CHAPTER III
FIRES AND ACCIDENTS
Type of story. Many newspaper reports of fires and accidents may be considered as typical examples of narrative and descriptive news stories of the purely informative type. The essential facts of the news are presented in a simple, direct, concise manner without any attempt to give the story any greater interest for the reader than the facts themselves possess. Such a fire story is that of the “Large Tannery Fire” (p. 16) and such an accident story is that entitled “Automobile and Car Collide” (p. 24).
When human life is involved in these events, some newspaper writers take advantage of the opportunity to add to the interest by developing the personal, or human interest, elements of the news in the informative type of story, while at the same time presenting the facts fully and accurately. Accident stories of this type are those headed “Entombed Miners” (p. 38) and “Baby Drowns” (p. 42).
Less important fires and accidents that might otherwise go unnoticed, or be dismissed with a few lines, may have in them some element that lends itself to the feature, or human interest, treatment. A small fire story of this type is found on p. 19; a humorous feature story of an accident is that of the “Child in a Runaway” (p. 25); and a pathetic human interest story is that of the “Boy Killed by Car” (p. 25).
Purpose. Stories of fires and accidents, particularly when such occurrences result in fatalities, may be written so as to be either constructive or destructive in their influence upon readers. The constructive effect lies in emphasis upon those elements that tend (1) to turn the reader’s attention to preventive measures, (2) to create sympathy for the victims, or (3) to inspire admiration for heroism or other virtues. Stories that give prominence to immediate or underlying causes and responsibility in cases of fires and accidents, as well as to possible preventive measures, have a helpful effect. Stories that create sympathy for victims deserving of aid generally result in prompt offers of relief. Examples of constructive stories are those entitled “Fire in Stables” (p. 18), “Lodging House Fire” (p. 21), and “Runaway” (p. 22). The story that aims to satisfy readers’ interest in ghastly and sensational phases of fatal fires and accidents panders to a morbid curiosity and inevitably has an unwholesome influence, even though the facts that it presents are true.
Treatment of material. All types of fire and accident stories give opportunity for spirited narrative and vivid description. Possible means for lending life and interest to the narrative include accounts of the disaster, either in direct or indirect quotation form, as secured by interviews with survivors and eye-witnesses, and conversation between persons involved.
Contents of story. Among the important details to be considered in analyzing stories of unexpected occurrences, such as fires and accidents, are: (1) number of lives lost; (2) number of lives endangered; (3) names of dead and injured; (4) prominent persons and places involved; (5) character and extent of damage; (6) property threatened with damage or destruction; (7) cause and responsibility; (8) investigations; (9) preventive measures against recurrence of event; (10) probable or actual effects; (11) peculiar and unusual circumstances; (12) humorous and pathetic incidents. Almost any one of these details may be the feature of the story, and as such may be played up in the lead. The space and prominence given to each of these details are determined by its relative news value.
LARGE TANNERY FIRE
Boston Transcript
Following an explosion of fuel oil, fire spread like a flash through the plant of the George C. Vaughn Sole Leather Tannery on Upper Bridge street, Salem, shortly before noon today and destroyed three large buildings and a power house, with a loss estimated from $325,000 to $350,000, covered by insurance. Many times the flames leaped to the neighboring wooden structures that surround the plant, but by the efforts of the entire Salem fire department, assisted by men and apparatus from Beverly, Peabody and Marblehead, a conflagration was narrowly averted.
More than a quarter million dollars’ worth of sole leather was stored on the premises. A. J. Vaughn, president of the company, said after the fire that $200,000 worth of new stock had recently been received and that the old stock, machinery and buildings were worth $150,000 in addition, bringing the total loss to $350,000.
The fire, which broke out at 11.15 A. M. in the basement of the main tannery building, spread so quickly that the employees at work on the upper floors had difficulty in escaping to the street. Even before the first alarm had been sent in, the advancing flames reached a large tank of oil, used for fuel in the power house. A heavy explosion followed and the fire gained irresistible headway, since the power house stood in the centre of the plant and was flanked on three sides by the tanning houses.
Unable to check the flames in the plant, the firemen bent their energy to keep the fire from spreading. Calls for assistance sent to the surrounding towns met quick response, and by 12.30 the blaze was under control.
The buildings of the plant comprised a two-story stone tannery, 200 feet long; a single-story drying and rolling house, built of wood, with a frontage of 150 feet; and a beam house, also of wood, with a frontage of 125 feet. They were grouped on three sides of a square surrounding the power house. The plant was formerly known as the F. A. Lord tannery, but was enlarged and remodelled after its purchase by the George C. Vaughn Company.
UNIVERSITY BUILDING BURNS
New York Times
Three important collections of books and documents, two of which were held by their owners to be priceless, since they represented the lifework of the collectors, were destroyed in the fire which swept through the superstructure of the uncompleted University Hall on the Columbia University campus early yesterday morning.
While the fire was burning, between 1 and 2 o’clock, the interest of the student body was centred principally in the gymnasium, where there was a grand piano and much apparatus to be saved, and in the rooms of the Columbia University crew, where there were many trophies, oars, and banners.
In the rush to save athletic trophies, the documents in rooms near by were overlooked. They were finally pitched out of the windows by firemen cleaning up after the fire, and they were made up into three great rubbish heaps on the lawns about the burned building.
Before these rubbish heaps a Professor of Mathematics and a Professor of Germanic History stood yesterday with tears in their eyes, their shirtsleeves rolled up for work. They toiled through the débris looking for personal papers and for notes and documents which they said regretfully they feared they could never replace.
The collections destroyed included all the personal library on the history of Germanic civilization brought to this country by Dr. Ernst Richard, Professor of Germanic History. With Dr. Richard’s documents went his personal notes, which he had gathered in a lifetime of study. While he stood over the rubbish pile in front of the window of what had been his office, Dr. F. N. Cole, Professor of Mathemetics, searched another big rubbish pile near by.
Dr. Cole also contemplated his loss with deep sorrow. In the pile before him were all the official documents and records of the American Mathematical Association, which had its headquarters in the building. Dr. Cole was its Secretary, and he had moved the documents from East Hall two years ago because he feared that East Hall might burn, while University Hall, except for the temporary superstructure, was fireproof.
The documents had been accumulating since the association was founded. The files of the first ten volumes of its publication, the American Mathematical Society’s Bulletin, were destroyed together with the stock collection of copies of all subsequent volumes. All of Dr. Cole’s personal papers were destroyed with the society’s papers.
The fire, which apparently originated in the kitchens behind the Commons eating quarters on the main floor, swept through wooden partitions separating various offices on that floor, and through a temporary wooden roof which had been put on against the time when seven more stories should be built.
As the lower floors, which were part of the permanent structure, were fireproof, the flames did not work down through them, but died out when they had consumed the temporary superstructure. The gymnasium on the lower floor was unharmed, except by water, and the swimming pool below it was ready for use yesterday.
The offices on the upper floor which were destroyed included the headquarters of The Columbia Spectator, The Jester, the Prison Reform Association, and the American Mathematical Association, the rooms of the Columbia Crew, the Commons Restaurant, and the offices of the departments of mathematics and Germanic history.
The athletic trophies in University Hall, it turned out, were of only minor value, having been won at training bouts on the Harlem River. The rich trophies of the university were kept in another building with fireproof walls and floors.
