Hodges, TN Train Wreck, Sept 1904

FIFTY-FOUR DEAD IN SOUTHERN WRECK

List of Injured Reaches Over Hundred and Some of These Will Die.

Unaccountable Disobedience of Orders Responsible for Terrible Wreck in Tennessee.

Knoxville, Tenn., Sept. 24 – Running on a road bed in a supposedly high condition of maintenance and having about them every safeguard known to modern railroading, two trains of the Southern railway, carrying heavy lists of passengers, came together in a frightful head-end collision near Hodges, Tenn., today, killing fifty-four persons and injuring one hundred and twenty, several of whom will probably die.

ORDERS DISOBEYED.
This appalling loss of life and maiming of the living resulted apparently from disregarding orders given the two trains to meet at a station which has long been their regular meeting point. The claim of failure to see the station or signals cannot be set up by the engineer of the westbound train were he alive to enter a plea of defense, as the accident happened in broad daylight and, according to the best information obtainable, he had the order in a little frame in front of him as his engine rushed by New Market station and soon after came full upon the eastbound passenger train making for New Market, in compliance with instructions to meet the westbound train.

ENGINEER DEAD OR ASLEEP.
The possibility exists that the ill-fated engineer may have been asleep or that death had suddenly taken the sight from his eyes before Hodges was reached. But nothing is known save that the orders were not obeyed.
The trains were on time and not making over thirty-five miles an hour, yet the impact as they rounded a curve and came suddenly upon each other was frightful. Both engines and the major portions of both trains were demolished and why the orders were disregarded or misinterpreted probably never will be known, as the engineers of both trains were crushed, their bodies remaining for hours under the wreckage of their locomotives.
Some of the bodies have not yet been recovered and many remain unidentified.

LIST OF KNOWN DEAD.
The known dead are:
RALPH MOUNTCASTLE.
W. E. GALBRAITH.
MRS. W. E. GALBRAITH.
MONROE ASHMORE, Knoxville.
JAMES KING.
Two Children of JAMES KING.
WILLIAM KANE, engineer, westbound train.
RICHARD PARROTT, engineer eastbound.
WILLIAM JONES.
JOHN T. CONNER.
MRS. JOHN T. CONNER and daughter.
MRS. W. O. HADDON.
W. M. BREWER.
REV. ISAAC EMORY, Knoxville.
All the above were of Knoxville.
JOHN BLACK, White Pine, Tenn.
JAMES MILLS, colored, fireman, New Market, Tenn.
ROSCOE KING, New Market.
E. G. ERNST, Johnson City, Tenn.
G. W. BROWN, Dandridge, Tenn.
J. D. BIRD.
R. R. GOODWIN, Jefferson City, Tenn.
J. B. GASS, wife and daughter, Dandridge, Tenn.
MRS. R. R. WEST, Grainger county, Tenn.
Eight Italian Immigrants, names unknown.
CLAYTON M. HATSKELL, Cincinnati.
MRS. MARY B. PHELPS, residence unknown.
An Unknown Man.
MRS. NANNIE MURRAY, Newport, Tenn.
MARY ETHEL SHIPP.
J. M. ADKINS, Jelllico, Tenn.
JOHN MOLINEAUX, Glenmary, Tenn.
J. KING, Newport, Tenn.
DR. D. A. FOX, Nashville, Tenn.
MISS ANNIE HAYLOW, Birmingham.
MRS. GEORGE KINZELL, Knoxville.
MRS. FANNIE McEWEN, Knoxville.
JULIA W. HADDOX, Dandridge, Tenn.
MRS. C. A. RUSSELL and two children, 7 and 5, Knoxville.
J. J. DANIEL, Tampico, Tenn.
D. S. FOX, Birmingham, Ala.

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