Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1899-08-08
Yesterdays Fearful Accident
on Street Car Line at
Bridgeport, Conn.
MOTORMAN WASH
Claimed That He Turned on the Elect-
ric Current when It should Have
Been Turned OE-Full
Particulars.

Bridgeport, Conn.,, Aug. 7-tBy AS
sociated Press.)--A trolley car smash
ed almost into kindling wood, lying in
the middle of Peck's mill pond at Oro-
hoque, is the only visible indication OF
the frightful accident of yesterday af-
ternoon, when twenty-nine lives were
lost and dozen people seriously in
jured from the car tumbling off the
trestle which crosses the pond at a
height of fifty feet. The coroner has
not yet begun an inquest into the
cause of the accident, but it is eX-
pected he will begin this afternoon.
Engineer Starr, who built the trestle,
says the structure was perfectly safe.
He expresses the belief that the motor
man became ratified when the car
gained momentum going down the in
cline and turned the current on at full
head, instead of decreasing it.
Forty-three passengers were on the
! car of the Shelton street railway when
it plunged into the stream at 3:13 yes
terday afternoon.
The car jumped the rails on the
trestle over the stream and plunged
down the embankment fifty feet be-
low, where it was buried in the mud.
The motorman, George Hamilton,
saved himself from death by jumping
on, the trestle as the car plunged into
the abyss. 81
Over Pecll's mill stream is an iron
bridge $50 feet long. The distance
from the top of the structure to the
fbed of the stream is City feet. All of
4 the water was drawn off a few months
ago to permit the buttresses for the
bridge to be laid. The street railway
line was opened to the public Thurs
/ day of last week for the first time.
The bridge runs north and south on a
straight line. 1t has but one track,
i. but the construction is of the regular
steam-traffic kind. Below the bridge
I. is a yawning chasm filled with rocks
and marshy swamp. About fifty feet
east of the structure there is a steep
bank, which inclines at an angle of
abont 45 degrees, so that directly be-
meath the bridge the bottom of the
gulf yawns. All about are trees and
bushes.
The trestle was not protected by
guard rails. The car ran down the
incline at a high rate of speed. After
1t ran onto the trestle for about ten
feet the trucks left the rails, and then
the car continued on the ties for about
seventy-tiye feet, when it went off the
trestle and dropped into the pond be-
low, oyerturning completely and up
ending. When the car struck the
four ton motor and the heavy trucks
crushed into it, instantly killing many
of the passengers.
Three physicians who were passen-
gers on car a short distance behind
arrived quickly on the scene and rem
dered all possible assistance to the in
jured. Word was sent to Bridgeport
and three ambulances and police
wagon We're hurried to the scene and
the injured were taken to Bridgeport
general hospital. A morgue was i'm
provised in the main room of the
town hall at Stratford, and in short
time twenty-three bodies were laid
out awaiting Identification.
The accident was witnessed by Miss
Frances Peck, who resides about 400
feet from the bridge. She was up
stairs at her home as the car was pass
ing, and she says that it was running
at an unusually fast rate. Frank Cra-
mer, who was bathing near the bridge,
says the passengers were all singing
and in the most joyful mood as they
passed him.