(erielack) Erie Train Wreck at Ravenna, OH. 1891

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Ravenna, OH Terrible Train Collision, July 1891
Posted  February 13th, 2008 by _Stu Beitler_ 
(http://www3.gendisasters.com/users/stu-beitler)   
 
TWENTY CRISP BODIES. 
ANOTHER HORRIBLE CALAMITY OCCURS IN OHIO -- SCENES AT THE WRECK ON THE ERIE 
 RAILROAD. 
Cleveland, Ohio, July 3 -- A freight train rain into a passenger train on 
the  Erie road at Ravenna, at 3 o'clock this morning, the passenger train 
being at a  stand-still. Several cars were torn to pieces and set on fire. 
Twenty bodies,  most of them burned to a crisp, have been taken from the wreck. 
Twenty-three  injured passengers have been rescued.
Ravenna, Ohio, July 3 -- The worst  railroad accident ever occurring in 
this vicinity happened at 3 o'clock this  morning. The horrible calamity has 
fairly appalled the town and nieghborhood.  Twenty people were killed and 
their bodies burned to a crisp. More than that  number were injured. The charred 
remains of the dead were taken from the ruins  of a demolished passenger 
train as fast as flames could be subdued by the towns  people, who rallied to 
the rescue. Such terrible sights as were witnessed in the  early morning 
hours made the people almost sick. An express, loaded with  sleeping 
passengers, was run into by a freight train while the express was at a  stand-still in 
this city. The wreck of the passenger train was terrible and  complete.
To add to the condition of the unfortunate passengers who were  imprisoned 
in the debris, the train caught fire and was consumed. In this way  death 
fairly swept through the wrecked train. By daylight twenty bodies, nearly  all 
of them charred in a horrible manner, were taken out. Twenty three injured  
passengers had also been rescued. A large number of the killed were glass  
blowers, who were on their way east from Findlay.
Youngstown, Ohio, July 3 --  At 3 o'clock this morning a frightful wreck 
occurred at Ravenna on the New York,  Lake Erie and Western railroad. Train 
No. 8, fast express, bound for New York,  while standing at the depot waiting 
for orders, was crashed into from the rear  by a freight train. A day coach 
on the rear of the train was completely  telescoped and two sleepers forward 
took fire and were burned up. Nineteen  passengers were killed and 
thirty-eight badly injured. Many of the victims were  so badly burned that they are 
almost unrecognizable. A special train conveying  surgeons was sent from 
this place. The freight train that telescoped the express  in the dressed meat 
express from Chicago and was running at about thirty miles  an hour when it 
struck the passenger train. The accident was due to carlessness  in leaving 
a switch open. It is rumored that three of the members of the  Pittsburg 
base ball team were killed in the wreck.
Pittsburg, Pa., July 3 --  Director DERR, of the Pittsburg ball club, said 
it is possible that KING, GALVIN  and MILLER were on the wrecked train.
New York, July 3 -- The following has  been received by the Erie officials 
here:
Cleveland, Ohio, July 3,  1891.
E. B. Thomas, First Vice President:
No. 82 ran into the rear end of  No. 8 at Ravenna station at 2:32 a.m. 
Engineer of No. 8 was doing some work on  his engine. He had been standing still 
about eight minutes. Had flag out  thirty-five car lengths on a straight 
line. Engine No. 679 and two sleepers  burned up. As near as I can learn at 
present there are senen killed and about  ten injured.
[Signed] A. M. Tucker, General Manager.
Cleveland, Ohio, July  3 -- General Superintendent TUCKER, of the Erie 
railroad, nervously paced back  and forth in his office all this morning waiting 
anxiously for a dispatch from  Ravenna.
"I have received as yet only meagre reports," he said, "and am  waiting 
anxiiously for full accounts from officials. There is nothing to conceal  about 
the wreck. It was caused by an employe's negligence. Train No. 8, a fast  
night express going east, left Kent all right with a long line of coaches and 
 sleepers. A few minutes later fast freight No. 82 followed the regulation  
distance behind. At Ravenna, the next stop, the engineer found something 
wrong  with his machine and delayed a few moments to fix it. Knowing that the 
freight  was following, a flagman was sent back to stop it. The failure of 
this man to  properly perform his duty caused the disaster. I am not yet 
exactly informed  that he did not do so, but suppose that he failed to go back 
far enough. He  evidently thought that the passenger would go on before the 
freight came along  and so shirked his work. The express train had been at 
Ravenna just eight  minutes when the freight dashed up too close to be stopped 
by the flagman. It  crashed into the rear of the passenger train and 
scattered death on all sides.  To add to the horror fire broke out and consumed 
many of the dead and injured  who were held fast in the ruins. Such fearful 
sights had better be left to the  imagination than any attempt to depict in 
words. I do not know how many were  killed, or who they were, but reports will 
soon tell the story. It was 5 o'clock  this morning when I first received 
word, and since then I have been endeavoring  to obtain definite news, but 
everything is so confused that as yet I have  received little."