E. Stagg Whitin, Secretary of the Prison Reform Association, joined the downhearted group early in the afternoon. “What will Thomas Mott Osborne say when he hears of this,” he remarked, as he looked over the débris that had been notes and documents. “All our work was here,” he said, “all the fruits of our years of investigation. And there was even material we intended to use in a lawsuit against some Connecticut prison labor contractors.
“I don’t see how we can replace what we have lost. The reports of our investigators made up a good part of it. We spent our funds preparing this material, and the only way we can replace it is to raise another fund to do it all over again.”
The ruin of University Hall’s superstructure was not permitted to repose even an hour. Dean Frederick Goetze, the university Controller, who drove in by automobile from Orient, L. I., on hearing of the fire, had wagons loaded with lumber on the Campus before the firemen were through tearing out the embers. He had 150 men at work before noon rebuilding the roof, and had orders placed for all material to replace the offices. He notified the gymnasium instructors that they might hold classes as usual on Monday, and posted a notice to students that meals would be served as usual in the Commons Monday noon.
A special announcement which pleased university oarsmen was that their annual dinner, scheduled for Oct. 21, could be held in the gymnasium. Invitations to 1,000 former students had been accepted, and postponement would have robbed the oarsmen of the rowing season’s great event.
Coach Jim Rice ordered the rowing squads to report on Monday for barge work on the Hudson, remarking that real rowing was better than work on the machines in the gymnasium.
The loss on the building was officially placed at “less than $100,000,” which, it was said, was fully covered by insurance.
FIRE IN STABLES
Boston Transcript
Fire that partly destroyed the Thornton Stables, a five-story brick building at 85 to 95 West Mifflin street this morning, has aroused Mayor Curley to the immediate necessity of legislation to enable the city to raze buildings, without the fear of resultant liability, when such buildings have been condemned by the building department. He will ask the incoming Legislature for such a law.
For sixteen years the West Mifflin street building had been regarded as one of the worst firetraps in the city, according to the mayor. In 1898 it was condemned and an order was issued by the fire commissioner forbidding firemen to enter the building in case of fire. During these years the building was constantly under inspection by both the fire and building departments, and why it was not ordered vacated has not been explained. The walls were shored up, or strengthened by iron rods, as the foundation had settled, and yet the firemen realized that, once a fire got under way, the walls would not last long, as their thickness was about eight inches.
Before the fire was extinguished today, Mayor Curley and Building Commissioner O’Hearn visited the scene and discussed with Fire Commissioner Grady and Chief McDonough the dangers that exist in other buildings throughout the city which have been condemned but which are still occupied and are regarded as a particular menace in case of fire. The party looked over the surrounding property, and the Building Commissioner pointed out three buildings on the same street and practically adjoining the stables that were being torn down on his orders. These were ramshackle buildings that had been fire menaces for years. It was the prevailing opinion that if the stable fire had got under greater headway when discovered, and if a heavy wind had prevailed, the best efforts of the firemen could not have prevented a serious spread of the flames. The buildings on the southerly side of the stables are all of wood, and the flames would have had little difficulty, had they got beyond the control of the firemen, in sweeping over the site of one removed building to those of most inflammable nature used as lodging-houses.
Mayor Curley directed Fire Commissioner Grady to prepare a list of buildings of sufficiently dangerous fire risks to warrant orders from headquarters forbidding the firemen entering them in case of fire. That there are many such buildings in various parts of the city of substantial proportions was admitted. The fire commissioner declared that he had received a legal opinion that the city is not justified in tearing down buildings which have been condemned, unless the owner or owners give their consent. The city has authority, however, to vacate buildings. Section four, Chapter 550 of the Acts of 1907, provides that the building commissioner, or one of his inspectors, shall inspect every building which he has reason to believe is unsafe or dangerous to life, limb or adjoining buildings, and, if he finds it unsafe or dangerous, shall notify the owner to secure the building, and shall affix in a conspicuous place on its walls a notice of its dangerous condition. “The commissioner may, with the written approval of the mayor, order any building which in his opinion is unsafe to be vacated forthwith,” in the words of the law.
Fifty buildings have already been condemned this year. Many of them have been removed, but in every case the owners have consented to the removal. The building commissioner sends his lists of condemned buildings to the City Council, which gives hearings on the appeal. There is a long list of such buildings now pending before the council, and the mayor will go before that body at its next meeting and urge that the list be given immediate attention.
The law department has handled two hundred egress cases for the building department in the last two years, Assistant Corporation Counsel Edward T. McGettrick having full charge, and in not a single case has the department been obliged to vacate after the bill in equity has been filed in court. Most of these cases, however, are of lodging-houses, the owners preferring to obey orders in providing sufficient fire-escapes rather than fight the case in the courts.
SMALL FIRE
Savannah News
A tiny, golden-throated canary bird was the hero of a midnight fire in the lobby of the Geiger Hotel on Broughton street last night.
It was due to the bird that the attachés of the hotel investigated and found a blaze in the wall caused by a defective flue in the rear of the cigar stand cases. The loss will amount to between $500 and $600. The bird hangs in a cage near the cigar stand. About 11:30 o’clock S. D. MacMartin noticed it suddenly wake from its sleep and flutter noisily about the cage. He thought a cat was attempting to get the bird and made an investigation. He climbed on a chair and a puff of smoke and a blaze shot towards him.
A telephone alarm was sent immediately to fire headquarters, and Chemical Company No. 1 answered. They extinguished the blaze in a short time. It was necessary to chop away the partition, and the cigar stand and cases were moved into the lobby of the hotel from the wall. The owner of the stand stated that his loss would be considerable.
With all the excitement in the lobby none of the guests in the hotel was awakened.
LIVES LOST IN FIRE
Chicago Tribune
A careless electrician, a gas pocket in a fireproof vault, a stab of flame from a blown-out fuse—and a deadly “sane Fourth” argument for a city which has ceased to need one.
Such, in brief, was the story read by Coroner Hoffman and other official investigators yesterday in the ruins of the Pain Fireworks Display company’s plant at 1320 Wabash avenue, after an explosion of the $5,000 stock of cannon crackers, torpedoes, roman candles, skyrockets, and pyrotechnical set pieces had wrecked the firm’s own building and rocked adjoining structures.
The electrician, upon whom the authorities are inclined to put the blame, was Joseph Johnson, employed in the fire sprinkler department of the American District Telegraph company.
Johnson was one of five persons trapped in the building and killed. Late in the afternoon the bodies of the other four victims—H. B. Thearle, president of the company; Miss Florence Hill, his personal secretary; Edward Connors, a salesman; and R. H. Wolff, the stockman—had been recovered, but Johnson’s was not found until night.
The explosion—or rather the explosions, for there were three or four of them at half second intervals—occurred shortly before 11 o’clock in the morning. Mr. Thearle was sitting at his desk in the middle of the building, a deep, narrow, one story structure of concrete and steel. At his side was Miss Hill, taking dictation in shorthand. Connors was busy at an adjoining desk.
Wolff, the stockkeeper, was in the rear part of the basement, in which most of the company’s stock was stored. At the front end of the basement two electricians were at work—Johnson and Michael J. Callahan, his foreman. The job on which the electricians were employed centered in the Coca Cola building, adjoining the Pain plant, in which an outfit of automatic sprinklers was being installed.
