Greencastle, PA Auto Accident, Oct 1920 - Locked gear caused crash

Driver of Car in Fatal Accident Testifies Before Coroner THREE CRUSHED TO DEATH

Rowley Says Car Was Traveling Twenty Miles An Hour. Only One Eye Witness

Inquiring into the cause of the accident in which three Harrisburg people met death in an automobile fatality on the outskirts of Greencastle, on Sunday forenoon, the Franklin county jury, at Chambersburg, has returned a verdict that the accident happened when Stephen M. Rowley temporarily lost control of the car as it was descending the steep hill at the southern foot of the overhead structure. Rowley told the jury the car was not going more than twenty miles an hour, and that the steering gear locked when he tried to turn the care away from the embankment. He had been running the care since April and was of the opinion, he told the jurors, that he was a competent driver. Physicians gave testimony that the three victims had been crushed about their chests and that internal injuries had caused death, their lungs having been punctured by fractured ribs.

Coroner’s Jury

The jury that Coroner John H. Kinter impaneled consisted of prominent citizens of Chambersburg, as follows: Stuart L.. Brown, business manager of Public Opinion; Edward Henderson, merchant; David L. Greenwalt, druggist; M. R. Rhoads, architect and builder; James C. Clark, freight agent of the Pennsylvania System at Chambersburg, and John B. Diehl, former clerk of the Franklin county courts.

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LOCKED gear caused crash

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over the embankment. He told the jury he had just crossed and was several hundred feet from the bridge when his attention was attracted by screams of women. He looked around in time to see the auto falling down the embankment, with all four wheels in the air. Then the care seemed to turn over on its side, roll completely over and land beside the railroad tracks top down.

Calling to a couple of girls nearby to run for help, Kauffman ran to the scene of the accident and arrived there as the driver was rising to his feet in a stunned condition. The Care child was outside the wreckage and Kauffman’s first act was to carry her some distance away. The child was unhurt, except for a cut near one eye. She inquired of Mr. Kauffman: “I wonder if we can get a car back to Harrisburg?”

The remaining four of the party were then unconscious and under the wrecked car. A young man, who came along in a bicycle, was dispatched for physicians, and with the aid of a driver of another automobile, which had just come up, the driver of the ill-fated car and Kauffman began getting the two men and two women out of the wreckage. McClintock was pinned down by the car, the back of the front seat resting across his back. At first it was thought he was dead but after releasing him, it was found he was still breathing. Examination showed that his chest was crushed in.

*Page spelled incorrectly per article.

The Gettysburg Times – Gettysburg, PA., Wednesday, October 27th, 1920 – Front & Third Page
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