Terra Cotta, DC Train Wreck, Dec 1907

APPALLING DISASTER ON B. & O. RAILROAD

Engine Plows Through Local Train Near Washington

TRACKS STREWN WITH DEAD

Thirty-eight Die in Wreck – Three Crowded Cars Demolished – Dead Train Ran Past Signal in Thick Fog.

Washington, D. C. -- The fatal error of an engineer in passing a black signal light that he could not see in the fog, thus letting two trains in “on the same block” to follow each other over the same track, was the cause of a frightful rear-end collision on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad at Terra Cotta, in the outskirts of this city.
The bodies of thirty-eight have been found, some of them mutilated beyond all hope of identification. It is by no means certain that this completes the list of killed. It may reach forty, or even fifty.
There were 200 passengers on the wrecked train, and more than forty per cent were either killed or injured.
The dead and injured were strewn along the track for half a mile. Sixty injured have been taken to various hospitals.
Four men have been arrested in an effort to fix the blame for the disaster. They are Engineer HENRY HILDEBRAND, of the rear train, that caused the collision; his fireman, McLEAN; Conductor HOFFINGER and the signal man at Takoma Park. They are locked up in the station at Terra Cotta. HILDEBRAND is almost demented. He babbles of the wreck from which he escaped miraculously.
It was precisely the same kind of an accident that snuffed out the life of President Samuel Spencer, of the Southern Railroad, on his own road, near Lynchburg, thirty days ago.
The identified dead are: DR. E. OLIVER BELL, optician, the Farragut, Washington: EDWARD M. BELT, white, fourteen years old, address unknown: Commodore P. BROWN, sixty years old, address unknown: DAN N. CARR, Kingston, Md.: ELDER O. L. DAILEY, Newark, Ohio: C. J. R. HALL, Baltimore: DR. E. GAITHER HARRIS, Washington: GEORGE HIGBIE, eight years old, Brookland, D.C.: HENRY HIGBIE, Brookland, father of GEORGE HIGBIE: T. A. KELLY, Kensington, Md.: Professor KING, organist Wesley Chapel, Kensington, Md.: MISS KOLL (a Y.M.C.A., card was found in her pocket): MARY LEFFOLD, thirty years old, employe Bureau Engraving and Printing, Washington: LEE LOWE, No. 1212 F street, Washington: MRS. J. McCAGHEY and her fourteen-year-old son: ELIZABETH PURMAN, Takoma Park: NORMAN ROGERS, white, Marion, Ind.: I. RUPPERT, Washington, merchant.
The disaster occurred in a dense fog. The wrecked train was a local from Frederick, Md. It was ran down by a special equipment train, comprised of eight empty cars. Two of the coaches on the local were reduced to splinters. The other two coaches, one a smoker, were shattered from end to end, but remained on the trucks.
The local was just pulling out of the Terra Cotta station, after taking on about a dozen passengers. The special came flying along at sixty miles an hour and drove with irresistible force through the two rear coaches.
A spur of track runs of the side of the hill to the terra cotta works behind the station. There was a flat car at the top of the hill, and, working free it ran away down the hill and crashed into the wreck. A score of passengers struggling to release themselves from the wreckage were caught before the flat car, which almost cut clean through the smoking car.
Six bodies have been taken from under the front end of the flat car, and the railroad officials say it will never be known in which of the two crashes these passengers met death.
The first news of the accident came from Brookland, where it was carried by United States District Attorney D. W. Baker. Although Baker's right heel was cut off in the wreck, and he was injured internally, he walked the mile and a quarter to Brookland and over the telephone sent in the call for ambulances. He collapsed when he was attempting to hang up the receiver and is in a serious condition. His heel was cut off clean below the ankle. He stopped the flow of blood by binding his leg with a silk handkerchief, and, without waiting at the wreck, started at once on his terrible trip. It is feared it may be necessary to amputate his foot.
Great difficulty was experienced in giving assistance to the injured and in removing the dead owing to the remoteness of Terra Cotta, which despite its comparative nearness to the capital, is a rural spot without police or post office. The situation was made worse by the telegraph office there being closed for the night. There are only a few houses in the place, and with no facilities for helping the seriously injured all the helpless taken from the wreck were forced to lie on the ground in unrelieved agony until DRS. FRISCHERN, STERN and BROOKS arrived from Brookland in an automobile.

The Cranbury Press New Jersey 1907-01-04
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!