1864 — July 15, Head-on Erie RR prisoner train/PA Coal Co. Train crash ~Shohola PA->74
—>74 Blanchard tally of initial deaths[1] derived from Mott 1899, p. 442:
—>50 Confederate prisoner deaths (>100 additional wounded, some of whom died.)
— 20 Union Guards.
— 1 Engineer William Ingram, on prisoner train.
— 1 Fireman Daniel Tuttle on prisoner train.
— 1 Brakemen G. M. Boyden, on coal train.
— 1 Fireman Philo Prentiss, on coal train.
— 74 Explorepahistory.com. “Civil War Prison Train Wreck Historical Marker.” 2011.
—<51 Confederate prisoners.
— 19 Union guards.
— 4 “…both engineers and firemen”…from the two trains.
—>72 Shohola.com. “The Great Shohola Train Wreck.”[2]
—>51 Confederate prisoners. (p. 2.) [Shows plaque with names of 49 prisoners.][3]
— 17 Union guards. (p. 2) [Names 16 victims from 11th Veteran Reserve Corps.]
— 2 Engineer Ingram, and Fireman Tuttle on prisoner train. (p. 2.)
— 2 Brakeman Boyden and Fireman Prentiss. (p. 2)
— 70 Mott 1899, p. 442. (Official report of those buried in trench between railroad and river.)[4]
–51 Confederate prisoners
–19 Union Guards (Mott notes that some of the 123 wounded died later from injuries.)
— 70 NY Tribune. “A Fearful Railroad Collision.” Janesville Daily Gazette, WI. 7-22-1864, p.4.
–50 Confederate prisoners. [Notes, in addition, 75-80 injured persons.]
–16 Union Guards.
— 2 Engineer and Fireman from prisoner train.
— 1 Fireman from engine 237 (coal train).
— 1 Flagman.
— 66 Haine. Railroad Wrecks. 1993, p. 31
— 66 New York Times. “A Fearful Railroad Collision,” July 19, 1864
— 65 Adams and Seibold. Great Train Wrecks of Eastern Pennsylvania. 1992, p. 28.
–51 Confederate prisoners.
–10 Union guards.
— 4 Crew members from both trains.
— 64 Binghamton Daily Democrat (NY). “Terrible Collision on the Erie Railway,” 7-19-1864
–~60 National Railway Historical Society. Railroad Historical Almanac. 9-2-2006, p. 5.
— 60 Railroad Stories. “July in Railroad History,” July 1935, p. 29.
— 60 Willsey & Lewis. “Memorable Railroad Accidents,” Harper’s Book of Facts. 1895, 674.
Narrative Information
Adams and Seibold: “The Civil War reared its ugly head on the rails near Shohola, Pike County, in the summer of 1864. In what is regarded as the worst train wreck of the war years, 65 men lost their lives in a head-on collision between two trains which met on a sharp curve early in the morning of July 15. Most of the victims were Confederate prisoners who were being transferred from a ship which had brought them from the battlefields to Jersey City, N.J. They were being transported to a prison camp in Elmira, N.Y…..
“At Lackawaxen, Pa., a telegraph operator assured a downbound, 50 car coal train that it could proceed safely toward Port Jervis, N.Y. The coal train was switched from a branch onto the main line, unaware that the delay in Jersey City had skewed the schedule of the army train. Both trains rolled along the single track, assured that even with the primitive signaling and communications, they were in the clear….
“When the dust settled, the debris was sifted and the dead were counted, 51 prisoners, 10 Union guards and four crew members became war casualties, far from the fields of battle.” (Adams and Seibold. Great Train Wrecks of Eastern Pennsylvania. 1992, pp. 28-29).
Mott: “At King & Fuller’s Cut. – Frank Evans of New York, a survivor of this terrible catastrophe, recalls for the author these recollections of it:
It was about the middle of July, 1n 1864… I was in the Union Army, and was one of a guard of 125 soldiers who were detailed to take a lot of Confederate prisoners from Point Lookout, Va., to the prison camp at Elmira, N.Y., which had just been made ready to receive them. There were 10,000 prisoners in all to be transferred, and this lot was the first installment to be moved. There were about 800 of them. We came on the Pennsylvania Railroad to Jersey City, and the prisoners were transferred to the Erie train by boat. The train was made up of emigrant cars, box cars, and all sorts of ads and ends of cars, and was a long one. Two guards were stationed on the platform at each end of each car. We got started from Jersey City about 5 o’clock in the morning. I was one of guards stationed well back on the train… We passed through the little village of Shohola early in the afternoon, going something like twenty-five miles an hour. We and run a mile or so beyond Shohola, when the train came to a stop with a suddenness that hurled me to the ground…. It was followed by a second or two of awful silence, and then the air was filled by most appalling shrieks and wails and cries of anguish….
