Ned the Long-Standing Fire Station Horse

Lincoln, Nebraska, 1912
----------
SLEEPS ERECT

Fire Horse That Has Never Laid Down During Ten Years of City Service.

"Ned," a sixteen-year-old bay attached to fire station No. 1, is known as the horse that never lies down. While most horses stand a great deal while in their stalls and sleep a good part of the night in an erect position, Ned is declared by the firemen to remain on his feet all of the twenty-four hours.

Ned is a medium sized animal, just the weight that gives action for such strenuous work as is cut out for fire horses. He was purchased ten years ago when he was just six years old.

For years he and his running mate pulled the hose wagon at company No. 3, and they did brilliant service. They were regarded as the fastest team that were ever hooked to a hose cart.

"They could run like deer," said Chief Clement. "They were well matched and made a fine appearance. People always took a second look at this team when they were in action."

Sometimes Ned is so sound asleep that he falls down in his stall, but he gets right up again. An extra strong halter was obtained for him recently. He has broken several during his service in the department.

Some horses are like humans, they dream a great deal. One fire horse has been noted for years for his dreaming propensities. His dreams like those of people are not always pleasant.

Firemen say that horses are like people. Some catch on to a new job quickly, while other don't. A light buckskin team which pulls a hose wagon at No. 1 is declared to have learned the "ropes" in five days. When the fifth alarm was turned in and this team was released both horses walked under the harness like veterans.

"A few horses learn in a week or less," said Fred S. Stretton, the veteran fireman, "while others have to be trained for a month before they can be trusted to take their places under the harness."

--Lincoln Evening News, Lincoln, Nebraska, January 22, 1912, page 1.

Chicken Thieves Steal 200 Chickens, Leave Eight

Van Wert, Ohio, 1919
----------
NEARBY HAPPENINGS.

Lake Shore Freight Train Wrecked Near Tiffin – Current Events of Local Interest.

Judge William Klinger of the court of common pleas, Lima, ordered Mabel Faulkner Bowers, Lima, to go to the country home of her husband, Herman W. Bowers, Northern Allen county, and there establish a home and live with her husband. Judge Klinger refuted a divorce, sought by the wife. She charged abandonment.

Mrs. Aronlad Claty, Westson, is in serious condition at the home of her sister. Mrs. B. S. McCann, of Bowling Green, as a result of an auto accident, in which Mrs. Claty sustained a three- inch cut on her forehead, a deep gash on both upper and lower lips and a fractured cheekbone.

The Catholic high school boys of Delphos have organized a basket ball team with Sylvester Schmelzer, manager and Otto Kihm, assistant. The girls team will be managed by Adeline Gremling and Miss Adelie Plescher, assistant.

David Franklin Gaumer, eon of Editor and Mrs. Bruce B. Gaumer, of Marysville, died to-day after a brief illness caused by eating toad stools. The boy's temperature reached one hundred and seven before he died.

Three cows were killed and traffic was held up at Stryker when a broken axle caused seven loaded cattle cars of a fast Lake Shore freight to telescope there at seven o'clock. Traffic was locked on all three tracks.

The funeral of Mrs. A. R. Morton, nee Naomi Dugan, of Evanston, Ill., will occur Sunday afternoon at the home of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. C. A. Dugan, of Decatur. Death was due to septic poisoning.

It is predicted that the golden jubilee celebration to be held by Norwalk Commandery No. 18 Knights Templars October 13, 14 and 15, will be one of the most imposing events of the kind ever held in Ohio.

Chicken thieves visited the coops of the Simon Good farm, several miles East of Delphos and stole two hundred birds, leaving eight. There is no explanation why the eight were not taken.

Mr. and Mrs. Clinton Bird, of Ottawa, were severely cut and bruised when their automobile was struck by a B. & O. train at Columbus Grove.

Edwin Mauk, well known Delphos boy, has made the Western Reserve varsity foot ball team, and will play as a regular.

The funeral of the late Thomas Weger, of Delphos, will be held Tuesday afternoon, two o'clock.

--The Van Wert Daily Bulletin, Van Wert, Ohio, September 27, 1919, page 3.

