The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1936-09-04
Auto Accidents Take
Heavy Toll
Truck Goes Down Embank-
ment---Five Killed And
Eighteen Injured

Auto accidents have become almost
a daily occurrence along Route No. /,
in this vicinity. The most serious to
have occurred in this locality,
fraught with an appalling loss of life
and injury, was that of Thursday
morning last, when truck loaded
with Negro laborers got out of con-
troll at the Cecil county end of the
bridge over Conowingo dam crashed
through the guard fence, and hurtled
down a sixty-foot embankment.
Five persons met almost instant
death and eighteen were seriously
injured. The Negroes had been
working in the potato fields of New
Jersey, and were enroute to their
homes in Georgia and Florida.
George D. Hart, Hastings, Florida,
driver of the truck, was the only
white person in the machine and he
was among those killed. The four
Negroes killed including one woman
were: Anna Simmons and Junice
MAR, Micanopy, Florida; Clarence
Caldwell, St. Augustine, Florida, and
an unidentified Negro man.
Eighteen others were injured, two
so seriously as to result in their
deaths later in Union Hospital, Elk
ton. They were Harry Harris, Bel
grave, Florida, and James Silas.
Quitman, Georgia.
Twenty-three persons, most of
them itinerant Negro farm laborers,
were riding in the truck when it took
it's fatal plunge during a binding
rainstorm, early in the morning.
Eleven of the injured, all Negroes,
were taken to Union Hospital, Elk
ton, and six were cared for by the
Red Cross at Port Deposit under the
direction of DR.. w. G. Jack, Mrs.
Wayne A. Monroe and Mrs. Frank w.
Clapp.
The injured were: James Silas,
Quitman, Ga, who died later;
Esther Roach and her son, Sipio,
Pomano, Fla; Aaron Allen, his wife
Hattie, and son, Curtis, Micanopy,
Fla. Joe Singleton and his wife
Alice, Pelham, Ca; Spencer Thomas
and his wife Viola, Belle Glade, Fla;
Lemon Harris and Nettie Stewart,
Micanopy; Robert E. Lee, Dawson,
Ga; Harry Harris (since died) and
Cleve Harris, Belle Glade; Henry
Carroll, Palatka, Fla, and Curry Sim
mons, Jacksonville.
A baby only few months old was
thrown forty feet from the point
where the truck finally came to a
halt and its only injury was a slight
scratch on the hand.
The bodies of the five killed were
taken to- Rising Sun to be prepared
for burial Three of the bodies are
at the funeral home of J. Earl Tyson
and two at the funeral home of
Ralph Reed.
On Wednesday of this week tbs
body of George D. Hart, white, was
shipped to St. Augustine, Florida,
and all the bodies of the colored
dead taken to Cherry Hill for burial
by the county.
Coroner Stanley Jeffers. of Elkton,
is conducting an investigation int,
the accident.
A short time after the accident at
Conowingo a car containing four
negroes ran off the concrete roadway
at the Woodrow & James farm, west
of town. They were all injured and
were given first aid treatment by DR..
r. C. Dodson and sent to Elkton
Hospital, just as he was preparing to
respond to the accident call at Como
wingo Dam.
A third accident on the Rising
road occurred at the
top of Pigeon Hill, west Of town,
Saturday morning, when the auto of
James Corbin, 80, of Silver Springs
Md, an internal revenue agent en-
route to Atlantic City, and a car
driven by George White, Negro, Of
Norfolk, Va, collided. Both cars
were wrecked.
Mr.. Corbin was taken to Union
Hospital, Elkton, with a fractured
skull, cuts and bruises about ths
body. State police placed the Negro
under arrest to await the outcome of