The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-03-06
HERO IS CONE BY
 V|NCENT'S DEATH Earned Title Hero of Madcap
 Run" STORY OF BRAVE FEAT Was Engineer on Train Which Was Ambushed By Rioters During Strike of I90S-Several Were Killed
 By the FusiIlade
STORY OF BRAVE TEA!

In the death of Wilbur Vincent at the ord street, Friday afternoon there passed away one of the heroes of the Birming ham district-a man whose bravery and cool headedness probably saved the lives of 100 men. It won him the title of The Hero of Madcap Run," and the affair it. self was probably the most exciting in stance to occur in Alabama since the Civil war. with the possible exception of the Hawes riot.
 The affair was the shooting into a train filled with strikebreakers, soldiers and deputy sheriffs during the coal min CTS strike of 1908, on the Louisville and Nashville railroad near Blocton. Three men were killed and Il wounded, and but for the coolness of Vincent. who was at the throttle in rushing the train past the ambush the tale of horror would un- doubtedly have been much worse.
 It was about Il o'clock one Saturday night when the train left Birmingham quietly, no intimatien of its leaving having heen given out. Some distance from Bir- n ingham the train was switched from one line to the other and started to Blocton on another route. In some way, however. the news of 1t reached rioters in the laid in a cut a mile and a half from Rlocton
 When the train was within a few miles of the scene heavy torpedo exploded On the train were about dozen deputies. 60 or 70 soldiers and nearly 100 strike breakers,
 As the train rolled into the cut Engineer Vincent saw number of cross ties piled upon the track. He sized Up the situation immediately, but held his head, ssckened the speed of the train and in a broadside of bullets moved the engine up to tho cross ties and gently essed them off the track with the nose of the cowcatcled, then put on full speed and pulled into Blocton.
 The top of the cut was level with the windows in the engine and coaches and the side of the train was literally riddled with bullets. The side of the engine was ptted with bullet holes. The least bit of nervousness on Vincents part would have wrecked the train with the subsequent loss of numbers of lives in the wreckage and by the hands Of the maddened men who had ambushed it.
 Vincent was 48 years of age and regard ed as one of the best engineers on the Louisville and Nashville line. There was q touch of pathos in the illness leading up to Vincent's death, and in accordance with the strange occurrence that heroes very often die a sad death.
 can was picked up on the streets, having become suddenly ill. He was rushed to the Hillman hospital by the policemen who had found him and there the doctors thought him to be poisoned, but could discover no trace of poison. He never regained full consciousness, but : :emained in a dazed condition. He was unable to tell who he was, but the doc tors finally gleaned the name of Vincent from him, and several days afterward a story appeared in The Age-Herald telling of him. Through this his family, who had been endeavoring to learn of his whereabouts, succeeded in locating him.
 They removed him to the family resi- cence and there his Illness suddenly de- veloped into spinal meningitis, and his death followed shortly afterward He leaves widow, sister and a number or other relatives to mourn his loss.
 Vincent was given duty to perform, being given instructions to get the train through to Blocton, and he did. When he boarded his engine in Birminghan the previous rioting in the district, other .af- fairs of where trains were shot into and the great secrecy pertaining to the trains departure, were warning enough for nim to know that his lefe was in great dan ger. He could have shirked the duty if he had desired, but he took the run with out protest and when the crucial mo- ment came he retained his bravery and cool head and ran the train out of dan- ger when he might have removed hn,- self from the slightest danger by dropping from his engineers seat to the protection offered by the iron sides of his engine.