Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1897-07-08
DEATH LIST Is SEVEN.
Fatalities by the Accident ON 4he Wa
bash Fall Below First Estimates.

fatalities by the Accident on &ho wa
bash Fall Below First Estimates.
Seven collins were forwarded to St
Louis Sunday from Missouri City. They
contained the remains Of victims of the
wreck on the Wabash road. All indica-
tions are that death came to at least four
of the five mail clerks almost instantly.
Their car pitched end first through the
break In the trestle. The remains Of the
four were carried from the wreck and
were recovered some distance down the
stream. There were signs of life in the
body Of the fifth mail clerk when rescuers
dragged him from the wreck, but he died
few minutes later on the bank Of the
creek.
Conductor Copeland was supposed to be
dead when taken from the wreck, and his
body, with handkerchief down over the
face, was ranged in row with the seven
corpses. A few minutes later some one
observed sign of life and he was quick
ly transferred to a stretcher and given
every possible attention. OF the nineteen
others injured not one is in critical con-
dition. Among them all there is not one
broken limb, though many of them were
thrown three quarters Of the length of the
coaches in which they were riding.
The storm, which was almost cloud
burst, had swollen the little stream to q
torrent. The flood carried away a wagon
bridge short distance above the Wabash
trestle. The wreck of this bridge was
hurled down upon tn railroad trestle anu
carried away a row Of wooden supports in
the center. A farmer noticed the peril
GUS condition of the trestle and resolved
to flag the passenger train, which he knew
to be about due. For nearly an hour he
stood in the terrific downpour of rain,
only to fail at last in his good intentions,
for when the Wabash company's New
York fast mail came laundering on the
storm was binding and the engineer could
not see the signal which the farmer SO
frantically waved across the track.
The locomotive struck the trestle and
passed over, but the tenuer went through
with the wreck. The baggage car toppled
off on its side and the mail car, which
followed, pitched into the stream end first.
Every life in this car was lost. The
smoker, next behind, followed. 1t was
in this car that Conductor Copeland was
riding. The other occupants escaped Sc
rious injury. The chair car, next behind,
also plunged in upon the mass of wreck
age end first, and all it's passengers were
thrown to the forward end in an inde-
scribable heap. How they escaped with
no more serious injury is mystery. The
front end Of the sleeper, next in the rear,
jammed into the protruding end of the
chair car, and was thus prevented from
following the others into the chasm. The
two Excelsior Springs coaches in the rear
remained on the track.
The scene Of the wreck, which is but
twenty-one miles northeast Of Kansas
City, near Missouri City station, was Wis
tied by many persons. The postal author
tiles report that probably nearly all of the
mail carried on the train was lost or de-
stroyed. The car was so broken and
splintered that most of the mail foated
off, probably to drift into the Missouri
river and be lost