Junction City, WI Train Accident, Aug 1913

THE FATALITY AT JUNCTION CITY

Name of Unfortunate Young Man Was James Ward Instead of James Wade.

The similarity in the names "James Wade" and "James Ward" occasioned a number of mis-statements in the article relating to the fatality that occurred at Junction City Monday morning and which was contained in that evening's Journal.

James Wade was a laborer employed with a Soo lone steel gang having rails at Withee. He was paid off on Saturday evening and of course had Sunday to himself.

When the news of the death of the young man under freight train No. 37 was received over the wires the local Soo officials quite naturally took it for granted that the victim was James Wade. Instead the man's name was James Ward and he was in no way connected with the Soo line, except that he had been riding on that company's trains. When the accident occurred Ward was in company with Thomas Pickering Both were from Lowell, Massachusetts, but until June of this year, when they met at Detroit, they had never know each other. Pickering, according to the deposition taken by Coroner Boston, was employed in a motor shop at Detroit, while Ward had a position in a creamery in the same city. They left Detroit together on Friday, August 1, and went to Chicago, by way of Gary Indiana. They reached Chicago in the evening of the same day and went to the yards of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railway. On Saturday afternoon they left for Milwaukee on a freight train, reaching there at 11 o'clock in the evening. At 12:30 o'clock Sunday morning they boarded a Soo line freight out of Milwaukee and arrived in Stevens Point at 5 o'clock in the afternoon.

They slept in the grass, probably near the local yards, until 6:30 o'clock the next morning when they boarded local freight No. 37. They got off at Junction City and purchased a cup of coffee and a sandwich each at a restaurant and attempted to board the train as it started out. Pickering caught the train in safety but Ward fell beneath the wheels His left leg was severed at the hip and he was bruised on other parts of his body, death being instantaneous.

From all that can be learned Ward was a clean liver, not addicted to drink. In his clothes were found letters sent from Lowell, in which mention is made of his parents and other relatives. One letter was dated July 29 and was from his mother. In it she stated that she was sorry that he had lost his position in the Detroit creamery and that she would miss the $3 he had been sending home each week

A telegram was sent to the chief of police at Lowell, Massachusetts, Monday night asking him to notify the relatives of the young man. As yet no reply has been received.

The Stevens Point Journal, Stevens Point, WI 9 Aug 1913
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