“I hurried forward. On a curve in a deep cut we had met a heavily-laden coal train, traveling nearly as fast as we were. The trains had come together with that deadly crash. The two locomotives were raised high in air, face to face against each other, like giants grappling. The tender of our locomotive stood erect on one end. The engineer and fireman, poor fellows, were buried beneath the wood it carried. Perched on the reared-up end of the tender, high above the wreck, was one of our guards, sitting with his gun clutched in his hands, dead!. The front car of our train was jammed into a space of less than six feet. The two cars behind it were almost as badly wrecked. Several cars in the rear of those were also heaped together.
“In a very short time a score of people arrived from the village, and the work of removing the dead and rescuing the wounded began. There were bodies impaled on iron rods and splintered beams. Headless trunks were mangled between telescoped cars. From the wreck of the head car thirty-seven of the thirty-eight prisoners it contained were taken out dead….Three of the four guards on the car were also taken out dead…. From the wrecked cars thirty-three of the guards were taken, twenty of whom were dead. Fifty or more of the prisoners were killed, and at least 100 or more wounded, a number of the wounded dying soon after they were removed from the wreck. The fireman of the coal train was instantly killed. His engineer escaped by jumping. The engineer of our train was caught in the awful wreck of his engine, where he was held in plain sight, with his back against the boiler, and slowly roasted to death. With his last breath he warned away all who went near to try and aid him, declaring that there was danger of the boiler exploding and killing them. Taken all in all, that wreck was a scene of horror such as few, even in the thick of battle, are ever doomed to be a witness of. And, as we heard during the day, it was all caused by a wrong order given to the engineer of the coal train by a drunken dispatcher somewhere up the road….
“A coroner held an inquest, and the dead were all buried in one great trench dug by order of the railroad officials, between the railroad and the river, which was a few hundred yards distant. The bodies were put into pine boxes, each dead Union soldier having a box to himself. The dead prisoners were buried four in a box.
“That frightful accident occurred about 2 P.M., Friday, July 15, 1864. The cause of the accident was a drunken telegraph operator at Lackawaxen, Pa., four miles west of the scene of the disaster. His name was Duff Kent. He had been carousing the night before, and was under the influence of liquor at his post when Conductor John Martin, of a coal train that had come in off the Hawley Branch of the Erie, eastbound, asked him if the road was clear for him to go ahead. Kent said it was, although the train that carried a glad ahead of the extra having the prisoners aboard had left the station on its way west but a short time before, and Kent had been informed that the train bearing the prisoners was on the road.
“This train should have left Jersey City at 4.30 A.M., Friday, July 15th, but was delayed an hour or more by the captain of the Union guard returning to the vessel on which the prisoners had been brought from City Point, to look for three of the prisoners who had escaped. When Conductor Martin got the word from Kent, his train started east. It consisted of fifty loaded cars. At King & Fuller’s cut (so-called from the contractors who made it), a mile west of Shohola, the train was going at the rate of twelve miles an hour, and in that cut met the extra train, with its load of 833 Confederate prisoners and 150 Union guards, traveling twenty miles an hour. The cut is a long one, on a curve. Neither engineer could see the track fifty feet ahead of him. Neither knew of the other’s presence there until they came face to face. The engineer of the coal train, Samuel Hoitt, had time to jump from his locomotive. He escaped with but slight injury. His fireman, Philo Prentiss, was crushed to death. The engineer of the passenger train was William Ingram, whose cool bravery in the face of a horrible death is described by Mr. Evans. His fireman was Daniel Tuttle. Both were buried in the debris of the locomotive, the fireman being instantly killed. G. M. Boyden, a brakeman on the coal train, was also killed.
