Absecon, NJ Auto And Train Collision, June 1922

FAMILY OF SIX KILLED ON R. R. CROSSING.

TRAIN DEMOLISHES AUTO NEAR ATLANTIC CITY.

Atlantic City, June 12. -- JOHN H. STRATTON, 30 years old, a printer of Georgia and Arctic Avenues, this city; his wife, CAROLINE, 30 years old, and their two children, FRANCIS, 9, and CARRIE, 8 years old, were instantly killed, while two other children, JOSEPH, 2, and DOROTHY, 6 years old, died in the City Hospital,
the result of a Pennsylvania express train crashing into a five-passenger car driven by STRATTON at the new road crossing at Absecon.
The automobile was demolished and STRATTON and his wife and the oldest child were jammed in the wreckage, terribly cut and lacerated. County Physician Souder, who made an examination of the bodies, said that all three had suffered fatal internal injuries.
There were no eye-witnesses of the tragedy, but former State Senator Edward A. Wilson, who has a summer home near by, and his son, Armstrong,
were working in their garden within a few hundred feet of the crossing. They heard the despairing screams of the occupants of the car, but before they could turn around, the crash came, and the wreckage was piled across the tracks. There is a signal bell but no flagman at the crossing. The bell was ringing and there is an unobstructed view for 200 or 300 yards from the road. The presumption is that STRATTON, who was bound up the new road toward the White Horse Pike, a few hundred yards distant, saw the train and tried to negotiate the crossing ahead of it. The express, in charge of Engineer Dan Hayes and Conductor Chambers, was traveling at high speed and struck the automobile sideways, bounding it along the track and bumping it again twice in quick succession, finally hurling it to the side of the track, where it turned over. The train proceeded, but according to Absecon residents stopped momentarily about two miles farther on, and then continued on its way to Philadelphia.

The News Frederick Maryland 1922-06-12
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!