Daily Kennebec journal., 1901-05-27
|ELECTRICS COLLIDE,
Two Cars Meet, Going at 40
Mile an Hour Pace.
Five Killed and Several Of 4O-Odd
Injured Will Die.
Hearirendins Scenes 4 Place o. Accident
Near Albany, NY.

miles an hour cost five lives. this ar
ternoon. by a terrific collision, while
over 40 prominent people, some fatally
and others seriously injured. fill the ac-
cident wards Of the various hspitals
with the possibility Of other deaths
before morning.
The killed:
Frank Smith, motorman of car No.
o.
William Nichols, motorman of car
No. 10.
Maud Kellogg OF Round Lake.
Annie Rooney Of Stuyvesant Falls.
David MahOney, mate on the Dean
Richmond.
The fatally injured:
George c. Barry, Troy. hurt inter-
nally.
Fred J. Smith. injured internally.
The seriously injured:
VIM. F. Barry. Troy. cuts on head
Marie Barry. Troy. leg broken.
George p. Bittner. Moorville. cut and
brusied.
Issac Blauvelt. Albany. leg broken.
Dewitt c. Peltz, Albany, badly
bruised.
Mrs. Dewitt c. Peltz. Albany. badly
bruised.
Charles Peltz. Albany. painfully
bruised.
Howard J. Rogers. Albany. bruised
and cut.
Mrs. II. J. Rogers. Albany. cut and
bruised.
Rogers. Albany. leg broken.
A. w. Croteley, Albany, hurt inter-
nally.
George Lane. Albany. badly cut.
Fred Herzog, Albany. shoulder dis
located.
The lobby OF the local post office
filled with dead and wounded: hysteri-
cal women and children looking for
relatives and friends. surgeons ad-
ministering temporary relief and am
balances racing through the city taking
the wounded to hospitals were the on
ly intimations of the most terrible
electric line accident ever heard of in
this vicinity.
The scene Of the accident was point
about two miles out of Greenbush. on
the line Of the Albany & Hudson Rail-
way. just completed road.
The point where the cars met on
tIlc siuSIe IL DIS 1t Sui Z
and so fast were both cars running and
SO sudden was the collision that this
motorman had no time to put on the
brakes before south bound car No. q
had gone almost clean through north
bound car No. a, with human flesh for
a buffer. and hung on the edge of q
high bluff with its load of silrieking
manned humanity.
One motorman was pinioned w
against the front of the south-bound
car with both legs severed and killed
instantly. while the other one lived but
a few minutes.
Fully 120 men, women and children
formed a huge, struggling, shriekinG
pyramid, mixed with blood, detached
portions of human bodies ard the
wreckage of the cars. Some of the
more slightly injured of the men. ex-
tracking themselves from the Quiver-
ing mass. began to pull people out of
the rear ends Of the two cars and al
most every one extracted in this way
was badly injured.
The scenes were heartrending. The
few women and children who had es-
capped injury and death were hysterical
and added their cries to the shrieks of
the dying and mutilated. Men with
broken arms and bones. dislocated
Joints and bloody heads and faces
tried to assist others who were more
helpless and there were many cases
of philosophical bravery.
Help had been summoned from East
Greenbush and vicinity and in a little
,f H1rrr mi "
with the mutilated dead for gruesome
and silent company were loaded on ex-
ira cars and taken to Albany.
There ambulances and physicians
had been summoned and the post office
turned into a mOrgue and hospital. AS
fast as the physicians could Temporal
rily fix up the wounded they were taken
to their homes or to the hospitals In
either carriages or hospital ambu-
lances.
With both motOrmen killed. 1t was
hard to get at the real cause of the
accident. but it is pretty well deter
mined that it was caused by an at
tempt of the south-bound car to reach
a second switch instead Of waiting for
the north bound at the first siding.
The cars weigh Is tons each and are
the largest electric cars built. but SO
frjghtful was the crash that both cars
were torn almost to splinters. Both
cars were filled with Sunday pleasure
seekers. The south bound car left AL
bany at 4.3O and the accident occurred
at o'clock.
The cars on the line was running at
switch headway. that is, as a car
reached switch 1t was supposed to
await until another going in the oppo-
site direction passed. The motOrman
of the south bound car reached of the
switches. but seeing no north-bound
car. decided to take chances and go on
to the next. 1t was at a curve be-
tween. that the two cars met.
Among the passengers on the south
bound car was Deputy Superintendent
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