Love Letters Flood Peggy Beal, as She Awaits Trial for Slaying False Lover

Kansas City, Missouri, 1922
----------
Love Letters Flood Peggy Beal, as She Awaits Trial for Slaying False Lover

Kansas City, Mo., Sept. 18.—Three hundred men have written Peggy Beal, slayer of Frank Warren Anderson, "the perfect lover," asking her to marry them. Among the suitors for the hand of the fair slayer are ministers. Also many men who claim to have great riches.

Peggy Beal, who shot and killed Anderson, scion of an old Philadelphia family, in a hotel room in Kansas City, June 3, has just left the hospital where she recovered from wounds inflicted upon herself after shooting Anderson.

She is charged with murder and will face a jury in Kansas City in the near future. She herself is the moving spirit back of plans for early trial.

"I want to stand before the work vindicated," she said. "I want other women to know what I suffered. I want them to know that I killed Frank Anderson to save other women from his clutches."

Minister Proposes.

Meantime the proposals of marriage come flooding in. In one of them, a man calling himself a Detroit minister, says in part:

"I am sure you are not all bad. No woman could have written the wonderful love thoughts that you have written and be bad at heart. I would like to make you my wife and lift you up from the depths of despair.

"As a minister, it is my duty to offer you a haven in my heart and home."

Peggy Deal, before revealing the letter, clipped the writer's name from it. She said she would not give out the names of any of those who have written love letters to her. A man describing himself as a Galveston, Tex., sea captain wrote that he was sure he could make her forget the drear days that have followed the killing of Anderson.

"If you will marry me, I will see that you forget the past," he wrote. "I am not so terribly handsome or so terribly good, but I would be willing to give every hour in the day to trying to make you happy.

"If you will say the word, I will get a year's leave from my work and will come to Kansas City at once."

From a Widower.

From San Diego another man writes:

"First I must confess I am a widower, but in that confession I ought to make myself more desirable to you, for I have learned how to put up with the whims of women.

"I have read that you trusted Frank Anderson and then learned he had 50 other sweethearts.

"I want to say that I never have paid court to more than one woman at a time. You could count on me being loyal and true to you."

Peggy has not answered the letters -- at least not many of them.

One of the letters, she says, is from a former convict.

"I have had my troubles and you have had yours," he writes from near San Quentin, Cal.

"I have $90 I made doing fancy work while in prison. I'd like to send you that to come out here and we would see if we couldn't be happier together.

"Please answer at once whether you would marry a former convict if he is trying to do right now."

Love letters do not thrill Peggy Beal as they once did, she says. It was when Frank Anderson, just out of the army, wrote such strong protestations of love that she received her greatest thrill.

"The Perfect Lover," the young woman styled Anderson, when she spoke of him to other women.

She exhibited letters, from which the following is an excerpt:

"Dearest Peg: I have just finished reading one of the most wonderful books. 'Thuvia -- Maid of Mars.' Honestly, sweetheart, I never knew I was such a big cry baby. I read it with a handkerchief in the left hand and I had to use it constantly to clear my visage. If you have not read it, by all means get a copy."

Apparently Peggy got a copy for after Anderson had come to Kansas City to join her, he was found dead and she near death from bullet wounds inflicted by her in a hotel room. By her side lay a copy of the book. "Thuvia -- Maid of Mars." It was open at an illustration of Thuvia, character of the novel of her victim, a dagger in her hand.

List of Women.

A list of names of women, a list printed carefully with a pencil by Anderson, was found in the room. It was the list that brought death to Anderson, according to the story police say Peggy told them. She chided him about failing to keep a promise to marry her, she is alleged to have said, and he showed her the fist.

"Peg, I'm a devil -- I love no woman," he said.

A bullet from Peg's pistol was her answer.

After the shooting, when Peggy Beal was recovering at a hospital, she said:

"I killed him to save other women from the fate of the 50."

For weeks the young woman lay between life and death. Physicians had given up hope when from Terre Haute, Ind., her former home, came this telegram.

"Tell mamma I love her and I want her to get well."

It was from Louis Beal, 13 years old, who lives with his brother, Stepehen, 16, and their father in Terre Haute. The children have lived with their father since their parents were divorced several years ago.

It was the child's telegram that caused Mrs. Beal to have a determination to recover and to seek vindication by an early trial.

--The Helena Independent, Helena, Montana, September 19, 1922, page 3.



