Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1911-05-05
DEATH LIST IN
WRECK ELEVEN
Spreading Rails Caused Disas-
ter at Martins Greek.
At LEAST so OTHERS INJURED
Fragments of Bodies Removed From
Ashes of Burned Coaches-Survi-
vors Sent Home.

Ashes of Burned Coaches-Survi-
vors Sent Home.
Eleven lives were lost in the derail-
ment and burning of the Utica teach
ers' special near Martins creek, eight
miles north of Easton, Pa, on the
PENNSYLVANIA railroad The train, car.
rying 16S school teachers, was en- route
to Washington. The railroad men them
selves say that the most remarkable
feature of the wreck was that 100
weren't killed in the terrific shock
and the sudden sweep of fire.
The train had run by way of Scran-
ton over the Lackawanna railroad and
was taken in charge by the Pennsyl-
vania crew at Stroudsburg. There
were three coaches. The corps Of
teachers were having merry time
and looking forward to great times
during their stay in Washington,
feature of which was to have been
reception by Vice President and Mrs.
Sherman. There was sudden grind
and jar. The merry party wes thrown
together in heaps and violently jerked
into all sorts of positions, many of
them buried under baggage. The en-
gine had left the tracks, turned over
on it's side and the coaches were de.
rallied.
While the panic-stricken teachers
were making frantic efforts to get out
of the cars the flames broke out,
seeming to envelop the whole train
at once and sweeping with frightful
roar upon the struggling women, none
of whom had been able to snatch any
wraps or hand baggage.
So swift was the descent of the
flames that the six unfortunates who
had been unable to get out of the
coaches in time were cremated, it is
supposed. Another presum ption is that
they tainted with fright and that in
the panicky rush they were overlook
ed. The oil from the tank car into
which the passenger engine had crash
ed fed the furious flames, and practi-
cally every atom of the coaches were
consumed in the fiery furnace. 1t is
supposed that Goals from the fireboX
of the wrecked engine started the oil
to burn, while flames from the stoves
in the dining car did the mischief in
the rear.
OF the dead there were three in the
Easton hospital: Eleanor Rutherford,
a teacher, of Utica; Charles M. Per
son, the train conductor, of Strouds-
burg, and M. w. Vanoy, the engineer,
of Trenton.
There seems to be no reason to
doubt that others died in the fire.
From the mass of ashes and twisted
iron the wrecking crew removed frag
ments of four bodies.
Professor A. C. Burton, president Of
the Utica Teachers association, said
that he had sent word home that these
six teachers, all of Utica, perished in
the flames: Sophie Knoult, Mary AL
len, Sarah Jones, Susan Sessions, Bes
sic Walker and Louise Lindsman
Stewart F. Day, secretary to Mayor
Frederick Gilmore, of Utica, sent word
to the mayor that after a talk with the
Pennsylvania railroad officials ne was
convinced that no further hope could
be held out to the relatives and friends
of the six.
Besides the six teachers, four en-
ployes of the Pennsylvania railroad
are dead: Person, the conductor;
Vanoy, the engineer; Harry Wilmer,
the baggageman, and Joseph Bicknell,
the tourist agent, whose home was in
Philadelphia.
All of the survivors save the in
jured in the hospitals have been sent
home by the Pennsylvania railroad.
Many of those who went back to
Utica carried injuries, some of them
serious, but they were able to travel.
The investigation made by Professors
Burton and Vincent Brown and Miss
Marian Haskins, one of the heroines
of the wreck, determined definitely
that at least fifty of the teachers were
burned or cut or bruised. On board
the special train there were thirty wo-
men whose hands or faces were band
aged Some were unable to sit up on
account of sprained backs or dislocat.
ed ankles.