Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1894-01-26
MET DEATH TN THE FOG.
AN AWFUL REAR-END COL
LISBON IN NEW JERSEY.
The d., L. & w. Dover Express
Crashed Into by an Orange Local
Train Near the Hackensack
Bridge-Terrible Scenes of Suffer
ing on the Jersey Marshes.


ows was in part the cause of one of the most
shocking railroad wrecks that have oc-
Cured near New York in recent years. The
apparent recklessness of an engineer and
the almost criminal loss of reason on the
part of a brakeman helped to cause rear
end collision. At 8.25 a. M, an hour when
thousands of men were travelling from
their homes in New Jersey to their offices,
workshops or places of business in the city,
the Dover express train was stopped at sig
nal station on the Morris and Essex division
of the Delaware, Lackawanna ard Western
Railroad, west of the bridge over the Hack
ensack River. 1t was few minutes behind
time on its way to New York. and it was iol-
lowed closely by n local train from South
Orange. The engineer ofthe local train sent
his locomotive along at rapid pace without
regard to the fog, and neglected to follow
Icug-standing order to slacken speed as he
approached the dangerous place where the
express train was waiting.
4 brakeman had started back from the ex-
press train to flag the local train, but he sud
denly lost his self-contrOl in the moment of
peril, and returned to implore the passen-
gers on the rear car of his train to jump for
their lives.
A few men who heard tho warming had
time to escape. 1t was too late 20 stop the
momentum of the local train with the air
brakes, and the OncOming locomotive dashed
crashed into the rear end of the express
train. wreck;ng three the cars.
There followed an awful scene OF death
and suffering From two teiescoped cars
were flung the bodies of a number of dead
and diving men, while within the cars were
imprisoned other men who had been hurt
seriously, and whose appeals for help were
narrowing to hear. Fortunately the wreck
did not take fire. or the disaster would have
been even moro terrible
Those killed were
William R. Adams, thirty-two years, Mil
burn n. J crushed about the head taken
to Volk's MOrgue.
William Ferguson, Summit N. J., fifty
five years. auditor in the Western Union
Building New York: father of Frederick
Ferguson, who was among the injured died
at st. Mary's Hospital.
john Fish, Summit, N. J.
Edward Kinsey, Bernardsville, N. j., late
of West Bergen.
Edward MorreII, twaanty-three years, Sum-
NIT, N. J. son of Richard Morrell, steel rail
manufacturer of Newark; taken to Volk's
Morgue, Hoboken, N. J.
Walter r. Purinton, Short Hills, n. J. g;
forty years glue manufacturer at 1877 Water
street, New York taken to Cranes MOrgue.
J. IL. Rimmer, Summit, n. J. member of
the New York Consolidated Exchange and
cashier for S. w. Boocock, 80 Broad street,
New York taken to Christ's Hospital.
Patrick J. Ryan, Milburn, N. j.; florist
unmarried brcther-in-laW of William r.
Adams, who was also killed taken to Volk's
Morgue
William H. Turner, Basking Ridge, N. J.
bookkeeper for Chandler, Dill Seymour,
New York taken to Cranes Morgue.
Those fatally injured were: Harry S.
Cowan, twenty eight years, Basking Ridge.
N. j., employed in the office of the Port
Morris Land and Improvement Company in
New York City back broken.
Frederick Furgeson, twenty-five years,
Summit, N. J. He was employed with his
father in the auditing rooms OF the Western
Union Building Cannot survive amputa-
ton of leg.
Carl H Schultz, Jr., twenty years. Bask-
ing Ridge, N. j.. frightfully injured about
chest and head.
More than thirty men and women were
badly injured.
AS the collision occurred at a remote place.
on an embankment shat off by the marshes
from the nearest village, there was delay in
securing assistance for the injured persons, a
number of whom were carried to hospitals i'll
EobOken and Jersey City.
The locomotive of the accommodation
passed nearly half way through the combin-
alton car, that is, up to the smokers part of
it. Then the smokers half was driven along
into the second car. The result was that the
passengers in the smoker were forced back
with seats, cushions, twisted iron bars and
broken glass and wood in a heap against the
accommodation engine head. As for the
passengers in the second car, many of whom
were ladies, they were swept forward by the
invading car and piled up in mass of wreck
age against the rear of the third car.
The army of over a hundred men, who
promptly began the work of rescue, deserve
great praise. When the crash occurred sew
eral passengers were thrown bodily through
the windows. Their bodies lay where they
fell upon the ground alongside the train. One
old man, who had been thrown out of a smOk-
ing car window. lay dead beside the last car of
the accOmm OdatiOn, which shows that the
crash carried both trains the length Of the ac-
commodation before they stopped. He was
horribly manSled. Beside the third car of the
accommodation lay another old man, who
looked like a farmer his head thrown back
his gray beard extended upward and his eyes
half open, but with no life in them. He also
had received shocking wound. third
body lay beside the second car of the accom-
mediation, but the mans head was not visi-
BILE. 1t looked as if it had been driven into
his body between the shoulders. The track
was streWn with clothes torn from the bodies
OF the victims here vest, there part OF a
coat or pair of trousers. The scattered frag-
ments Of clothing were used to cover the
dead.
Five minutes after the collision the volun-
teer rescuers were hard at work carrying
out the injured. Car doors and cushions
and backs of car seats were extemporized
into stretchers. It was remark
able the number OF doctors VINO az
peared to be on the two trains. fully
twenty of them stripping off their coats and
turning in. AS soon as the first shock Of the
accident was over, the women took up the
work of nursing the in ured, standing beside
the sufferers with smelling salts and linen
bandages, while the doctors did their work.
The scene was a terrible one. Fathers.
with sons and daughters and brothers, wero
among the unfortunate passengers. The
dead and wounded in some instances were
mangled in an awful way. Heads were
crushed out of shape and bodies were dis
membered. One man was taken from the
smoker whose legs were crushed into a
bloody pulp from his waist down. He lived
to be placed in an ambulance and was con-
scious. The stomachs of two others had
been cut as with an atizr, and their entrails
fell az they were carried to the wagons.
Women tainted and men trembled as they
stood by and saw what q minutes careless
ness had caused.
For flfty-f1ve years. or since the organiza-
ton of the Morris and Essex Railroad, it has
been the boast of its officers that they never
killed passenger. That boast can never
be made again. One of the reasons assigned
by some of them for the safety of this part
of the Delaware, Lackawanna and West
ern system was the fact that no Sunday
trains are run except one milk train
late at night. They argue that Chris
tian men of soberness and conscience
are drawn to seek work on a road that does
not require them to work on Sunday, and
that the immunity of the road from accident
was due to- the high character GIFTS employees.
Certain it is that the managers of the road
never look with favor upon modern 1nnova-
tions In the shape of block signals. and their
gooL fortune as regards collisions in the past
has not arisen from any superiority OF me-
chanieal appliances.