Peggy Beal Acquitted

SAYS SHE'LL MAKE GOOD WHEN FREED MURDER CHARGE

Peggy Beal Faces Life With Renewed Determination When Acquitted of Slaying Lover

(By The Associated Press)

KANSAS CITY, Mo., Oct. 24—Marie L. (Peggy) Beal faced life with renewed determination today, freed after a brief trial for the charge of having murdered her lover Frank Warren Anderson, who she said boasted he bad broken the hearts of fifty other women.

Leaping to her feet as the verdict was read last night, Mrs. Beal thanked the jury and asserted:

"Now I am going to stay right here in Kansas City and make good. I'm going to send for my little boys in Terre Haute and make a good home for them."

The court ordeal was comparatively brief, there were few witnesses and the testimony was adduced speedily. She took the witness stand, pallid and nervous and the story of the shooting was drawn from her by the attorneys.

From the first meeting in Dayton Ohio. Mrs. Beal, a young divorcee related in chronological order, incidents of their association which terminated in her fatally shooting Anderson and seriously wounding herself in a room which they occupied in a local hotel June 3. He lured her there, she said, with a promise of marriage. She had been reading a passage in a romantic novel in which a woman killed her lover. She shot Anderson as be lay upon the bed and turned the revolver upon herself, sending a bullet into her breast.

"I met Anderson in a restaurant in Dayton, 0.," she testified. "He asked me to marry him before he left Dayton and I told him I would give him my answer in June."

Twice she visited him in Kansas City. They moved to the hotel where the tragedy occurred. She asked him to marry her, she said. "I was nearly stunned when he told me he could find no grounds for divorce," she said. "I asked him what I was going to do," she told the court, "and he said 'do as you please.' "

She asked him why he had sought her love and he answered, she declared, "because I am a devil." She said that she could not recall shooting him but remembered shooting herself.

--The Olean Evening Herald, Olean, New York, Oct. 24, 1922, page 1.

Open Letter to the Mayor: Stop Gambling, You Misfit!

Helena, Montana, 1906
----------
To the Mayor

Good morning, Mr. Lindsay. This is beautiful weather. Do you enjoy it. Helena, the Capital city of the Treasure state, is the making of a splendid city, is it not?

You are the mayor of this city, the chief executive.

Did you lie when you swore to enforce the law?

If not, why have you failed to abide by your oath?

Gambling is a crime, Mr. Mayor.

You swore to suppress crime.

You have not done what you swore to do.

Are you ashamed the walk the streets? Are you apologetic? Are you a liar?

It is for you to say.

Your administration thus far stinks in the nostrils of decency.

Is that plain?

Your own party is "sore" and mad by reason of your scandalous performance. You are a joke, and a political jest is worse than a crime.

Why don't you stop gambling?

You swore that you would.

What is your word worth in the presence of your oath?

Are you afraid? Are you a coward? Do you know that the republicans who were once willing to believe in you are now laughing at you? They think you are a misfit, a counterfeit, a false alarm.

It doesn't matter what party you belong to. You won't belong to any party if you persist in your dogmatic indifference to the demand for communal decency.

Assuming that you are not keenly aware of the value of anything else, yet may we ask, do you know the significance of an oath sworn by an elected official?

You swore to enforce the law.

Mr. Mayor Lindsay, you are the living shame and scandal of your city. You are not the mayor. You are the counterfeit presentment of bum government.

You are a shine.

You haven't got the courage of your own convictions.

You are repudiating the law and insulting the people.

And The Independent will take all that back when you stop gambling. Not sooner.

You have scandalized Christianity, stultified your own constituency, blasphemed citizenship, ridiculed law, smeared public service with the filth of political servitude and made a wanton jest of your own prestige. –

BECAUSE YOU HAVEN'T GOT THE COURAGE TO STOP GAMBLING AS THE LAW REQUIRES AND AS YOU SWORE TO DO.

Never mind partisanship. Never mind the fact that the city "needs" the money. Aren't you ashamed, Mr. Mayor Lindsay, to persist in your miserable failure?

Why don't you stop gambling?

Who are you to thus openly connive at the debauchery of the law?

How can you walk Main street and look your fellow men in the eye? They all suspect you. None will believe in you.

Don't be stubborn, Mr. Mayor. You know.

--The Helena Independent, Helena, Montana, September 28, 1906, page 4.