A Later Account.
Ravenna, Ohio, July 3 -- Four years ago  this town received the greatest 
shock ever experienced by it, and one that was  never expected to be equalled. 
This shock was the attack upon Detective Hulligan  by members of the 
Blinkey Morgan gang; the killing of Hulligan and the rescue of  a prisioner. This 
morning at 3 o'clock the express train on the New York,  Pennsylvania and 
Ohio road was run into by a fast freight train and nineteen or  twenty people 
were killed and their bodies charred by flames that soon broke out  in the 
wreck. The Morgan attack was eclipsed and the whole nieghborhood shocked  as 
it never expected to be again. The cause of the terrible catastrophe is  
loudly given. Two miles from Ravenna the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio and  
Cleveland and Pittsburg cross. When the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio 
express  reached this crossing this morning, it was delayed there for a 
considerable  length of time. Behind the express and thundering along at a rapid rate 
was a  refrigerator train, used to transport meat and accustomed to cover 
the distance  it had to run at a speed little less than that of an ordinary 
passenger train.  After the half at the C. and P. crossing was ended, the 
express hurried on to  Ravenna and pulled up at the depot. But the time that 
the train was held at the  C. and P. road was sufficient to permit the meat 
train to come up, and hardly  had the wheels of the express ceased to revolve 
when the engine of the freight  crashed into the rear end of the express 
almost at full speed.
The scene that  ensued was terrible in the extreme. The engine plowed its 
way, pushed on by the  wright and momentum of the heavy cars behind it, 
through the coaches as if they  were made of thin boards. Above the horrible 
grinding and crunching of the cars  could be heard the agonized shrieks of the 
maimed passengers, who but a second  before were sound asleep. There were two 
or three sleepers in the train and  these were well filled. There was also 
a car of excursionists bound east. Many  glass blowers from Findlay were on 
board the train going to New York state. A  dozen people from Akron composed 
an excursion party on the ill-fated train. When  the collision occurred 
those in the rear cars were either instantly killed,  wounded or pinned down by 
the portions of the demolished cars. The latter could  not escape unaided, 
and in the terrible fright and confusion that followed, and  before the 
citizens of the town could reach the scene of the disaster, fire  broke out in 
the wreck and spread with frightful rapidity. If the accident had  been awful 
before, it was now an unequalled horror. The flames rushed through  the 
debris and the shrieks of the maimed or pinioned could be plainly heard in  the 
night air. Forward the wounded and unharmed passengers were getting  
themselves out of the cars that were still intact. They at once did all they  
could to stay the flames and rescue the imperilled. But before this was done  
nineteen people were sacrificed, that many bodies being taken out afterward.  
Most of these mangled corpses were blackened and burned in a manner 
sickening to  look upon, some of the being roasted into unrecognizable masses. As 
the work of  taking out the dead bodies progressed, the full extent of the 
calamity dawned  upon the workers from the town and those of the passengers who 
escaped alive. By  daylight nineteen bodies had been carried out. How many 
more met death is not  known. Those wounded to a considerable extent 
numbered twenty-three. Many others  were bruised and scratched, in fact nearly 
everybody on the train was hurt to  some extent. Of the Akron party none was 
killed. A number of Cincinnatians and  several of the Findlay people met death. 
The work of identifying the dead is now  in progress.
Cincinnati, Ohio, July 3 -- A telephone message from Manager  HANLON, of 
the Pittsburg Base Ball club, at 10 o'clock states that GALVIN,  MILLER and 
KING, of that club, were not on the wrecked train. They are still in  this 
city.
The Engineer Talks.
GEORGE HOLMAN, engineer of the freight,  said to a reporter: "I cannot see 
that I am to blame. Oh, my God! If I could  have got sand I could have 
stopped the train, but the rails were wet and the  sand would not take. I was not 
warned in time and could not see the lights on  the rear of the pasenger 
owing to the darkness and fog. I reversed the lever as  quickly as possible, 
and the fireman jumped from the train, sustaining severe  fracture of the 
righthand." MR. HOLMAN seems to think the brakeman of the  passenger train, 
FRED BOYNTON, could have flagged from a greater  distance.
Manager TUCKER Talks.