Duty called Callahan into the Coca Cola building just in time to save his life. A minute after the foreman electrician had walked out the front door, Thomas Byrnes, sales manager for the fireworks company, stepped into the alley at the rear of the building. He had taken only a few steps when there was a flash and a roar and his feet shot from under him.
As Byrnes fell, a body came sailing out into the alley. It stopped short against one of the pillars of the south side “L” structure, which runs through the alley, and Johnny Costello, the Pain office boy, let out a yell of terror. The yell was his last for several hours, for he immediately lost consciousness.
At the Wabash avenue end of the building other things were happening. With the first explosion the big plate glass window disappeared and a mountain of flame burst into the street. The street car tracks were clear for a hundred yards north and south, except for which fact, it is believed, there would have been many more killed and injured.
The flame rolled across the street and scorched the front of the building of the Howe Scale company, all the windows of which had been shaken out by the explosion. On the heels of the dissipated flame mountain a pillar of smoke several hundred feet in height rolled out of the Pain building.
Columns of flame and smoke climbed through holes in the fireworks store which marked the places where two big skylights had been, and an instant later a dozen shutters on the north wall of the Coca Cola building were afire, and panic-stricken employés, many of them girls, were racing for the south fire escapes.
Firemen responding to a 4-11 alarm found the bodies of Mr. Thearle, Miss Hill, and Connors just inside the front door, all badly burned. Hours later the body of Wolff was found in the rear of the basement. It was after nightfall when firemen, working in the glare of a searchlight, took Johnson’s body from the ruins.
By that time the building had been carefully inspected—and it was regarded as a tribute to the strength of its reinforced concrete construction that there was any of it left to inspect—by Coroner Hoffman, J. C. O’Donnell, chief of the bureau of fire prevention and public safety, and investigators for the new municipal department of public service. All were of the opinion that Johnson was responsible for the explosion, but the blame will not be definitely placed until Monday, when a jury impaneled on the spot by Coroner Hoffman will hold an inquest.
O’Donnell, who is third assistant fire marshal, planned to combine his investigation with the coroner’s. He was satisfied, he said, that the Pain company had taken all reasonable precautions and that favorable reports made on the place by inspectors of his bureau had been justified by conditions.
The building had been specially constructed for the storage of fireworks, and had been occupied by the company, formerly located in the loop, for three years. The basement had been divided into three sections by stout partitions, in much the same way that bulkheads are built into a ship. Into each of the partitions was set a steel door. But there had been no time to close the doors.
“The Pain people thought they were absolutely protected against accidents,” said O’Donnell. “This goes to prove there is no such thing as absolute protection when explosives are being handled.”
LODGING HOUSE FIRE
New York World
The lives of six persons who died in a lodging house fire at No. 1516 Eighth avenue early yesterday morning, might have been saved if orders issued by the Fire Department last May 27 had been obeyed, says a report which J. O. Hammitt, Chief of the Bureau of Fire Prevention, made late yesterday to Commissioner Robert Adamson.
Five of the dead persons were identified as Bernard Lynde, thirty-five, a laborer; Edward J. Ryan, thirty-five, a lunchman; Louis Detter, fifty-three, a laborer; a man named Hagan, about fifty; and John Cutter, eighty-four, a laborer. The sixth man was unidentified.
There were sixty-five men registered in the hotel when Peter Kelly, a watchman, saw the smoke and gave an alarm. Sergt. John Butler of the Salvage Corps ran to the roof of a neighboring building and assisted fifteen of the men to safety.
Lieut. Reed of Hook and Ladder No. 12, and Hugh Bonner, the son of the ex-Chief, mounted extension ladders to the top floor and assisted many more to the ground. Three bodies were found on the third, and three on the top floor.
Coroner Healy and Fire Marshal Prial believed that the fire was caused by a careless smoker.
Following the issuance of the report, it was announced that an investigation would be made by the District-Attorney’s office to determine whether anyone could be held responsible for the loss of life.
The orders were for the enclosure of an unenclosed stairway, up which the fire spread, and for the installation of an interior fire alarm system. Both orders had been turned over to the legal department for enforcement, and work on the stairway enclosure was in progress the day before the fire. Plans for the fire alarm system were approved Oct. 22.
Mr. Hammitt stated that the day before the fire an inspector learned that the direct communication of the lodging house with fire headquarters had been cut and ordered its restoration. The report says that Peter Loos, the proprietor, called at fire headquarters at 9 o’clock and said that the communication had not been re-established because it was the work of the landlord, but that there had been a fire in which “three persons were slightly injured.” According to Mr. Hammitt, Edward Brown is the owner of the building.
CAUSE OF FIRE
New York Times
A glowing match, carelessly tossed into a baby carriage standing in the hall, is believed to have started the fire in which thirteen persons lost their lives in the three-story tenement house in the rear of 986 North Sixth Street, Williamsburg, as told in The Times yesterday. Poor lighting in the hallways may have been an indirect cause of the fire, according to Tenement House Commissioner John J. Murphy.
As in more than 2,000 structures in the city, Commissioner Murphy said, kerosene lamps were used to light the halls. Often the lights go out or are turned out by 11 o’clock, so that persons who go into the buildings later are forced to strike matches to find their way. It probably was a match struck in this way that started the fire.
After an inspection of the district about ten days ago all the property owners were warned that they must keep their lights lighted, according to the law. The inspection disclosed that about 70 per cent. of the houses were poorly lighted.
“Prosecutions for violations of the law relating to lighting are almost without exception in vain,” Commissioner Murphy told a Times reporter yesterday, “If the owners are taken to court, they say that the lights went out, or were blown out. The reason for the law is primarily to see that the means of exit are lighted. The danger from matches used to light the way had not been thought so great.”
Except with regard to lighting, possibly, the burned tenement complied with all the provisions of the law, the officials said. The fire escapes were as prescribed, and it was due to excitement on the part of the occupants that they did not use them instead of trying to go down the stairs. Only one of the windows opening to fire escapes was found broken.
All of the victims were suffocated by smoke. Five were members of the family of Michael Blund, and two others were boarders with him; three were members of the family of Michael Lenko, all of whom lived on the top floor. John Whatso and his wife and an unidentified man who boarded with them were found on the second floor.
The house was occupied by six families, two on each floor. It is owned by John Korno, a banker, of 667 Grand Street, who owns several other tenement houses in the neighborhood. As told in late editions of yesterday’s Times, flames were seen shooting out of the windows by a passerby, who turned in an alarm. The firemen, when they arrived, found it difficult work, so excited was the crowd in front of the burning building.
The interior of the building was scarcely touched by fire. Several of the bodies were lightly scorched, but it was apparent that suffocation had caused the deaths. On one of the floors the tenants had opened the door and left it open creating a draft. Apparently all of the victims had been asleep when the fire started.
Commissioner Adamson, Fire Chief Kenlon, Fire Marshal Brophy, Deputy Tenement House Commissioner Hickey, Assistant District Attorney Wilson, Captain Shaw of the Homicide Squad of the Police Department and Coroner Wagner made investigations. At first it was thought that the fire was of incendiary origin, and the theory was that it had been started by one of Korno’s tenants who had been evicted. The officials were hampered in their investigation because most of the tenants were foreigners and could not speak English.