Mother Seeks $10,000/Year for Boy of 12

Chicago, 1920
----------
ASKS $10,000 A YEAR FOR BOY OF 12

Mother Says He Can't Live on $350 a Month

Owing to the mounting price of knickerbockers and school books, ice cream cones and footballs -- not to mention countless other things dear to boyish hearts -- $10,000 a year is necessary to educate and support Henry Irving Wheeler, 12 years old, son of the late Professor Henry Lord Wheeler of Yale University, according to a bill filed in the Superior Court.

The bill was filed by Mrs. Eva S. Lind, Henry's mother, against the Continental and Commercial Trust and Savings Bank of Chicago, trustee of a $400,000 fund left for the boy by his father.

Mrs. Lind, who was Eva Swartout, an actress, was divorced from Professor Wheeler in 1906. She was awarded $100,000 alimony. Later she married a New York physician. She received nothing under the terms of the will.

According to the bill, the boy was allowed $150 and then $350 a month after his father's death, but Mrs. Lind has been forced to give $15,000 toward his support.

Professor Wheeler was a members of an old Chicago family, his father having been a pioneer traction magnate. His will directs that the boy be supported and educated "in accord with his birth and station in life."

--The Saturday Blade, Chicago, May 22, 1920, page 1.

Pants Getting Shorter, Up to the Knees

Paris, France, 1920
----------
TROUSERS GOING UP; MAY REACH KNEES

Paris Idea Already Calls for Women's Silk Stockings.

PARIS, France, May 20 – Andre de Fouquieres, long recognized as the king of Paris society, appeared the other day in the shortest pair of pants ever seen on a grown-up.

They fell three inches below the knees, with nice double creases, showing "perfect" silk calves, and incidentally revealing that the wearer is among the men who have recently insisted upon buying women's silk stockings.

M. de Fouquieres' example is taken as a prelude to a general movement for shortening trousers, a movement aided by the shortage of cloth. It will be no surprise if ultimately Frenchmen will wear them about the same length as women's skirts, just to the knees.

--The Saturday Blade, Chicago, May 22, 1920.

Man Gets Bats in His Belfry, Acting Crazy

Idaho, 1906
----------
MAN GETS BATS IN HIS BELFRY

IMAGINES HE IS THE CREATOR AND WANTS MANY THINGS CHANGED.

Fellow Giving His Name as Frank Merriman Goes Crazy at Wooley Ranch and is Brought to Town.

Last Tuesday afternoon John F. Burton came to town from the upper Wooley ranch with a fellow who has bats in his belfry and seemed ready to be turned over to the officials for safe keeping.

Very little could be learned of him and it was almost impossible to get anything coherent out of him, and the only name that seemed to stick in his mind for any length of time was Frank Merriman. He is known to have worked in the vicinity of Henry during the past summer and winter, but is not known to have shown any insane tendencies before. He came to the Wooley ranch about ten days ago on a dilapidated pair of snow shoes and said he was going to travel on them to Colorado, but was induced to stay and when his hallucination took a form that pointed toward the dangerous he was brought to town.

He seems possessed of the idea that he is the creator and when anything does not suit him he wants to kill it or change it to his idea. One thing about the buildings in town did not suit him and he wanted them all cut down to one story with one room 8 x 12. He was taken to Pocatello yesterday afternoon by Deputy Quigley and will not doubt be taken to the asylum at Blackfoot at an early date.

--The Soda Springs Chieftain, Soda Springs, Idaho, March 29, 1906, page 1.

Comment: Headline "Brought to Town," town might not be the word, illegible.

Dreaming, Crawled Out Window, Fell Two Stories

Fort Wayne, Indiana, 1909
----------
IN DREAM CRAWLED THROUGH SECOND FLOOR WINDOW

George Huber Hurt About Hips While in Somnambulistic State.

Dreaming that he was caught under some hogs and endeavoring to escape from them, George Huber, an employe of the Eckart Packing company, crawled out of a second-story window and was only aroused from his somnambulistic state when he struck the ground, alighting full upon his back and hips. His injuries are also internal, but it is the opinion that he will recover. The unfortunate occurrence took place at the man's home, 1717 South Harrison street, about 2 o'clock Tuesday morning.

Huber's fall was twelve feet. In lifting the curtain pulled down over the window, Huber thought he was pulling aside the burlap used in rooms at the Eckart plant. He was crawling on his hands and knees, when he emerged into the empty air.