An inquest was held at Shohola, by Justice Thomas J. Ridgway and a jury. It exonerated every one from any blame, although the criminal carelessness that had caused the slaughter was well known. Kent was not molested; but on the very night following the accident, and while scores of his victims lay dead, and scores more were writhing in agony, he attended a ball at Hawley and danced until daylight. Next day, however, he disappeared, the voice of popular indignation becoming ominous, and he never was seen or heard of in that locality again….
“The official report of the killed that were buried places the number at fifty-one Confederates and nineteen Union soldiers. The wounded, some of whom died later, numbered 123. This, at that time, was the most horrible and disastrous railroad accident on record….” (Mott, Edward Harold. Between the Ocean and the Lakes: The Story of the Erie. 1899, pp. 441-443.)
National Railway Historical Society: “July 15, 1864 An Erie train carrying Confederate prisoners-of-war collides head-on with a coal train near Shohola, New York, killing approximately 60, including 17 Union army guards.” (National Railway Historical Society. Railroad Historical Almanac. 9-2-2006, p. 5.)
Railroad Stories, July 15, 1864. “Wreck on Erie Ry. Near Port Jervis, N.Y.; about 850 captured Confederate soldiers in train of 18 cars on their way under guard to prison camp at Elmira, N.Y. Due to telegraph operator’s mistake, it rounds curve and runs head-on into train of 50 loaded coal cars; 60 men killed, over 100 injured.” (Railroad Stories. “July in Railroad History,” July 1935, p. 29)
Newspapers
July 15, NYT: “Lackawaxen, Penn., Friday July 15. A train with about eight hundred and fifty rebel prisoners, on their way to the camp at Elmira, collided with the Pennsylvania Coal Company’s train between here and Shohola, this afternoon, killing and wounding a large number…The coal train was on its way from the Hawley Branch to Port Jervis…” (New York Times. “Terrible Railroad Accident,” July 16, 1864.)
July 17, NYT: “Port Jervis, NY, Saturday, July 17, 1864. The collision reported…yesterday, took place on the main line of the Erie Railway, one and a half miles west of Shohola, and about twenty miles west of this place. The train of rebel prisoners…passed here about 12 o’clock M. of the 15th…. An intervening hill shut out the approaching trains from each other, so that it was impossible to discover one another, until with a hundred yards…
“The shock of collision was fearful. Two…engines were almost entirely demolished…The tender of the ‘171’ was heaved upon end, hurling its load of wood into the cab, effectually walling in both engineer and fireman against the hot boiler, and crushing them terribly. Both were found standing at their post, dead…. The first two or three cars were freight cars [holding prisoners], and their frail frames were crushed like rushes. Only one man was saved from the forward car… scarcely a car escaped without being crushed….
“This morning all were buried on the spot, and the graves marked for future recognition….
“The best account I can get, and which is wholly trustworthy, may be summed up as follows: The coal train eastward bound from Hawley takes the main track from the branch at Lackawaxen. The conductor went to the telegraph office at Lackawaxen, as usual, and inquired if the way was clear to Shohola (distance about four miles.) The operator replied that it was clear, and the coal train proceeded at its usual rate to meet the mail train at 8, at its usual passing place. The train which had carried the flag for the train of prisoners had passed Lackawaxen some hours before, and the operator was aware of the fact, and had not long before given a train notice of the same, so I was told. Thus the coal train, consisting of fifty loaded coal cars, was proceeding at the rate of twelve miles per hour, thinking it all right, and the other train hurrying on its way in fancied security, dashed into the former at twenty miles per hour, and the loss of life and property was the consequence….
“At the hour of leaving the wreck, (1 am) 16 Union soldiers and nearly 50 rebels were dead, nearly all taken from the wreck with life extinct. The wounded cannot, I think, fall far short of seventy-five to eighty men.