RUNAWAY
New York Evening Post
Dragged from his own horse while trying to stop a runaway in Central Park this afternoon, Mounted Patrolman Stephen Dowling, although thrown under the wheels of a light carriage, jumped to his feet, remounted his horse, and, after a chase of ten blocks, caught and stopped the other animal. His uniform was torn and he received contusions about the body, but he remained on duty throughout the day. The runaway horse was attached to a light runabout, driven by a man and woman, who said they were Mr. and Mrs. A. R. Hamilton of No. 775 West Ninety-fifth Street.
They were driving slowly on the West Drive when, at Ninetieth Street, the bit broke and the animal bolted. Dowling saw the runaway and pursued it on his own horse, which overtook the fleeing animal at One Hundred and Sixth Street.
Because of the broken bit it was impossible to stop the running horse by catching the bridle, so Dowling leaned far out and wrapped his arms around the neck of the runaway. He clung in this manner for a few minutes, and then, his own horse shying, he was dragged from the saddle and fell directly beneath the wheels of the runabout. Two wheels passed over his chest.
Although dazed and bruised, Dowling jumped to his feet and caught his horse, which stood near, mounted and set off at a gallop after the Hamilton rig.
At One Hundred and Sixteenth Street the runaway swerved and the light carriage was thrown against a truck. Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton were thrown out but escaped with a few slight bruises. Dowling had almost caught up when this occurred. He halted long enough to see that the man and woman were not injured and then started after the running horse. Near One Hundred and Seventeenth Street he was even with the animal and again leaned over and wrapped his arms around the horse’s neck. This time his own horse did its share of the work, and Dowling’s weight soon told on the runaway, which stopped within half a block.
“Just in the day’s work,” said Dowling, when he was congratulated.
AUTOMOBILE COLLISION
Boston Herald
Tossed into a blazing pool of gasoline when two touring cars collided and the gas tank of one exploded, Miss Alice Cushing, 22, of Nahant, and Percy Mason of 765 Washington street, Lynn, were probably fatally burned at 8 o’clock last night on the Nahant road at Little Nahant.
Walter Hanley of 11 Moore street, Swampscott, was hurled 30 feet with his clothing a mass of flames, but saved his own life by plunging into the surf and extinguishing the fire about him. Ten other passengers in the machines were bruised and shaken up, but were able to return home after medical attention.
The accident happened opposite Wilson road, when a seven passenger touring car in which were Mr. and Mrs. J. Fred Farley of Danvers, their three children, Richard, Fred and Helen Farley, and Mrs. Farley’s mother, Mrs. O. B. Merton of Danvers, turned abruptly to one side to go down upon the beach. It was struck from behind by a public touring car operated by Hanley and containing six passengers.
Hanley’s machine ploughed into the rear of the Farley car, tearing a hole in the gasoline tank. The lamps ignited the gasoline and an explosion followed which sent several gallons of burning fluid upon the road.
It was into this that Miss Cushing and Mason fell when they were thrown from the public machine by the impact. The young woman was made unconscious by the fall and was lying helpless in the centre of the fire when she was rescued with considerable difficulty by H. C. Wilcox of Beverly, who was driving by on the road. He rolled her in an automobile robe and, after extinguishing the flames, took her to the Lynn Hospital. There it was said there was practically no chance of her recovery. She was burned from head to foot and had inhaled much of the flames.
Mason was rescued by Dr. Newton A. Stone of Somerville, a Cambridge dentist, who heard the explosion and saw the glare of flames while driving in his machine farther down the road. He put out the fire about Mason with auto robes, assisted by the passengers of the public machine who had recovered from their shock. The dentist worked over him while another man drove his machine to Union Hospital, Lynn. Mason’s burns were so severe that his name was immediately placed on the danger list.
In the excitement which followed the wreck, it was believed that Hanley, the driver of the public car, had been burned alive. A half-hour later, however, he was discovered in a cottage off Wilson road. His clothing was ignited by the explosion, and he was hurled over the road upon the sand, his clothes a mass of flames.
He had to run toward the surf, but was seriously burned before he could reach the water, some 50 yards away. After he had extinguished the flames himself, he made his way to a cottage and sank exhausted on the piazza. Later he was removed to Lynn Hospital, where it was stated his burns were serious, but probably would not prove fatal. He was burned about the face and upper part of the body and the flames had entered his mouth, burning his tongue and throat.
Before the Nahant fire department could reach the scene both automobiles were destroyed. The Farley machine had been badly wrecked by the collision and the public car was telescoped. In the latter machine were Mr. and Mrs. Frank Hanley of Lynn, Arthur Wright of Fiske avenue, Lynn, and Leo Sale of Lynn, besides those who were burned. They were all more or less bruised.
The Farley party narrowly escaped being burned and were cut and bruised when they were thrown from their seats. Mrs. Farley told the police that she held up her hand to signal the other machine as her husband turned his auto toward the beach. Hanley was in no condition to discuss the accident. He is said to have been driving at about 18 miles an hour.
Miss Cushing lived on Willow road, Nahant, and was employed as a waitress in the Colonial Café, Nahant. Mason roomed at 765 Washington street, Lynn, and for many years was a resident of Peabody. He was employed in a Nahant restaurant.
Mr. Farley is a machine manufacturer in Danvers.
AUTOMOBILE AND CAR COLLIDE
New York Tribune
George C. Hurlbut, the aged librarian of the American Geological Society, and his daughter, Miss Ilione Hurlbut, were seriously injured last night in a collision between the automobile in which they were riding and a surface car in the 86th street transverse road in Central Park. Father and daughter were removed to the Presbyterian Hospital, where it was said that the skull of each was fractured. Miss Hurlbut’s right arm was broken. Both were unconscious when they were received at the hospital, and it was said they could not recover.
Mr. Hurlbut lives at No. 560 West End avenue and is seventy years old. His daughter, Ilione, is thirty-five years old and is his assistant in his work. Yesterday afternoon they engaged William Agg, of 86th street and Broadway, to take them for a drive in the Fifth avenue section, saying they would afterward have him drop them at No. 106 West 55th street, where they intended to have their Christmas dinner with William Hurlbut, a nephew of Mr. Hurlbut.
Agg started toward Fifth avenue by way of the transverse road. Less than half of the distance to Fifth avenue had been covered when he heard a westbound car approaching. The automobile was at that moment opposite the Park Department workshops. Agg attempted to turn out, but the slippery road and rails caused the rear wheels of the automobile to skid. Both the car and the automobile were travelling at a rapid rate, and the front of the car struck the body of the machine, overturning it. Before the motorman could bring his car to a stop the automobile had been crumpled up like cardboard, and the aged librarian and his daughter lay unconscious among the wreckage. Agg had saved himself by jumping before the car struck the machine.
The car was crowded, and there was intense excitement among the passengers, who were shaken up and struck by flying glass. Policeman Talt heard the noise made by the collision and immediately telephoned for an ambulance. Before it arrived, however, a passing automobile was pressed into service, and the injured man and woman were placed in it and hurried to the Presbyterian Hospital.
Lieutenant Arnett, of the Arsenal station, ordered the arrest of the motorman of the car, James Gannon, of No. 419 Third avenue, and Agg, who lives at No. 160 Manhattan avenue.
Mr. Hurlbut has been the librarian of the American Geological Society, at No. 15 West 81st street, for twenty-five years, and is considered the foremost authority on that class of work in this country. He was born at Charleston, S. C., about seventy years ago, and before he came here was engaged in geological study and writing in San Francisco and was president of the Mercantile Library.