Mr. Huber was kept in his home Until late Tuesday afternoon, when the matter was reported to Trustee Branning, and he was removed to St. Joseph's hospital. That branch of the Huber family has been very unfortunate recently, one of its afflictions being the critical illness from typhoid fever of a daughter.

--Fort Wayne Weekly Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, September 15, 1909, page 9.



Sacramento, California, 1922
----------
Mother Fails to Die In Eighth Attempt

BY INTERNATIONAL NEWS SERVICE BY UNITED PRESS

SACRAMENTO, Aug. 4. -- Mrs. Antoinette Harlan, young matron of this city, shot herself here today in the eighth attempt she has made to commit suicide in the past six months. She will recover. Mrs. Harlan is the mother of an 18-months-old baby and is said to have been depressed as a result of a destitute condition.

--The Oakland Tribune, Oakland, California, August 4, 1922, page 1.



Battle Creek, Michigan, 1907
----------
STRANGLES SELF WITH STRAP.

Tennessee Banker, Fearing Associates Would Rob Him, Suicides.

Charles W. Shulte, a wealthy banker of Memphis, Tenn., committed suicide by putting a strap around his neck and tightening it notch by notch until he strangled himself. His wife found the body in a bath tub where it had lain for several hours. Shulte came to Battle Creek, Mich., two months ago to rest in a sanitarium. He believed his bank associates were plotting to secure his wealth, and that the bank faced a failure. Though not ill, Shulte brooded so continually at home that it was thought a change would do him good. His suicide came without warning. Shulte was 63 years old. His wife is much younger.

--Daily Herald, Chicago, February 1, 1907, page 2.

Gertrude May Have Been Stolen by Gypsies

Indiana, 1909
----------
Northern Indiana News and Gossip (only pieces of the column follow)

Gertrude, the 7-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Dan Austin, near Mishawaka, has been missing for several days and it is feared she has been stolen by a band of gypsies encamped near the place.

Mrs. Michael Gray, of Bluffton, was arrested and fined for whipping the child of a neighbor.

Mrs. R. A. Brown, of Huntington, who has been spending the summer at Northport, Mich., was attacked by a large bald eagle a few days ago, but succeeded in beating the huge bird of before it had inflicted more than a few scratches upon her.

When Steven Cotton, a Wells county farmer, was stricken by heart trouble and sank unconscious in the field where he was plowing Thursday, his faithful dog summoned assistance by running to the Cotton home and barking, then darting back to the field where his master lay. Mrs. Cotton went to her husband's assistance and he soon revived.

George Young, for sixteen years proprietor of a meat market at Huntington, has sold out to Louis Diffenbaugh, who is moving the fixtures of the establishment to Fort Wayne.

Peter Flum, 89 years of age, died Saturday at his home northwest of Osslan. He was a pioneer resident of Wells county, having located there in 1849, and was widely known.

The ax used by J. Henney, an Avilla liveryman in splitting wood, struck a clothesline, was deflected and cut an extensive gash in Mr. Henney's scalp that required five stitches to close.

Major N.N. Boydston claims the distinction of being the only resident of Warsaw to unfurl the American flag on Thursday in honor of the discovery of the north pole by Dr. Frederick Cook.

--Fort Wayne Weekly Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, September 8, 1909, page 11 (partial).

UFOs Over Indiana? Residents Saw Something

Fort Wayne, Indiana, 1909
----------
THINK AIRSHIP WAS SAILING ABOVE THE CITY

Residents of Bloomingdale See Supposed Machine High in Heavens.

Did an airship sail over Fort Wayne Friday a.m.? Half a score or more of Bloomingdale residents are declaring their confident belief that such was the case. They saw it.

One of the earliest to report the presence of the supposed aerial navigating machine was Oswald Brudi, clerk at the post office, who resides on Wells street. Others in the vicinity were also attracted by a glimpse of the object and there is a concurrence of conviction that it was actually an aeroplane of some variety whose owner was enjoying a spin high in the heavens.

The airship, if such it was, was first noticed about 8 o'clock and it seemed to come from over the city, sailing in a northwesterly direction. A little later it turned to a course due west, and was soon lost to view, having been visible not to exceed five minutes. The machine was very high in the air, and apparently too small to be one of the big creations which the big aviators have been using in their sensational performances.

--Fort Wayne Weekly Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, September 8, 1909, page 9.

