The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1907-07-23
SCORES KILLED ON
EXCURSION TRAIN WRECK
Freight Crew Forgot Orders and
Collision Results.
VICTIMS RAILROAD EMPLOYEES
Freight Train in Michigan Did Not
Wait For Excursionist Special
and the Two Trains Met Head
On--The Work of Rescue.

Salem, h.-Thirty-one persons
were killed and more than seventy in
jured, many of them seriously, when
a Pere Marquette excursion train
bound from Ionia to Detroit crashed
into west-bound freight train in a
cut located at sharp curve of the
Pere Marquette Railroad about a mile
east of Salem
The passenger train Of eleven cars,
carrying the Pere Marquette shop
employees of Ionia and their families
on their annual excursion, was run
ming at high speed, probably fifty
miles an hour, down a steep grade.
1t struck the lighter locomotive of
the freight train with such terrific
force as to turn the freight engine
completely around. The wrecked To-
comotives lay side by side, both head
ed eastward.
Only few of the freight train cars
were smashed. Besides the two
wrecked locomotives, however, six
cars of the passenger train lay piled
up in hopeless wreck. Four the
passenger cars remaiSed on the track
unchanged and were used to convey
the dead and injured to Ionia. One
coach had only it's forward trucks
lifted off the rails
The two cars next ahead of these
were telescoped The next car for
ward stood almost on end after the
wreck, its forward end resting on
the roadbed and the rear end high in
the air upon the two telescoped cars
that had been following it. Two
coaches were thrown crosswise of
the track and lay suspended from
bank to bank of the cut five or six
feet above the rails OF the bag
gage car not enough remained to
show where it had been tossed Por-
lions of it and of the locomotive ten
1ers and freight cars were piled in
an indescribable mass of debris.
Every family on the train had
lunch baskets, and many of them
were eating when the trains crashed
together. Some passengers sitting
near the windows of the rear, UNI
damaged coach, were thrown out the
windows to the ground There was
a panic in the uninjured cars for
few moments. Then these passen-
gers rushed from the cars to the res
cue OF friends and relatives who were
pinioned in the wreckage ahead of it.
Families were scattered among diff
ferent cars, and there were frenzied
searches for missing relatives. Moth
ers ran screaming up and down
searching for their children, while
many of the young people were as
Fra nttNolIU ao1liv1cr fnr hAi
James Boyle, a farmer, was work
ing in field probably 400 feet away
from the track when the two trains
approached from opposite directions.
The local freight was moving slowly
up the heavy grade and had just
reached the curve when the passen-
ger train appeared, running at high
speed. Boyle saw the passenger en-
gineer shut off his steam and apply
the brakes and saw the crews of both
engines jump just before the crash.
He ran to the tracks, where he found
the uninjured passengers from the
rear coaches running forward, and
Joined with them in pulling out the
injured, who could be seen on every
hand.
The dead were placed in a row
alongside the track and the injured
were made as comfortable as posi-
BILE under the circumstances and until
the arrival of the wrecking trains
from Detroit, Grand Rapids, and Sag
NAV, which made it possible to send
them to Ionia and Detroit
The twenty-eight dead bodies first
taken out of the wreck were shipped
to Ionia and the injured were placed
on two trains, one of which headed
for Detroit and the other for Ionia
There were about thirty-five injured
persons on each train. Later others
were found.
List of the Dead.
The following is the list of dead,
all from Ionia except as Indicated
Homer Smith, a boy; Albert Traunt-
wine, John Tofel, Charles Hess, Her
man Hess, Paul Hess. William Cor
NELL Don Rogers, Lowell, Mich;
Dick Jones, Mrs. Abraham Eddy, Ed
ward Gallagher eighteen years;
Frank Douse, L. K. Merell, fifty
Marquette; Charles McCaulley, ST.;
AL F. Herbert, Edward Durling,
Charles Broad, eighteen years; James
Wizard, Willard Stager, William Gott,
Mrs. August Richter, Fred Fitzger-
alG, Ed. Corwan, brakeman; Knowles,
fireman; Charles Fenton, fireman;
William Evans, Frank Reynolds, Ben
jamin During. Charles Fenton, Harry
Williams, e. ]. Pixley, conductor.
Responsibility is put squarely up
to the crew of the freight train by OF
ticials of the road Those who ar
rived at the scene of the wreck soon
after the accident obtained from the
crew of the freight the orders under
which it was running. They clearly
showed the position of the excursion
train, and that the freight had en-
croached upon it's running time. The
freight crew left the scene early, but
railroad officials said that they ex-
planned simply that they hal forgot
ten the orders,