The library of the American Geological Society consists of 40,000 volumes, and is second only in completeness to the geological library at Paris. Mr. Hurlbut is also editor of the monthly bulletin which the society publishes. George Greenough, the secretary of the society, was greatly shocked by the news of the accident to Mr. Hurlbut and his daughter. He said last night that the loss of the librarian’s services, even for a short time, would be an irreparable loss to science and to the society.
Since the death of his wife, eight years ago, Mr. Hurlbut has lived with his daughter, Ilione. They occupied a suite in the building at No. 560 West End avenue, and Miss Hurlbut acted as her father’s assistant.
He has two nephews, William J. Hurlbut, author of the play “The Fighting Hope,” now at the Stuyvesant Theatre, and Stephen A. Hurlbut, professor of Greek at Barnard College. Mr. Hurlbut’s brother is said to have been the owner and editor of “The New York World” before it became the property of Mr. Pulitzer.
CHILD IN RUNAWAY
Boston Advertiser
NEW YORK, Dec. 23—Walter Jackson is a lucky baby. His parents admit that he is something more than that, but take it as things go in this world of chance, he’s lucky.
A horse attached to a delivery wagon was standing in front of 942 Columbus ave. One of the front wheels was tied to a rear wheel. Jacob Katz, the driver, was in the building.
Along came a fat boy with a Christmas tree on his shoulder and longings in his heart. He stopped to look into a shop window and swung the tree around sweeping the face of the horse. The horse ran away.
When he got to the corner of 87th st. the horse took to the sidewalk.
On the sidewalk, along with many other shoppers, were Walter Jackson and his wife. Just ahead of them was Miss Rose Williams, and just ahead of Miss Williams was a baby carriage, and in the baby carriage was another Walter Jackson, three-months-old and lucky.
The first Walter Jackson was knocked down and his face looks now as if the horse stepped on it. Mrs. Jackson was knocked down and the wagon ran over her. Miss Williams was knocked down also.
As the rear wheel of the delivery wagon passed, it caught the baby carriage; the baby stuck, and in another minute was going just as fast as the delivery wagon. Walter Jackson the second, stuck to his carriage and incidentally to the delivery wagon.
Half way down the block the wagon struck a sidewalk showcase and the crash of glass further frightened the horse. He plunged back to the street, going through a line of Christmas trees with the wagon and the baby carriage.
Once through the trees, he smashed into an L pillar and there parted company with delivery wagon and baby carriage.
The wagon parted company with itself, and about all there was left of the baby carriage was that very limited portion of it immediately adjacent to Walter Jackson.
The baby looked much mussed up, but when Dr. Monaco of the Polyclinic Hospital examined him there wasn’t a mark to be found.
BOY KILLED BY CAR
San Francisco Examiner
NEW YORK, December 17.—“Over on Broadway there’s a regular Santy Claus,” said 10-year-old Johnny Nugent to his chum, 7-year-old Eddie Bowler, as school let out on the East Side this afternoon. “I never seen no Santy Claus—only pictures. Did you? Let’s go over?”
They put their books away, Johnny in his home, Eddie in his. Then they trudged, skipping curbs and whistling, across to the region of a department store at Broadway and Thirty-fourth street.
“I was a kid last year,” said Johnny. “Me mother couldn’t let me come here and I dasn’t go without asking.”
They didn’t have any money, of course. Johnny’s mother is a widow and Eddie’s folks have little to spare for the children. But an idea seized Johnny; he would start earning money at once. He went to a newsboy, and the latter, with the freemasonry of the streets, “lent” him two papers to sell. In a moment he was yelling “Extry—All about the murder trial!”
Eddie helped him to yell.
A customer beckoned from across the street. Johnny darted toward him just in front of the Hotel Martinique. A Broadway surface car loomed up suddenly. There was a little cry, then the forward pair of wheels ran over the boy and his body became jammed in the rear wheels.
While a tremendous crowd of shoppers surrounded the car, some men—and Eddie—crawled underneath. The men came out with Johnny’s body. His little chum had his torn cap and the two evening papers.
In the police station, before a group of policemen who wept, Eddie told the whole story while he clung to the battered relics.
“Mr. Lieutenant,” he asked at the end, “do you think Johnny will get alive again?”
“Maybe Santa Claus will take care of him,” said Dr. Gilhooley gravely, and he turned quickly away.
SUBWAY ACCIDENT
New York Times
Seven persons were killed and eighty-five injured shortly before 8 o’clock yesterday morning when a blast of dynamite in the excavation for the new Seventh Avenue subway carried away all the plank thoroughfare between Twenty-third and Twenty-fifth Streets, sweeping down into the great hole a crowded trolley car and a brewery automobile truck.
That the toll of dead and injured was not many times greater was due to the fact that the supports of the subway structure gave way slowly, affording an opportunity for hundreds of persons who were on their way to work to scurry to side streets and to the walks which were at the sides of the excavation. Most of those injured were in the Seventh Avenue trolley car, which was of the closed type and was north-bound. When the tracks sagged the car slid into the hole. It crumpled like pasteboard when it struck the tangle of iron, wood, and rock in the bottom of the excavation. Two of the persons killed were passengers in the car. All the others were laborers in the tunnel caught beneath the wreckage.
Within an hour after the accident happened seven independent investigations to place the blame were under way. These inquiries were started by District Attorney Perkins, the Fire Department, the Public Service Commission, Coroner Feinberg, the contracting company, the State Industrial Commission, and the Street Railway Company.
The investigators said that before the responsibility could be determined positively they would need the testimony of August Midnight. Midnight is the licensed blaster who set the dynamite charge. He was seen after the accident, but disappeared, and up to a late hour last night had not been found. The police sent out a general alarm for his arrest.
According to Policeman Daniel O’Shay of the West Twentieth Street Station, who was standing at Twenty-fourth Street and Seventh Avenue, it was about 7:50 o’clock when he heard the explosion, which was followed by a sudden rising and then a sagging of the temporary roadway in Seventh Avenue. A few seconds later the structure gave way and with a crash settled down into the big hole. The street car was directly in front of O’Shay, and he saw it drop with the crumbling roadway, and heard the cries of the terror-stricken passengers.
O’Shay instantly ran to a fire box and turned in an alarm, after which he notified Police Headquarters by telephone. When he got back to the accident to do his part in the work of rescue, the scene down deep in the excavation was appalling.
All that was left of the car, it appeared, was the roof and the steel trucks. The passengers inside, flung together in a confused mass, were screaming and struggling. On top of the debris, not far from the Twenty-fourth Street side of the wreckage, was the body of a stout, well-dressed woman. Persons on the sidewalk more than thirty feet above her saw that she was injured terribly. She was still alive when taken from the excavation, but died in a few minutes. The body was identified as that of Mrs. Martha V. Newton, 67 years old, of 243 Waverly Place.
Fire ladders were let down into the hole, and firemen and policemen, reckless of danger to themselves, scrambled over the debris to rescue the injured and recover the dead. Mrs. Newton was one of the first of those carried up the ladders to the sidewalk and into the National Cloak and Suit Company, where she died. This company, which operates a model welfare department for the benefit of its 4,100 employes, has an up-to-date hospital connected with its plant, and to this infirmary scores of the injured were taken to have their wounds dressed.
