Goldsboro weekly argus. [volume] (Goldsboro, N.C.) 1885-1909, 1907-01-03
HEROIC CONDUCT.
ENGINEER Lost His Life But Prevented
Serious Wreck,

Raleigh News & Observer.
Engineer S. E. Maxwell, of Raleigh,
was slowly tortured to death in a wreck
with a freight train near Pe~achland, on
the Seaboard Air Line Railway, late
Sunday night.
Caught in an upright position be-
tween b locomotive and the tender he
suffered agony for foul hours while
many, including several physicians,
stood by pityingly but powerless to
help.
Whit made the tragedy more ex-
cruciating was the fact that the doomed
engineer had met his fate by choice;
had stood by his throttle when he might
easily have jumped and saved himself;
and that, with the heat of the fire-box
roasting his pinioned leg and the blood
streaming from a deep wound in which
a metal apron" was fixed, he still had
the lions heart to keep his nerve and
in the teeth of death send loving mes
sages to wife and child at home.
It was the gold of heroism undeiled
and when at last death came to ease
the tortured body there went on the
wings of the morning the soul Of a
man.
1t is hard to think OF such a death
without a tear. 1t is impossible to con-
template it without feeling thatit ought
to have a shout of pride. If anything
could compensate for the loss of such a
man it would be the magnificent gift
that his death confers.
Engineer Maxwell sat IN his cab
peering through the night, running fifty
miles an hour. AS the passenger train
that he had in charge rounded the curve
at P~eachland, he saw ahead of him a
freight train, partly on the siding that
it should nave made. partly on the main
line. It look him less than a fraction
of a second to know the inevitable re-
suit. The danger held for him every
menace that it could hold for any man.
He accepted it, instantly. The breaks
screamed their warning. The reversed
throttle told the story ofthe man in the
cab fighting b fight for The lives Of
others. The great train under it's high
momentum, hesitated, protested, slid
down the rails. In it's every joint it
proclaimed its agony, spoke the heroic
anxiety Of the man in the cab, sitting
still on his seat, facing the death tina
stood less thai ten seconds away, wait
ing for him..
The train slowed, screeched, grinded,
well-nigh stopped. When the crash
came it was running at only ten miles
an hour. The fireman jumped, as was
his right; the engineer sat still, as spoke
his honor.
Not a passenger was hurt. The train
was slightly injured. Thrown from
his seat, the engineer was caught as
he fell between the tender and the
engine. The iron pan that is between
the engine and tender was pressed
against his leg, cutting it half in two,
while the leg and foot were pressed
against the firebox.
Then the crowd gathered about, and
the brave man stood there pinned, see
ing his death, bleeding and burning,
calm. He talked of his wife and baby;
talked of them again and again. Doc
tors came, but could do nothing. He
begged them to amputate his leg so
that he might be taken from between
the iron vice that held him. They
said they could do nothing. And so
he talked some more of his wife and
baby, talked cheerfully to those who
would have rescued him, and died.
This man was a native of Walhalla,
South Carolina, where his parents, MI.
and Mrs. E. K. Maxwell, live. He was
only thirty-two years of age. His
figure and face bore the sign of the
character his death provedhim to have.
He was a man whom people looked at
twice, for his genial face, for the tall
ness of him and the robustness.
He was married to a daughter of the
late Mr.. D. P. Meacham, of Raleigh,
who strangely enough was killed a
year or more ago on the yards of the
Seaboard at Johnston street..
So the railroad has taken heavy toll
of his widow.
But the world received much from the
man.
Will ARREST BLACKBURN.