"There is no use trying to shift the  responsibility," said TUCKER. "Our 
road always tries to use the utmost  precautions for safety, but here is a 
case where a man failed to do his duty. I  do not know yet who he is or how he 
feels, but I should think he would be  contemplating shooting himself by 
this time. On all our passenger trains there  is a flagman, whose especial duty 
it is to flag approaching trains in just such  an emergency as this. The 
flagman is selected generally from among the best  brakemen and is paid extra 
for his work. He is provided with a lantern and track  torpedoes, and is 
expected to guard the train from others approaching from other  directions. The 
flagman is instructed to not only wave his lantern but place  torpedoes on 
the track. In this way the approaching train is given warning to  stop. 
Freight train No. 82 left Kent five minutes behind the passenger, and the  
latter had stopped at the station eight minutes when the crash came. In that  
time the flagman could have gone back a mile, if necessary, but he did not do  
so. Engineer PENDERGAST and Conductor BOYNTON, two of the oldest and most  
trusted employes on the road, were in charge of the passenger train. I do not 
 know who the freight crew were nor whether any of them were hurt. It is 
slow  work obtaining reliable information."
An Eye Witness.
Captain WALLACE, one  of Warren's best known citizens, was in the third 
coach from the rear of the  train asleep in his berth when the shock came. His 
story of the awful affair is  as follows:
"The train was composed of vestibuled sleepers. It was, as near  as I can 
tell, about 3 a.m., when a crash unlike anything I ever before  experienced, 
came. I was thrown from my berth and nearly knocked senseless, but  finally 
crawled from under a pile of debris and found myself comparatively  
uninjured. I looked about me and the sight that met my gaze I will never forget.  
The three rear coaches, including the one I was in, were piled up in an  
indescribable mass and flames shot up from two of them like from a huge bon  
fire. The air was filled with the moans and shrieks of the imprisoned passengers 
 and strong men stood helpless with the knowledge that before their eyes 
human  beings were being burned or crushed to death. My first thought was for 
the  people in the rear coach. When I boarded the train my attention was 
called to  them by some one remarking that there was a party of fifty-three men 
in the rear  car. When the freight crashed into us it crushed this car into 
a thousand pieces  and flames broke out almost immediately. How any of the 
passengers in that car  escaped, if they did, is a mystery. I saw them take 
some eighteen or twenty  bodies from the wreck, but I do not think that that 
is half of those who will be  found to be missing when the reports are in. 
I am of the opinion that every man  in the rear coach was killed. The sight 
of the corpses as they were taken from  under the debris was sickening. 
Pieces of flesh, an arm or a leg were found and  in this way it was impossible 
to tell how many were killed. Every piece that was  taken out was burned to a 
crisp, so that identification was impossible. When I  left the scene the 
wreck was still smouldering and the air was fairly thick with  the odor of 
burning bodies."
The Dead.
The following is the list of the  dead so far as identified:
THOMAS VINHILL, Corning, N. Y.
DAVID RELITAN,  Corning, N. Y.
WILLIAM KANE, Brooklyn, N. Y.
ALBERT GANTRAP, Corning, N.  Y.
HENRY GILDAY, Corning, N. Y.
The Wounded.
The following is a list of  those wounded and missing:
FRED HUFF, Corning, N. Y.
FRED BURNS, Corning,  N. Y.
JAMES GRIFFIN, Boston.
A. HARDEMAN, Corning, N. Y.
LEWIS KIMBALL,  Corning, N. Y.
WM. NEWCOMB, Corning, N. Y.
JOHN CADIGAN.
JOSEPH  MADIGAN.
THOMAS HANLEY.
JAMES DWYICKIN.
GEORGE SMITH.
DENNIS  RYAN. 
The Fort Wayne Sentinel Indiana 1891-07-03 
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The following is an accurate and complete list of the dead in the  wreck:
JOHN COYLE.
DAVID RELATIN.
FRANK BURNS.
JOHN GRIFFIN.
FRED  DUFF.
OWEN HARDMAN.
DENNIS RYAN.
PATRICK RYAN.
DENNIS  CASSIDY.
ALBERT GUNTHERUP.
JOHN DENNE.
HENRY GILDE.
T. A.  NOTAN.
THOMAS KIEVELLE.
WILLIAM NEWCOMBE.
All of the above named are  from Corning, N. Y.
WILLIAM KANE, aged 14, of Brooklyn.
JOHN KIMBALL, of  Findlay.
MRS. MAMIE KENNAN and Child, of Chicago. 
The Weekly News Mansfield Ohio  1891-07-09



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