehing
bee IN that town. Six colored men were
hustled off into eternity In a very short
time by All excited mob of citizens several
hundred in number.
The mob had strung FIVE of the colored
men up to limbs of trees when the engine
pulled into town and stopped near the
crowd. The one man left was an old color
ed man named Harris, who had brutally
murdered a popular deputy sheriff of Posey
county. The feeling against the man
Harris was very bitter. 1t was the pre-
hanging was too good for him. Some one
in the crowd said: ITO the engine with
Harris; let's burn him. The locomotive
! Woo ooi IOuhdCb NY ullC IoD Lii d lew ullI-
utes' time. The engineer and fremen
were covered with guns and ordered off
their engine. The engineer, John Thomas,
and his fireman, e man named Buchanan,
promptly obeyed the orders of the mob
and left the engine.
The engineers story of the affair, told
by him the next day, was as follows:
After we had been hustled away some
distance from the engine by some of the
crowd | noticed the sky light up by the
door to the fire box being opened 1t was
| only for an instant the door remained
opened, then all was dark as before The
fireman saw two men throw something
into the hre-bOX. We were completely in
the dark as to the object of the crowd in
taking possession of the engine. 1t was
perhaps not more than five minutes before
we were told to 60 back to our engine, and
the crowd disappeared in the darkness.
AS soon DIS we mounted the engine | whis-
tied Outbreaks and told the fireman to coal
up. He took up the shovel of coal and
opened the door to throw it in, but he
never emptied the shovel. The sight that
met our eyes was terrible There in the
fire before us was the grinning skull of a
human being.
Good God!' gasped the fireman, and
he sank dawn In dead faint On the coal
at my feet. | finally pulled myself to-
gether and shoveled coal into the fire. box.
Mad!y | threw shovelful after shovelful
into the fire, but the grinning skull always
appeared the same. Finally slammed
the door shut, pulled the throttle wide
open and we left the town at rapid gait
The fireman finally came to and crawled to
his place on the seat He remained there
all night long. | shoveled the coal into
the engine myself. 1t was terrible night
Every time | opened the door of the fire.
COX | could see the skull and could fire.
quently hear the terrible groans in
the re-bed When we reached the end
of our rum" concluded the engineer
'both the fireman and myself asked to be
relieved
Engineer Thomas was in Colorado few
years ago. running an engine on the Den
yer and Rio Grande railroad. Fireman
Buchanan took a solemn oath on that
terrible night that he would never again
fire an engine. He kept his oath and has
never been on locomotive since. The main
facts in this ghost story are well known to
hundreds of readers of the Globe-Demo'
crat, who know that the story is not the
imagination of a scribe, but it is true In
every particular. 1t is true that no one
ever acknowledged having seen the colored
man Harris put III the fire box of the en-
CINE, but there is no doubt he was put TO
death in that way. He was one Of the six
colored men that were taken from the
county jail that night. The other five
were found hanging to the limbs of a
tree, but Harris was never seen afterward.
it was a singular fact that the same en-
CINE that was used by a mob at Mount
Vernon, Ind, to burn man in fifteen
years ago lulIed a passenger train
across Canal street in the city of New Or
leans while the mob was forming that
afterward lynched the Italian murderers In
| no. al