Fort Mill times. [volume] (Fort Mill, S.C.) 1892-current, 1907-08-01
SAME OLD STORY
Thirty People Killed In a Rail Road
Accident.
THE FEARFUL WRECK

Train, Which Crashed Into a
Freight Train-At Least Thirty
Are known to be Dead, and Sew
enty Others Are More or Less Ser.
iously Hurt.
thirty people are dead and more
than 40 injured, many OF them SER
iously, as the result of a head-end
collision Saturday morning near Ply-
mouth, Mich, when a Pere Maruuette
excursion train bound from Ionia to
Detriot crashed into westbound
rrelght in "A cut located at a sharp
curve about mile east of Salem.
me passenger train of IL cars,
carrying the Pore Marquette shon
employees OF lonia and their families
TO the Michigan metropolis for their
annual excursion. was running at
high speed. probably 80 miles an
hour, down steep grade. 1t struck
'e lighter locomotive of the freight
train with such terrific force as to
turn the freight engine completely
around.
The wrecked locomotives lay side
by side, both headed eastward. ONLY
few of the freight cars were dam
aged and 1t was only few hours
work to remove all traces of them
from the scene. But behind the two
wrecked locomotives six cars of the
passenger train lay piled in a hope
less wreck.
Four of the passenger coaches re-
NAMED on the track undamaged and
were used to convey the dead and in
jured to lonia; one coach was en-
tirely undamaged with only its for
ward trucks off the rails. These
were the rear five cars. The two
coaches next ahead of those were tel
escoped. The next car forward stood
almost on end after the wreck, it's
forward end resting on the roadbed
and the rear end high in the air upon
the two telescoped coaches that had
been following it.
Two coaches were thrown cross
wise of the track and lay suspended
from bank to bank of the cut five or
six feet above the railroad. OF the
baggage coach nothing was left to
show where it had been tossed. Por-
tions of the baggage car and of the
locomotive tender and freight cars
were piled in an indescribable mass
of debris.
The 2S dead bodies first AIKEN
from the wreck were shipped to
Ionia, and the INJURED were placed on
two trains, one of which headed for
Detriot and the other for Ionia. There
were about 35 injured people on each
train.
Later in the day the body of Ed
Corwan, the head brakeman of the
passenger train, was taken out of
the wreck.
Fireman Knowles died on the re-
lief train enroute to Detriot. bringing
the list of dead to 80, with posi-
bility that more bodies might be
found in the wreckage and that sew
eral of the injured may die.
Responsibility is placed squarely
up to the crew of the freight train by
officers of the road. Officials who ar
rived at the scene of the wreck soon
after the accident, secured from the
freight the orders under which 1t was
running and which clearly showed
the position of the passenger excur-
sion train, and that the freight had
encroached upon the other trains
running time. The special train was
due at Salem at 9:10 a. m, and at
Plymouth at $3.50 a. m. 1t passed
Salem on time.
The time card of the special was
telegraphed to the freight crew In the
form of train order and this order
with the signatures of the freight
train crew. attached, was recovered
by the officials of the road. The
freight crew left the scene early, but
railroad officials said that they ex-
planned simply that they had forgot
ten. The collision occurred at 9:13
O'Clock and the freight train should
have reached Salem at 9:10 to be
within their orders.