TRAIN WRECK AND FIRE KILL 100 IN MICHIGAN

NEARLY ALL OF THE VICTIMS IMMIGRANTS ON THEIR WAY WEST.

Disaster Due to Violation of Orders -- Relief Special Sent from Detroit -- Mangled Bodies Scattered Along the Track.

Special to The New York Times.
Detroit, Nov. 27 -- As the result of a head-on collision on the Wabash Railroad one mile from Seneca, Mich., at 6:45 o'clock this evening, 100 passengers, most of whom were immigrants, lost their lives. The list of the injured will probably reach 50.
There were 141 passengers on Train No. 13, including 20 first-class passengers from Detroit. On No. 4 there were about 30 Chicago and St. Louis passengers bound through to New York and other eastern points. Train No. 13 consisted of a baggage car and two day coaches filled with immigrants bound from New York to Western points, and two Pullmans.
The immigrants were transferred from train No. 13 this afternoon in Detroit and were packed into the day coaches like sardines. Wabash officials in Detroit estimate that the greater loss of life occurred in these coaches, which were light. Meagre advices state that the baggage car and coach next to it were smashed into splinters and afterward caught fire, creating a holocause in which the dying found a fiery death. The third coach was telescoped as well as part of the next car, which was a Pullman.
The twenty Detroit passengers, it is said, with but one or two exceptions, occupied seats in the Pullman car, and it is not thought that the list of killed and wounded will include many of them. No. 4 consisted of a baggage car and a combination coach and sleeper. Most of the passengers were in the Pullman. The officials here believe that the loss of life on No. 4 will be heavy.
Thirty-two doctors from this city have gone to the wreck. The track at the point where the collision occurred was straight, and at first the officials could not understand how the accident could have happened. No. 13, which ordinarily is due to leave Detroit at 2:20 o'clock, was two hours late leaving here at 4:20.
The two trains met at Montpelier, Ohio, according to schedule, but to-day, according to reports, No. 4 had orders to wait for No. 13 at Seneca. The blame is therefore placed on the conductor or engineer of No. 4. Had this train been held at Seneca the accident would not have happened. Train No. 4 was due at Seneca at 6:43, according to the change in schedule, but apparently orders to wait were disobeyed and the probabilities are that the true story of why will never be told, as the train crews undoubtedly met instant death.
Advices from the wreck at midnight state that the country for miles around is lighted up by the burning cars, and that the flames could not be quenched because of lack of proper apparatus. Mangled bodies were picked up along the track by the farmers before the special train sent from Adrian arrived on the scene.
In some instances the bodies were mangled beyond all recognition. The bodies which the rescuers managed to pull from the burning ruins of the immigrant cars were so badly burned that their identity will probably never be ascertained.
Those railroad men who have seen the wreck declare it to be the worst that ever happened in Michigan, not even excepting the Grand Trunk wreck near Battle Creek in 1893 during the World's Fair.
As soon as the news of the disaster reached Superintendent BIERNS of Detroit the wires were kept hot ordering specials from Adrian, Peru, and Montpelier to the scene of the wreck. At 8:40 a special train from Detroit, carrying physicians and surgeons, started for Seneca and was given right of way. When it reached the scene of the wreck the work was at once commenced of succoring the wounded.
A special from Adrian bearing all the doctors and surgeons in the city had been at work for an hour, but the flames retarded the work of rescue. The wounded had been placed on stretchers in the coaches sent from Adrian.
At 10:40 o'clock the first train loaded with wounded left the scene of the wreck for Adrian. The dead were left behind to be carried in on a later train.
The wrecking train ordered from Montpelier, thirty miles away, arrived shortly after 9 o'clock, but the heavy vestifuled cars of No. 4 lay between it and the burning immigrant cars, so that but little aid could be rendered by the rescuers.
When the special train reached Adrian the wounded were carried in ambulances, drays, and delivery wagons to the hospitals until they were filled, when private residences in the nieghborhood were pressed into service. The engines of both trains were reduced to scrap iron and the engineers and firemen on both perished. They were buried underneath a heap of iron and telescoped cars, which are burning fiercely.
Advices state that the regular passenger train following No. 4 took a number of the wounded back to Montpelier. No. 4 and No. 13 were considered to be the two fastest trains on the road. Both were behind time, and the probabilities are that they were running at the rate of fifty miles an hour when the accident happened.

The New York Times New York 1901-11-28
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!