Ambulances from all parts of the city were called, and soon there was a force of thirty surgeons and as many more nurses at work. Several hundred emergency men employed by the contractors were hurried into the excavation to facilitate the rescue. Mayor Mitchel, Chairman McCall of the Public Service Commission, Police Commissioner Woods, District Attorney Perkins, and other city and county officials arrived early and witnessed the removal of some of the injured and the dead.
The rescuers found many wounded people and one dead man in the wreckage of the street car. The dead man was Louis Krugman, a garment worker, of 308 East Eighth Street. Another of those in the car died soon after being removed from the wreckage. The worst injured were taken into the emergency hospital of the Suit Company, while others were treated in the streets by ambulance doctors and sent to their homes.
Two priests from St. Colomba’s Catholic Church, Fathers Rogers and Higgins, descended into the excavation and aided the rescuers. William Dennison, the subway engineer who was taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital and was expected to die, was found with a girder across his chest, but was conscious, and Father Higgins anointed him before he was carried away. When a stimulant was offered to Dennison to alleviate his suffering, he refused, saying he did not drink.
The stifling odor of gas from broken mains hampered the rescuers. The Department of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity had employes at the cavity in eight minutes after the accident. They found that one twenty-four-inch high pressure fire main and several six-inch water mains had been broken, and that the water was rising in the excavation. Within half an hour they had all the high pressure mains closed, and thirty minutes later arrangements had been made through adjoining mains so that the high pressure system was ready for use. The smaller mains were shut off by the subway contractors, and temporary services were installed to meet the needs of the residents of the block.
Through the fortunate presence at Seventh Avenue and Twenty-third Street of a patrolman for the Consolidated Gas Company, the gas was shut off soon. Two mains had been broken; but on account of the experience in the construction of the Boston subway, when men were asphyxiated by escaping gas in a similar accident, the gas mains are laid along the curb in all the present construction in New York; so that while a considerable amount of gas escaped on the street it did no damage.
Fire Chief Kenlon directed much of the rescue work, and fifty additional firemen without apparatus were called out as soon as the nature of the emergency was known. Forty-four alarm boxes were put out of commission by the breaking of wires when the street went down, but service was restored with overhead wires an hour later.
Immediately after the arrival of Acting Chief Inspector Dillon, who directed the police reserves, called from all parts of Manhattan and the Bronx, tenants were ordered to quit the houses in Seventh Avenue from Twenty-third to Twenty-fifth Streets until the authorities decided whether it was safe for them to return. At 7 o’clock at night they were permitted to return to their homes.
Acting Police Inspector Joseph Conroy, in conjunction with officials of the construction company, sent policemen at night throughout the five boroughs to the homes of 200 employes on the company’s payroll. All of the men were accounted for except two—J. X. Zavina of 300 Avenue A and John McCormick of 317 Bowery. McCormick had been reported dead earlier in the day. At the address given for Zavina it was said that no man of that name lived there.
The Seventh Avenue car service was suspended south of Thirty-second Street, and it will be at least a week, it is said, before service is resumed below that point.
The thousands of spectators who crowded as near the great cavity as they could during the morning and gave the police reserves a hard task at the danger zone ropes, became alarmed when it was reported that dynamite was still beneath the fallen structure and that more explosions might follow. Twelve sticks of unexploded dynamite were carried up at one time, and the firemen took charge of it.
The engineers later said that there was no more dynamite in the cavity, and that the twelve sticks had been carried down early in the morning by a powder man who was to explode them in small blasts after the big explosion at 8 o’clock. The rules were strict regarding the handling of dynamite, the company officials said, and they were sure that there was no further danger to the lives of the rescuers after the twelve sticks had been taken out.
Colonel William Hayward of the Public Service Commission stood at the edge of the great hole and pointed to the crumpled wooden car.
“Look at that car,” he said. “That’s what we ought to investigate, for before you is a picture of what is going to happen when one of the old wooden cars on the elevated takes a jump to the street. I fought against those old cars going on the elevated, but I was voted down. I will always fight them or any other sort of wooden cars for New York traffic.
“If that car down there had been a steel car I do not believe a person would have been hurt. At least the passengers would not have been crushed.”
The contract for the subway work affected by the accident was awarded originally to Canavan Brothers, but was taken over by the United States Realty and Improvement Company on Dec. 31, 1913. The price was fixed at $2,401,306.75. The job was 75 per cent. completed yesterday morning. The part is designated officially as Section 5, Route 4 and 38 and extends from midway between Sixteenth and Seventeenth Streets to midway between Thirtieth and Thirty-first Streets.
The company also has a contract for the section from Commerce to Sixteenth Street, and for Section 2 of the Broadway subway from Twenty-sixth to Twenty-eighth Street. The total amount of all subway contracts held by the company is $6,996,037.75, of which 40 per cent. has been paid. The contractors are under a $75,000 bond for the completion of the construction and 15 per cent. of the payment will be withheld until the work is accepted.
The contractors are liable under the provisions of the workmen’s compensation law for death and injury of employes. The company is insured, according to officials, against losses by other accidents.
The United States Realty and Improvement Company has enormous assets. Its capital is $30,000,000. Among the realty properties listed in its name are the Flatiron Building, Broadway and Fifth Avenue; 17 Battery Place, 85 and 87 Beaver Street, 96 and 98 Mercer Street, 67 and 69 Wall Street, 91 and 93 Wall Street, 123–27 West Twentieth Street, 124–28 West Twentieth Street, 112 West Twenty-first Street, 118 West Twenty-first Street, 122–26 West Twenty-first Street, 41–45 East Twenty-second Street, 128–32 West Thirtieth Street, 202–08 West Thirty-seventh Street, 111–19 Broadway, 304–12 Fourth Avenue, 400 Fifth Avenue, 494–98 Seventh Avenue.
Following are the officials of the company which faces enormous damage suits for the accident: President, Wilson S. Kinnear; Secretary, Richard G. Babbage; Treasurer, Byron M. Fellows; Directors—Harry S. Black, Chairman; R. G. Babbage, Frank A. Vanderlip, John F. Harris, William A. Poillon, John D. Crimmins, P. A. Valentine, Harry Bronner, William A. Merriman, W. S. Kinnear, C. E. Hermann, F. W. Upham, Franklin Murphy, and B. M. Fellows. The main offices are at 111 Broadway.
The Superintendent is E. A. Little. C. H. Stengle is chief engineer. S. S. Jones is in charge of the construction work which collapsed. The supervising engineer is B. C. Collier, and the engineer immediately in charge of the division which caved in is H. R. Jacobson.
Supervising the work for the Public Service Commission are Alfred Craven, chief engineer for the commission; Robert Ridgeway, supervising engineer in charge of subway construction; Andrew Veitch, in charge of the section, and Stephen Koronski, immediately in charge of the division that caved in.
RUN DOWN BY TRAIN
Boston Traveler
In a race with an express train over Lyman’s bridge on the Southern division of the Boston & Maine railroad at Waltham, Gerald Ross, 15-year-old son of Herbert Ross of 95 Carroll street, Waltham, was overtaken and instantly killed yesterday. A companion, Kenneth Harrison, 11 years old, of 145 Fourth street, was struck by a cylinder of the engine and suffered a broken arm. His brother, Norman Harrison, 14 years old, escaped uninjured.