“All the blame seems to be traced to the telegraph operator. It is said he was intoxicated the night before the accident, and it was nothing unusual for him to be in that condition when assuming his post of duty. It is said that he has disappeared….” (New York Times. “A Fearful Railroad Collision,” July 19, 1864)
July 19, Binghamton Daily Democrat, NY: “Sadly familiar as the last three years have rendered the country and the public with tales of blood, scenes of slaughter, and the accumulated horrors of the battle-field, we are not yet so used to them as to feel unmoved when, on a smaller scale, some fearful railroad catastrophe brings them to us, face to face, amid the quiet of civil life. One of these terrible catastrophes, the most terrible that has happened in this country for some years, took place on Friday morning last, when the grave was again opened to receive a hecatomb of human life, offered at the shrine of managerial inefficiency and subordinate recklessness. It appears that on the 13th inst., a batch of 833 Rebel prisoners left Point Lookout (MD) under the charge of 135 Union soldiers. They safely arrived at New York on the 14th, and left Jersey City at 5 a.m. on the morning of the 15th, en route for Elmira, N.Y., whither they had been ordered to proceed. All went well, and the convoy reached Port Jervis in the best of spirits. At Port Jervis the double track of the Erie Railroad ends, and for the next 24 or 25 miles the road is but a single track to Lackawaxen Junction, with occasional lengths of double track where the nature of the road permits.
“Throughout the whole of this distance, and for some miles further on, the railroad runs up the valley of the Delaware, and is full of sharp curves and awkward turns, along which it is often impossible for the engine driver to see more than fifty or sixty yards in advance. It was along this piece of the road, about two miles from Shohola, and when turning a point of one of the abutting hills, that a train of eighteen emigrant cars, with its freight of nine hundred and fifty-eight souls, running at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour, met a coal train of fifty cars, with each a load of twelve tons, that came thundering down the incline from Lackawaxen. When the trains came in sight of each other, they could not have been much more than one hundred yards apart, the drivers not having time even to reverse their engines and jump off, before death was upon them; the driver of the passenger train, named Wm. Ingram, and his fireman, named Tuttle, being both taken off the engine dead, as was the fireman of the coal engine, named Philo. Prentiss.
“The shock was tremendous, and the results awful, though fortunately neither of the engines left the line. The tender of the passenger engine was turned up on end, the wood for fuel being thrown in front, and burying the driver and fireman before named. The first car of course was utterly destroyed, being jammed as a spectator described it to us, into a space less than six feet, while to complete its demolition, the tender that had been tipped on end fell back on its roof. It contained 37 men, some of whom were on the platform at the time of the collision, and from its wreck 36 were taken out dead, only one man escaping with his life by falling between the platforms to the earth. Three of the cars in all were totally destroyed, and seven or eight of them so much broken as to be entirely useless, and it was in these cars that the greatest loss occurred; for when the collision took place, two Union soldiers were placed as sentinels at each door on the platforms of each car which were also occupied by some of the Rebels, beguiling the way by conversation with the sentry. Of the men thus standing, all were immediately killed, save one or two.
“As soon as possible, the survivors set to work under the guidance of the Captain in charge of the body to extricate the dying and wounded from their fearful position, and, in the meantime, word was sent to Shohola apprizing the authorities there of the state of things, who immediately telegraphed for assistance to Port Jervis, whence, in a short time, Hugh Riddle, esq., District Superintendent, arrived on the scene of disaster in a relief train, with three surgeons to attend to the injured. The scene is described by those who escaped as most appalling, the road blocked up with the debris, car piled upon car in the most indescribable confusion, the bodies of those thrown from them covering the road at every step, the flying dust and blinding smoke from the quenching fires, the noise of the escaping steam, and, above all, the fearful groan and heart rending cries of the injured and expiring will never be forgotten. Some of the corpses were shockingly mutilated, heads completely crushed, bodies transfixed, impaled on timbers or iron rods, or smashed between the colliding beams, while one man was discovered dead, sitting on the top of the upturned tender, in grotesque and ghastly mockery of the scene around him.
“When the cries of the last wounded had directed the searchers to his place of imprisonment, and the last corpse removed from its temporary tomb, it was found that the victims number 16 union men and 44 Rebels, dead; while the wounded numbered about 120, some of the wounded mortally – indeed four have since died, and a number of others cannot be expected to recover.
“T.J. Ridgway, esq., Associate Judge of Pike County (PA), was soon on the spot, and, after a consultation with Mr. Riddle and the officer in command of the men, a jury was impaneled and an inquest held; after which a large trench was dug by the soldiers and the railway employees, 75 feet long, 8 feet wide and 6 feet deep, in which the bodies were at once interred in boxes, hastily constructed – one being allotted for four Rebels and one to each Union soldier. The wounded were conveyed as soon as possible to Shohola, where they met with every attention and aid that surgical skill could suggest, and the limited accommodation permit, from Drs. Appley, Hardenburg, Cooper, Deborn, Lawrence and Walsh assisted by a number of volunteers from the inhabitants of the neighborhood.
