TERRIBLE RAILWAY DISASTER IN OHIO.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 823, 10 February 1877, Page 3

TERRIBLE RAILWAY DISASTER IN OHIO.

Further Particulars, Cleveland, December 29, An accident occurred at Ashtabula, Ohio, on the Lake Shore Railway, by which seven coaches and all the baggage and express cars were burned, and about one out of every five persons killed. The scene of the acci dent is a few rods east of the depot. An iron bridge spans Ashtabula Creek, 75ft above the water. It seems the falling train and bridge smashed the ice in the creek, and those not killed by the fall or burned in the cars were held down by the wreck, and drowned before they could be extricated. Many, too, will be or have been frozen. A special train with physicians, nurses, and everything for the comfort of the wounded at the wreck, left the Union Depot at half-past ten o’clock. The weather is still growing colder at Ashtabula, and only four bodies have so far been taken from the debris. The night there is quite clear, and now that the snow has stopped falling, it makes it almost like day. It is estimated that there were over one hundred and seventy-five passengers on the ill-fated train, and at least one-third of these were burned to death or frozen. The train was drawn by two engines. One engine remained on the bridge, and everything else went down. The engineer and fireman on the engine that went down were badly but not seriously injured. The work of removing the dead still goes on very slowly. December 30,

The following is the latest from the wreck at Ashtabula :—The haggard dawn which drove the darkness out of this valley and shadow of death, seldom saw a ghastlier eight than was revealed with the coming of morning. On either side of the ravine frowned the dark and bare arches from which the treacherous timbers had fallen, while at their base the great heaps of ruins covered the hundred men. women, and children who had so suddenly been called to their death; The charred bodies lay in thick ice or imbedded in the shallow water of the stream. The fires smouldered in great heaps where many of the hapless victims had been all consumed, while men went about in wild excitement seeking some trace of a lost one among the wounded or dead. The list of the saved and wounded having already been sent, the sad task remains of discovering who may be among the dead. The latter task will be the most difficult of all, and cannot be answered until the continued absence here or there of a friend will allow of but ons explanation, that he or she was among those who took the fatal leap. All witnesses so far agree aa to the main facts of the accident. Suddenly and without warning the train plunged into the abyss, the forward locomotive alone getting across in safety. Almost instantly the lamps and otoves set fire to the cars, and many who were doubtless only stunned, and who might otherwise have been saved, fell victims to the fury of the flames. The bridge was a Howe truss, built entirely of iron, and eleven years old. It was 69 feet above water, had an arch of 150 feet long, the whole length being 157 feet. It has been tasked with six locomotives, and at the time of the disaster was considered as being in a perfect condition. The iron of the bridge is twisted in endless confusion with the weight of the cars, while the locomotive is a wreck in every part. Charles S. Carter, of Brooklyn, New York, says he was sitting in the palace car with three others. Suddenly he heard the window glass in the forward part of the car breaking, and almost instantly the car began to fall. As he went down he sat as well as he could, and held on. When the car struck at the bottom of the ravine he found himself almost unhurt, although one of the gentlemen with him, whose name he did not know, was killed instantly ; while another, a Mr Shepard, of New York, had a leg broken. Carter says the front of the car was much lower than the rear, and that the flames in front began to eat their way upward, and spread with great rapidity. He turned to the assistance of Mr Shepard, and, with great difficulty, succeeded in getting him out, the broken leg impeding their advance. When Shepard was fairly out, Carter returned to the assistance of a woman who was calling for help at the front end of the car. Ho got her out. After reaching a hotel he found himself severely bruised in several placet. la the great peril of the

hour a man rushed down to the scene of the disaster, ready to help. He saw a woman struggling for life, and went to her assistrace; carried her by main force to solid ice; then, urged by the cries of the mother, went back to the rescue of the daughter, three or four years of age. The wood, in splintering, had caught the child in its grasp, and the fire completed the horrible work. The man was compelled to see the child enveloped in the flames and to hear her cry of “ Help me, mother I” ringing out in the agony of death and in the ears of the cruel night. In a moment she was lost—swept up by the sharp tongue of fire, while her mother in helpless agony fell to the earth in a death swoon. The disaster occurred shortly before eight o’clock. It was the wildest winter night of the year. The train was moving at a speed of less than ten miles an hour. The headlamp threw but a short dim flash of light in front, so thick was the air with the driving snow. The train crept across the bridge The leading engine had reached the solid ground beyond, and its driver had just given it steam, when something in the undergearing of the bridge snapped. For an instant there was a confused cracking of beams and girders, ending with a tremendous crash as the whole train, all but the leading engine, broke through the framework, and fell in a heap of crushed and splintered ruins at the bottom. Notwithstand the wind and storm, the crash was beared by people half a mile away. For a moment there was silence ; then arose the cries of the maimed and suffering. Those who were unhurt hastened to escape from the shattered cars. They crawled out of the windows into the freezing water, waist deep. Men. women, and children, with limbs broken, bruised, and pinched between timbers, and transfixed by jagged splinters, begged with their last breath for aid that no human power could give. Five minutes after the train fell a fire broke out in the cars piled against the abutments at the other end. A moment later the flames broke from the smoking-car, and the first coach piled across the other near the middle of the stream. In less than ten minutes after the catastrophe every car in the wreck was on fire, and the flames, fed by the dry varnished work, licked up the ruins as though they had been tinder. Men, who in the bewilderment of the shock sprang out and reached the solid ice, went back after their wives and children, and found them suffocating and roasting in the flames. People residing in the neighborhood were startled by the crash, and lighted to the scene by the conflagration, which made even their prompt assistance too late. By midnight the cremation was completed. The storm had subsided, but the wind blew fiercely, and the cold was even more intense. As the bridge fell the driver of the locomotive in front gave it a quick head of steam, which tore the draw head from its tender, and the liberated engine shot forward and buried itself in the snow. The other locomotive, drawn backward by the falling train, tumbled over the pier and fell bottom upward on the express car next behind, Ashtabula, December 31.

During the entire day over a hundred men have continued the labor of clearing away the debris of the wrecked train and bridge in Ashtabula River. This labor was rewarded by the recovery of only two more bodies and some unrecognisable burned pieces of flesh, and the belief is gaining ground that many of the passengers were totally or almost wholly consumed. Many persons have arrived here from both East and West in search of information regarding missing friends, but little satisfaction can be given them. Telegrams are also being constantly received asking for news of absent ones. Boxes in the freight houses containing bodies were numbered to-day, and white paper labels placed on those that had been identified. There are thirty-six bodies or rnssses of charred and blackened flesh in the building.