The boys stood in the middle of the single track on Lyman’s bridge, a long trestle over which trains cross a small stream. They were watching a group of their friends sporting in Lyman’s pond, and did not notice the approach of the 4 o’clock express from Boston.
The locomotive’s warning whistle startled them as the train rounded a bend 100 yards away. The bridge was too narrow for the boys to remain on it safely while the train passed. To cling to the girders and hang suspended over the rocky bed of the stream 25 feet below while the express shook the trestle was hazardous. As the locomotive bore down upon them the three boys started to race toward the end of the bridge.
The engineer shut off steam, but the locomotive continued to gain on the fleeing trio, the whistle shrieking the warning to the boys to jump from the trestle.
Norman Harrison realized his danger and leaped to the ground, 12 feet below. Kenneth turned to the side of the track and was about to jump when the engine hit his arm and threw him from the trestle. Gerald Ross raced on between the rails, hoping to reach the end of the bridge. The engine struck him and he died instantly.
Ross would have entered the Waltham high school as a freshman this morning.
A police ambulance carried Kenneth Harrison to the Waltham Hospital. Norman Harrison escaped with bruises.
TRAIN DERAILED
Milwaukee Journal
Two hundred people narrowly escaped death or serious injury early Monday when the engine on passenger train No. 13, on the Fond du Lac division of the Chicago and Northwestern road, due in Milwaukee at 12:10 a. m., going over forty miles an hour, jumped the track two miles north of Lake Shore Junction.
The tire on one of the rear drive-wheels came off, throwing the locomotive from the track. It tore along for over 150 yards, across a trestle, and just as the nose of the engine turned down the fifteen-foot embankment, Engineer Frank Purcell brought the train to a stop.
The train was over a half hour late and was pounding hard to make up time. But few of the people knew of their danger, the rattle of stone and gravel against the cars being the only sign that something was wrong.
Some of the passengers dared the biting cold and walked to the end of the car line, four miles away, but most of them remained to be brought into the city at 4 a. m. by a relief train.
The train blocked traffic on the Fond du Lac division until a late hour Monday. Several trains were held up, both north and south bound. The wrecker, which did not get out until 4 a. m., took over two hours to get the engine on the rails and bring the train into town.
Hurrying to Milwaukee to the bedside of Mrs. Grant Gilson, 3307 Western-av, were her husband and her mother, Mrs. W. Gilson. When the train was wrecked, the two were made nearly frantic by the information that it would be two hours or more before a relief train would arrive. With a few others, they tramped, unmindful of the stinging cold, to Lake Shore Junction, thinking they could make street car connections there. By good luck they caught a southbound freight on the Lake Shore division.
FATAL RAILROAD WRECK
Milwaukee Sentinel
JERSEY CITY, N. J., Nov. 6.—Four were killed and over 200 were injured in the wreck of a Philadelphia local on the Pennsylvania railway, which ran through an open switch at Brunswick street junction, crashed into a dead yard engine and piled up four cars in a heap of tangled wreckage on Saturday.
Every ambulance, police patrol and fire wagon available has been utilized to remove the injured, many of whom are seriously hurt. The wreck took place on the elevated structure upon which the Pennsylvania enters Jersey City, and the fire department was needed to get the injured to the street level that they might be hurried to the hospitals.
The following are the dead:
JOHN MONROE, Perth Amboy, engineer.
JOHN M’CLURE, Newark, N. J., fireman.
JOHN SPILLE, Trenton, N. J., engineer.
STENCIO DIOGOSIE, Jersey City, track walker.
The list of injured, made at the various hospitals, follows:
Max Donelson, 42 years old, New York, bruised about body; unidentified man, suffering from shock, probable internal injury; F. H. Clark, Metuchen, N. J., cut about face and head; George E. Siddell, 30 years old, Elizabeth, N. J.; Miss A. P. Rook, 24 years old, Elizabeth; A. C. Allison, 29 years old, New York; George L. Tench, 35 years old, Newark; W. E. Wing, 27 years old, Allendale, N. J.
Fireman Daniel Meade, Newark, of the light engine, jumped as the trains came together and was unhurt. The police, on investigation, found a broken rail on track No. 3 at the scene of the accident, and agreed that this was the cause of the wreck.
Towerman Williamson, who had been arrested, charged with throwing the switch and bringing the train and engine together, was at once discharged.
The train left Philadelphia at 7:58 Saturday morning and was filled with commuters going to their work.
Engineer Monroe of the passenger train was running at a good rate of speed to make up time, and neither he nor his fireman had a chance to jump and save themselves.
The engine of the passenger train toppled over, part of it lying across the trestle work, in imminent danger of crashing to the street.
A passing policeman, hearing the crash, turned in the alarm, and the reserves and all ambulances possible were soon at hand, extricating the injured, which was a difficult task. Most of them were pinned down by the wreckage.
In the mail car, which was directly behind the engine, was more than $1,000,000 in specie, which was being transferred to New York by the Adams Express company. A special guard was hurriedly placed around this car.
When the wreck occurred, the Jersey City station was crowded with men and women about to leave for Princeton for the Princeton-Dartmouth football game. This crowd was thrown into great confusion until the officials informed them that they might proceed to their destination via the Jersey Central railroad, the Pennsylvania tracks being blocked.
At the hospitals it was reported that none of those taken there were seriously hurt, and that all would recover. The bodies of the dead have been taken to Hughes’ morgue. The officials of the road are investigating the cause of the wreck.
That a hundred were not killed was due to the equipment of the cars. They were of steel, with steel beams and concrete flooring into which the seat frames were set. When the cars toppled over, there was no splintering of wood, and when the windows were shattered, the glass flew outward. Nearly all of the injured, as soon as their hurts were attended to, left the hospitals and resumed their journey without giving their names.
FATAL RAILROAD COLLISION
Milwaukee News
New York, Dec. 31.—Spencer Trask, one of the leading financiers of the United States, was killed today by a freight train running into the rear of the New York Central passenger train on which he occupied the drawing room section at the rear end of the last car.
The accident occurred near Croton, N. Y. One other passenger was seriously injured, and the negro porter of the sleeping car was also badly hurt.
Mr. Trask, who was coming into the city from his home at Saratoga, was dressing in his compartment when the freight train plowed into the heavy passenger train, which is known as the Montreal Express. When his torn body was removed from the wreckage, it was found that he had only partly dressed himself.
The express had been stopped by a block signal, and why the freight behind it was not stopped has not been explained. The freight struck with such force as to demolish the rear end of the last sleeper, telescoping the front end with the sleeper ahead.
Many of the occupants of the five sleepers had not fully dressed, and they were precipitated, half clad, into snow banks, with the temperature far below the freezing point.
Wrecking and relief trains were dispatched from the Harlem yards of the New York Central, and officials of the company hurried to the scene. Mr. Trask’s body was removed to the Croton morgue, and the injured passenger and porter were cared for by the local doctors. The passenger was unable to tell his name.
Those injured were for the most part in the smoking compartment at the extreme rear of the sleeper, where a group of passengers were gathered as the train proceeded down the river. Mr. Trask was on his way to this city from his home in Saratoga. Engineer Flanagan of the freight train stuck by his locomotive, but escaped serious injury.
Failure of a brakeman to walk far enough to the rear of the stalled Montreal train to flag the freight in time, is said to have caused the smashup.