The ladies of the vicinity also were unwearied in rendering those kind offices which womanly tenderness alone knows how to bestow, besides bringing soups, jellies, and other delicacies so grateful to the parched and fevered patient. The names of these good Samaritans, so far as we could ascertain, though if we do injustice, by omitting any that should be mentioned, we sincerely regret it – are Mesdames Loftus, Deborn, Halbut, Kelsall, Johnson, Bross, Harwood, Garderner, Spring, and Misses Skinner, Bross and Hamilton.
“The line was cleared on Friday night, and on Saturday morning early the officer in command proceeded with the rest of the men to Elmira, taking with him most of the wounded, seven or eight of the cases requiring amputation, which could not be performed at Shohola, and the others more or less injured leaving only twenty two of the worst cases at Shohola, of which, as before stated, four died on Saturday and were buried with the rest in the trench in the woods between the road and the river.
“The conductor of the coal train, John Martin, states that it started as usual from the depot on the Hawley branch, and that, coming on the main line at Lackawaxen, he inquired, as required by the regulations of the Company, of the telegraph operator, Duff Kent, if the line (the single track portion of it) was clear, and received for answer that all trains then due had passed, the fact being that the passenger train of which he had information was late, and had not yet arrived. On receiving the intelligence, the conductor of the coal train naturally ordered the driver to go forward, and the train proceeded at its usual speed along the single-track, until, when doubling the point, the passenger train dashed into it.
“Each train, as it passes a station, is telegraphed to the next, and the telegraph operator is required to keep, in a book set apart for that purpose, an account of the times at which each train passes his depot. Thus he can, at any moment, by reference to his book, ascertain what trains are due and what have passed, but whether Kent had done so or not we cannot state. One thing is certain – that he has since absconded.
“On visiting the scene of the accident, on Saturday, we rode down the line with the courteous Superintendent, Mr. Riddle, on a hand-car, and could not but feel that shameful and criminal as was the carelessness which led to the present collision it is no small tribute to the officials that they have hitherto kept so free from accident on such a road. The road, in fact, is one of the worst that could be used, the striking beauty of the landscape and the many windings of the stream whose course it follows, that so delight the traveler, only rendering necessary such twisting and curving of the line that that portion must be the terror of all the drivers of the Company. The distance from Shohola to Lackawaxen is about five miles, and yet there are certainly not more than three points in that distance from which a spectator can see more than 100 yards of the line at once – about 50 yards each way.
“At this spot on which the collision took place, the line makes a sudden bend, like the convex curve of the letter S, and it was at the apex of this that the collision took place. As we passed along, some distance before we arrived at the spot, the coal strewing the line in all directions, broken couplings and fragments, gave notice that we were approaching the scene of some disaster. At length two upturned tenders, with sides battered and crumpled, the massive timbers of their floors snapped across like a wand, wheels and axles broken, a piston rod bent as though it had been a wire, angle irons twisted out of all shape, massive bars crumpled like paper, wheels filling the ditch, planks torn into shreds, timbers splintered like touchwood, cars smashed and overturned, bore such witness to the fearful nature of the shock that one wondered how, when such rigid things as iron and wood were as straws before it, flesh and blood should ever survive. And as one passes on a little further, and looks down sheer eighty feet of perpendicular rock to the stream below, it is impossible to repress a shudder at the thought of how awful would have been the loss of life had the collision taken place in any of those narrow ridges, about fifteen feet wide, which the road forms at these places.
“It is difficult to look up at those shaggy hills, clad with primeval forest, or down on the sunny stream sparkling below, or across the valley at the waving harvest, ready for the reaper, and realize the fact that only two days ago that pleasant, peaceful spot was to so many a scene of untold horror and anguish, yielding its first harvest to death, the reaper whose sickle had at last secured the sheaf of human life that had so often evaded and braved him on the battle-field. Yet there were the remains strewing the road, and down at Shohola were more ghastly witnesses still. The appearance of some of the wounded men was frightful; the only object to give it relief being the presence of the ministering angels who so tenderly tended each sufferer – Union and Rebel alike – only requiring that aid should be needed to give it, and seeing only a fellow-creature appealing, and not in vain, to their sympathies.