Agents Decline to Talk About Affable Swindler

Indiana(?), 1909
----------
AGENTS DECLINE TO TALK ABOUT A SWINDLE

Most of Them Hit Hard by Affable Stranger Who Was Fraud.

Although it is known that agents of local express companies were hit hard by an affable stranger about a week ago who presented some forged money orders, they are not bragging much about it and are about as communicative as their superior officers have bade them be. The affable stranger came noiselessly and went without much racket and in his going he lugged off a bunch of golden coin and a few bills that he procured with nothing more than a few forged documents and a bold front.

He was smooth and business like. He walked into the office and presented his orders and didn't seem so awfully particular about getting the money and didn't want to give anybody much trouble about it and seemed hurt when there was any hint that his paper were not all right.

All of the orders he had were duly signed, sealed and presented all the appearances of having been issued in good faith from the office of the Northern Express company at Butte, Mont. He had some letters from banking establishments and other concerns out there and an English passport that worked with a little cockney helped filch money from the local offices.

He tried them all and in only one was he turned down and in a couple of days he reaped a harvest of about $250, as each was for $50. A couple of days ago the orders began to come back with the notation that they forgeries. The Adams company has had no return on one that it accepted and the agent would say nothing. No report was made to the police and the companies are evidently using their own secret service operatives in an effort to land the man with the forged orders.

For the reason that they want to keep the matter quiet and that the officials of the company have enjoined the agents here to say nothing, it is difficult to get any of the details.

--Fort Wayne Weekly Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, September 8, 1909, page 8.

Short Sermons for a Sunday

1909
----------
Short Sermons for a Sunday

Stand Like a Tower.
Be systematically heroic in little unnecessary points. Every day do something for no other reason than its difficulty, so that, if an hour of need should come, it may find you trained to stand the test. The man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic will, and self-denial in unnecessary things will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him. — William James.

Sweet Enveloping Thought.
He that finds God a sweet enveloping thought to him never counts his company. When I sit in that presence, who shall dare to come in?—Emerson.

Preach the Truth.
If God had wanted men to prop up truth He would have told them; He only commanded them to preach it.

Kingly Living.
The world will come to the Kingdom through kingly living in the world.

--Fort Wayne Weekly Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, September 8, 1909, page 3.

Whole Family Arrested for Horsewhipping Youth

Richmond, Indiana, 1909
----------
LASHED BOY WITH BAD TONGUE.

Whole Family Arrested for Horsewhipping Youth.

Richmond, Ind., Sept. 6.—The entire family of William C. Bass will appear in the city court today to answer to charges of assault and battery on Arthur Englebert. The family includes Mr. and Mrs. Bass, Miss Isabelle Bass and Ellsworth Bass.

The charge of assault and battery grows out of a horsewhipping that Miss Bass administered to young Englebert when she says she learned that he was circulating stories detrimental to her.

The Bass and Englebert families reside close together and Englebert was caught in passing the Bass home and was lashed with a blackshake whip until he was scarcely able to walk.

It is said Englebert apologized before he was allowed to leave the Bass home. He meant to let the matter drop, but the affair became public and he then swore out warrants against the Bass family. At first he tried to obtain a revolver and revisit the Bass home for revenge, but he was dissuaded from this.

--Fort Wayne Weekly Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, September 8, 1909, page 2.


DIES REJOICING IN CRIME

New York Woman Who Slew Faithless Lover Expires Happily.

New York, Sept. 6.—Still unrepentant for her act, Elizabeth Clara Becker, the young woman who on Saturday killed John A. Gunther, Jr., the garage proprietor, with whom she lived, and then shot herself, died today at a Brooklyn hospital. Her last words expressed satisfaction that Gunther was dead. The woman said she shot him because he was untrue to her.

--Fort Wayne Weekly Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, September 8, 1909, page 2.



Chocolate quinine proved so toothsome to the five-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Byron Emley, of Huntington, that the little tot drank eight tablespoonsful of the medicine during the absence of her mother. The child will recover, but may be deaf as a result of the dose.

--Fort Wayne Weekly Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, September 8, 1909, page 2.

Robbers Wreck a Treasure Train

Newcastle, Pennsylvania, 1909
----------
ROBBERS WRECK A TREASURE TRAIN

Royal Blue Limited on the B. & O. Ditched Near Newcastle, Pa.

