Pleasant View, WV Train Wreck, May 1907

WRECK FATAL TO THREE

Sixteen Others Hurt at Pleasant View, W. Va.

EXPRESS TRAIN LEFT RAILS

Was Speeding at the Rate of Sixty Miles an Hour – Three Coaches Rolled Down Embankment – Defective Rail Supposed Cause of Wreck – Relief Trains Hurried from Parkersburg.

Special to The Washington Post.

Parkersburg, W. Va., May 1. – Train No. 716, the fast flyer, northbound on the Ohion River division of the Baltimore and Ohio, was wrecked this afternoon at Pleasant View, three miles south of Ravenswood. Three persons were fatally injured, four seriously injured, and twelve injured so that physicians attentions were necessary. The wreck was caused by a defective rail, it is supposed. The entire train, except the engine, left the track and the three rear coaches turned over and rolled down an embankment. Nearly all the injured were in those coaches.

Fatally injured:

William Stanley, Pittsburg, traveling salesman; internally injured
Judge Ollie Ohley, Charleston, injured on head and back and probably internally
Richard Cowell, Parkersburg, injured in back, probably fatally.

The Seriously Injured.

Seriously injured:

F. E. Gettler, Gallipolis.
J. P. McNelly, Pittsburg.
Elbert Hager, Burlocksville.
Mathias Stiles, Lincoln Cocnty, [sic] W. Va.
R. L. Stowers, Hager Post-office.
Rhoda Stowers.
E. M. Hager, Hager, W. Va.
Amelia Hager.

Six or eight others were cut and bruised.

Among those on the train not injured was Adjt. Gen. S. B. Baker, of Clarksburg. He was badly shaken up, but did not require the attention of a physician.

Trains Hurried to Scene.

News of the disaster reached here shortly before 5 o’clock. A wrecking train, followed closely by a special, on which were dozens of physicians, was hurried to the scene. The relief train returned with the injured at 8 p. m.

The wreck occurred about 3 o’clock p.m. while the train was running sixty miles an hour. The tender of the engine left the track first and was followed over an embankment by three of the five coaches.

The Washington Post, Washington D.C. 2 May 1907

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DITCHED BY BAD TRACK

Twenty Persons Injured in Wreck at Pleasant View, W. Va.,

Parkersburg, W. Va., May 2. – A passenger train on the Ohio River division of the Baltimore & Ohio railroad, the fast fiver between Kenova and Pittsburg, was wrecked at Pleasant View last evening while running 60 miles an hour. The baggage car jumped the track, causing the locomotive and all five of the coaches to leave the track, the two rear cars turning over the embankment. Twenty persons were injured two fatally. The cause of the wreck is assigned to the bad condition of the track.

The most seriously injured are: Judge William A. Ohley, Charleston, W. Va., perhaps fatally; Captain T. R. Cowell, Parkersburg; William Stanley, Pittsburg, salesman; F. E. Gettler, J. P. McNelly, Pittsburg, salesman; Elbert Hager, Burlocksville, W. Va., Mathias Stiles, Lincoln, W. Va., E. M. Hager, Hager, W. Va.; Rhoda Stowers, Griffersville.

Indiana Evening Gazette, Indiana, PA 2 May 1907
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Transcribed by Jenni Lanham.