“Some little disapprobation was expressed at the hasty burial of the men, and it has been objected that opportunities should have been offered for their identification, but to this it may be answered that the mutilation of many of the corpses rendered this impossible, and the weather, on sanitary grounds, rendered it indispensable they should be removed, while there is no doubt the Government have all the names of the missing men and will give them such publicity as may meet the eyes of their friends. It is certainly, however, desirable that something more than the sham investigation by the jury, and which we are informed terminated in a verdict that all the company’s servants were free from blame and the accident unavoidable, should take place. The telegraph operator is said to have been intoxicated the night before, but until he can be met with, and the public will demand of the State authorities to see that he is, and can be confronted with the conductor of the coal train, it will not do to place too much reliance on the statement of the latter.
“It is the duty of each telegraph clerk to telegraph to the clerk at the next depot immediately the train has passed his station, and this book seems to have been regularly kept, so far as our inspection went, at Shohola. At Lackawaxen we were unable to see the book kept by the absconding operator. Under any circumstances if the statement about the character of the telegraph operator is true, it is most discreditable to the company to have kept such a man in so critical a situation, and they are by no means free from complicity in the murder which has just been committed.” (Binghamton Daily Democrat, NY. “Terrible Collision on the Erie Railway,” 19 July 1864.)
Sources
Adams, Charles J. III and David J. Seibold. Great Train Wrecks of Eastern Pennsylvania. Reading, PA: Exeter House Books, 1992.
Binghamton Daily Democrat, NY. “Terrible Collision on the Erie Railway,” 7-19-1864. Western New York Railroad Archive. Accessed at: http://wnyrails.org/news/c0000073.htm
Haine, Edgar A. Railroad Wrecks. New York: Cornwall Books, 1993.
Mott, Edward Harold. Between the Ocean and the Lakes: The Story of Erie. New York: John S. Collins Publishing, 1899, 668 pages. Google digital preview accessed 9-5-2017 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=ZYS4vNG2VXAC
National Railway Historical Society, Inc. Railroad Historical Almanac 1860-1879. 9-2-2006, 23 pages. Accessed at: http://www.nrhs.com/almanac/rr-almanac-1860-1879.pdf
New York Times. “A Fearful Railroad Collision: Sixteen Union and Fifty Rebel Soldiers Killed – About Eighty Wounded.” 8-19-1864. Accessed at: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B02E3D8143EEE34BC4152DFB166838F679FDE&scp=1&sq=A+Fearful+Railroad+Collision+July+17%2C+1864.&st=p
New York Times. “Terrible Railroad Accident.” 7-16-1864. Accessed at: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9D07E5D8143EEE34BC4E52DFB166838F679FDE
New York Tribune. “A Fearful Railroad Collision.” Janesville Daily Gazette, WI. 7-22-1864, p. 4. Accessed 9-5-2017 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/janesville-daily-gazette-jul-22-1864-p-4/?tag
Railroad Stories. “July in Railroad History,” July 1935, pp. 27-31.
Shohola.com. “The Great Shohola Train Wreck.” Accessed 9-5-2017 at: http://www.shohola.com/trainwreck
Willsey, Joseph H. (Compiler), Charlton T. Lewis (Editor). Harper’s Book of Facts: A Classified History of the World. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1895. Accessed 9-4-2017 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=UcwGAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false
[1] By “Initial” we mean those who died in the vicinity within approximately first 24 hours. Injured men (Confederate prisoners and Union guards) were moved elsewhere afterwards. Given the large number of injured and the violence of the collision, it must be considered that one or more injured soldiers moved elsewhere could have died. This is why we use “>” (meaning at least, or this number, if not more) to recognize there might have been more deaths.
[2] Notes, in addition: “Over 100 badly hurt men were moved to Shohola…”
[3] If we understand correctly, these were the fatalities buried in a mass grave near the site. Sholola.com notes that two injured Confederate soldiers, John and Michael Johnson, were taken to the home of a Mr. Hickock, where they died overnight and were buried in a church cemetery. Their names are not on the memorial.
[4] This does not take into account the 4-5 crewmen from the two trains (engineer, firemen (2), flagman, brakeman).