WERE AFTER CASH CARRIED BY TRAIN

Two Killed and Several Hurt When Train is Thrown from Track.

Newcastle, Pa., Sept. 4. -- The wreck of train No. 5, the Royal Blue limited on the Baltimore & Ohio, railroad which occurred at 12:25 this morning causing the death of two persons and injury of more than a score of others, is now believed to have been caused for the purpose of robbing the express car, which is known to have contained a large sum of money shipped from New York to western banks.

The Baltimore & Ohio officials declared the accident was a pure case of train wrecking, and immediately following the wreck stationed armed guards about the express car.

The train was west bound from Pittsburgh for Chicago and when two miles from Newcastle at a little place called Chewton, Pa., ran into a misplaced rail. Wreckers had removed two fish plates, moved the north rail inside and had pulled out the spikes. The entire train was thrown from the track. The great speed with which it was traveling caused all the cars and engine of the train to topple over on their sides and slip on with force over a small embankment.

Killed and Injured.

Following is a list of the killed and seriously injured as given out by the Baltimore & Ohio railroad company:

Killed:
CHAS A. DILL, engineer, Chicago Junction, O.
GEORGE WHEATCRAFT, train baggagemaster, Chicago Junction, O.

Injured:
E. P. Cavanaugh, chief boiler inspector, Baltimore & Ohio railroad, Baltimore.
Henry C. Millard, passenger, 54 years old, at hospital, Newcastle.
Charles Buki, Austrian, passenger, Joliet, jaw badly injured and knee sprained.
J. H. Lanson, single, 53 years old, residence Indianapolis, bad back, now in hospital at Newcastle.
Mrs. H. B. Seneff, passenger, 40 years old, Chadwick, Ill., in hospital Newcastle.
Master Kenneth Senneff, passenger, three years old, Chadwick, Ill., in hospital Newcastle.

Deliberate Case of Wrecking.

According to General Superintendent R. Finney it was a deliberate case of train wrecking. The rail on the right side was cut at the point and the spikes pulled on both sides nearly the entire length of the rail. The approach rail was moved in far enough to clear the wheels. The spikes were pulled by a bar. The bolts and nuts of the joint showed they had been removed with a Wrench. One splice bar was placed between the rails to keep them from going together. The motive for the dastardly act whether revenge or robbery, has not yet been determined. The officials of the road in Pittsburgh and the entire force Of detectives were dispatched to the scene and began a thorough investigation.

Immediately after the accident a train was made up and the uninjured passengers after being transferred continued their journey westward leaving at 5:25 o'clock this morning. The east bound tracks were not obstructed by the wreck and the westbound track was expected to be cleared about 10 o'clock.

Heroic Fireman Saves Lives.

That a hundred lives were not lost in the wreck, it was declared today was due to the bravery and quick action of fireman Purcell, who escaped death by a miraculous leap from the engine cab as the heavy engine and two cars somersaulted over a steep embankment.

When he felt the heavy engine on which he was firing, lurch and leave the rails, Purcell jumped to the right side of the cab and threw over the emergency brakes thus saving the ditching of the two Pullman sleepers attached to the flyer. The fireman's story is borne out by the fact that the brakes on the Pullman cars were found to be tightly set by wrecking crews.

Dead Number Three.

The list of casualties was augmented today by the death of E. P. Kavanaugh, chief boiler inspector of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, who died at the Newcastle hospital shortly after 11 o'clock. The total dead and injured according to the latest calculation is now three dead and seventeen injured.

Casting about for a motive for the train wreck, Baltimore and Ohio special police today attach special significance to the recent strike of the machinists employed on the road.

The railway people say the wreck was the work of railroad men, as the manner of extracting the bolts from the rails and the removal of the fish plates was done in a way indicative of experienced workmen.

Several former employes of the railroad were looked up by the special police during the morning. No arrests were made.




DENY TRAIN CARRIED MONEY

Pittsburgh, Sept. 4.— Officials of the United States Express company here stated today that no money was aboard the train No. 5 known as the Royal Blue limited, wrecked at Newcastle early today. The report that the train carried a large sum of money was said to be fiction for the reason that the express company carries no money whatsoever on that train, nor have they ever done so. The statement of the express company officials, it is believed eliminates the robbery motive of the train wreckers.

--Fort Wayne Weekly Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, September 8, 1909, page 2.