The news of the banker’s death had no effect on the stock exchange, where prices were slightly above the close last night.
Spencer Trask, who was born here in 1844, entered the banking business immediately on his graduation from Princeton. His financial acumen was quickly recognized, and he soon became a power in the banking world.
Mr. Trask was among the first to recognize the genius of Thomas A. Edison, and identified himself with the Edison electric enterprises. The banker was a director in many railroads and realty companies and was deeply interested in educational and philanthropic societies. Several years ago he bought and reorganized The New York Times. He was president of the National Arts club and a member of numerous other prominent New York clubs. Mr. Trask was married in 1874 to Miss Katrina Nichols.
Note—The following two stories should be compared as reports of the same accident given in two New York morning papers.
DIVERS DIE IN SHIP’S HOLD
(1)
New York Tribune
Death followed triumphant achievement with terrible swiftness for three men yesterday, when they were smothered in the hold of the steamship H. M. Whitney, of the Metropolitan outside line to Boston, which they had helped to raise only a few hours before after a month of hard work in the raging currents of Hell Gate.
One, a diver, went down into the hold to see if a patch he had put on the wrecked bottom from the outside was holding well. He died, it is supposed, as the poisonous gases rose about him, and two more, going after him to see why he did not return, met the same fate.
It was not until three men lay dead in the fetid hold, suffocated by the gases that the cargo of hides, beer and perhaps half a hundred other things gave off, that a glimmering of reason seemed to come to those in charge of the work. Then the needless sacrifice of more lives was prevented. Some one took charge, and men equipped with divers’ helmets rescued two more men who had gone down for their comrades, and brought up the bodies of the dead.
Augustus Bjorklund was the diver who brought about the fatal ending of the day’s work. No one knows just why he went down into the hold, warned as he had been to beware of the poisonous gases that always accumulate when a vessel has lain long in the water, but the officials of the Merritt-Chapman Wrecking Company suppose that he wanted to see his work from inside.
Reports of what happened next on the Whitney were vague. While the men were going down and dying, no one seemed to know anything. There was no panic; there was no excitement. Michael Menus, one of the wrecking crew, apparently followed Bjorklund to see if anything was wrong, and died as he reached the bottom of the hold, falling unconscious from the ladder he descended. Then Herman Fabricius went down, and he, too, died almost at once.
John Hanson was the next man to go down, with a rope and some caution this time, for it was beginning to be realized that something was amiss. Hanson came back alive, but unconscious. Captain Kivlin having realized that a disaster had come upon the ship, divers went down and saved Hanson’s life, bringing up the bodies of the three dead men besides.
That account of the tragedy is as much as could be gleaned with any certainty yesterday. It was hard enough to get aboard the Whitney at all, and no one there seemed to know much. The coroner’s office made a brief investigation yesterday afternoon, and the bodies were removed to an undertaking establishment in West 24th street. The police found out little more than the casual spectators who thronged the pier.
The H. M. Whitney went aground in Hell Gate on Middle Four Reef just a month ago yesterday, and in the early morning she was floated after long and hard efforts. It had been a hard job, and those who had accomplished it were more than happy. The ship had been brought down to East 102d street, and about all the work that was being done was to keep the pumps working. The lighters with the huge derricks lay alongside, and when the tragedy occurred many of the men in charge of the work were at luncheon.
None of the men who died had orders to go down into the hold. This was dwelt on with much emphasis by the officials of the wrecking company. Captain Kivlin, who was in charge of the work, was arrested and taken to the Harlem court, where Magistrate Herrman refused to do more than remand him to the coroner. Apparently no one in charge of the work could have foreseen the accident and no one could be held responsible.
Both Bjorklund and Fabricius lived at Stapleton, Staten Island, and Menus lived at 1 Atlantic avenue, Brooklyn. Supt. Kivlin said that Bjorklund was one of the most experienced divers in the company’s employ and he couldn’t understand how the man happened to venture into the gas-ridden hold without testing it for the poisonous vapors. “With such a mixed cargo as the Whitney is carrying submerged for thirty-one days, it was certain to be almost fatal for any one to go into the hold until it had been thoroughly ventilated,” he said. “He should have taken the precaution to drop down a lantern before he went down himself.”
Capt. Hone of the Henry M. Whitney said yesterday that the damage to the steamer can be repaired very quickly when she gets into drydock. As a result of his steamer’s misfortune the Government has decided to put a bell buoy on the reef.
The pilots of the Sound steamers breathed easier yesterday afternoon when they approached Hell Gate and found the steamer out of the channel. The larger vessels, especially the Fall River Line steamers, have had a tight squeeze sometimes, and in foggy weather it was exceedingly dangerous to attempt the passage.
(2)
New York Sun
Nobody was hurt when the steamboat H. M. Whitney went on Nigger Point reef, Hell Gate, in a fog a month ago, but three men were killed on her yesterday an hour after she had been raised. She had been pumped out by the Merritt-Chapman Wrecking Company and floated over to the foot of East 102 street. Three of the wrecking crew went down the forward hatchway into the hold, were overcome by carbonic acid fumes and were taken out dead.
One was August Bjorklund, a veteran diver, who had patched up one of the big holes in the side of the steamer. He took with him Herman Fabricius, a blacksmith, and Michael Menus, a laborer. Supt. Thomas Kivlin, in charge of the wreckers, and Capt. George Hone of the Henry M. Whitney had warned all the wreckers and members of the crew that it would be unsafe to venture into the hold until the air had been purified.
The Whitney’s cargo consisted mainly of green hides, miscellaneous freight made up largely of rubber, resin and molasses, and a quantity of coal. Some 500 tons had been taken out and yesterday 1,800 tons remained. The divers had patched the hole in the boat’s bottom, and yesterday morning, having pumped her out, the wreckers got two immense chains under the bow and stern of the Whitney, and she was lifted almost out of the water by four powerful floating derricks. Shortly before noon the derricks headed for the Manhattan shore and an hour later the freighter was lying at the foot of 102d street.
The derricks had scarcely been tied up there when Bjorklund and his two assistants went down the second forward hatchway. No one saw them go, but a few minutes later one of the wreckers, happening to pass the hatchway, looked down into the hold and saw the three men stretched out on the bottom. Supt. Kivlin was notified, and he called the members of his force and the crew of the steamer around him.
“The man who goes down after those men takes his life in his hand, but there ought to be somebody here brave enough to do it,” said Kivlin. “If we can get them out of that rotten gas promptly we may save them.”
There wasn’t any response for a moment, but suddenly Diver Jack Hanson worked his way through the little group around the hatchway with a diver’s helmet over his head. Hanson didn’t speak until he had taken half a dozen steps down the ladder, when he said:
“I guess I’m about the best friend Gus Bjorklund had, and if the boys will keep me supplied with air I’ll get those poor fellows out as quickly as any one could.”
He tied a rope around Bjorklund’s shoulders, and while Bjorklund was being pulled up on deck two more ropes were thrown to Hanson. He secured the ropes around Menus and Fabricius, and in ten minutes all three men were on deck and were receiving first aid treatment. Ambulances were sent for, but it was nearly half an hour before Dr. Moeckel of the Harlem Hospital arrived. The three men were dead then. Supt. Kivlin was arrested and taken before Coroner Acritelli, who released him to appear at the inquest.