Waterbury evening Democrat., 1895-08-15
HOVENDEN DIED 4 HERO
Lost His Life Trying to Rescue
 a Child From a Train.
BOTH BODIES UNDER THE WHEELS.

The Dead Man Was Famous as an Artist and
 Painted "Breaking Home Ties," Which
 Has Touched So Many Hearts-He Was a
 Winner of Worlds Fair Prize.
 PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 15.-Thomas Ho- venden, the great painter, known most widely through the country by his famous Worlds fair picture, Breaking Home Ties, was instantly killed in a vain ef- fort to save a little girl from death. It was at the Plymouth meeting station of the little branch of the Pennsylvania rail- road into Plymouth township.
 Toward evening Mir. Hovenden reached the station from his beautiful home not far away and was walking up and down waiting for a Philadelphia train. There was group of women and children on the platform across the tracks. They were Mrs. Pifer of Morristown, her two daughters and some friends, all from Nor ristown, and they were waiting for freight train to pass so that they could cross the tracks and go over to Barren hill. The freight rumbled along the west bound track, and as soon as the caboose had passed little Bessie Pifer, years old, dartcd across the tracks toward the plat form upon which MT. Hovenden was standing.
 Oh GIlc eSkSG Dounu Grdck itn engine was coming at the rate of 20 miles an hour. It had been hidden from the group of women by the freight train. In an instant the overcager child was standing in the east bound track, with the engine but few yards away. The women screamed. Mrs. Piper fell unconscious to the platform. Tho child, fascinated by her peril, stopped and stood in the track, too terror stricken even to scream.
 He Took Desperate Chances.
 With the screams of the women Hoven- den's eyes turned to the child. He did not know her. He had never seen her be- fore. He must have seen that there was only one chance in thousand. As he looked he jumped into the east bound track and stretched out his hand for the child.
 But the engine was upon them. It brushed the skull of the child, lifted her small body and tossed it 20 feet to one side. It crushed in the skull of the famous artist and dragged his h 3avier body, caught in the cowcatcher, until the en- gineer was able to stop. Both artist and child must have died instantly.
 The women from Norristown gathered about the body of the little girl Some of the men at the station, all of whom knew and were proud of the great painter put his body on a rude stretcher and. carried it back to the house he had left few min utes before in the health and spirits of tho prime of manhood. It was all over so quickly that the people who saw it could not realize that the great man who has done so much, and would have done more and greater, was dead-killed in an act of hcroism that was as fruitless as it was sublime
 MT Hovenden was elected to the Ma tional academy in 1882, to the American Water Color society tho same year and later to various honorable New York and Philadelphia societies of artists. He be- gan to paint American subjects, and his pictures were copied and were soon rccog- niZed everywhere. He always chose sim pie, homely subjects. At the New York exhibition of 1891 he showed Breaking Home Ties" with its wonderfully faith ful portrayal of the country boy leaving home to seek his fortune It won the first prize there and also at the Philadelphia exhibition. At the Worlds fair crowds surrounded it all day long. Elaine" and 'The Last Moments of John Brown" are almost equally famous.