Rufus Buchanan McClelland was Anna Mae's uncle, but sadly she never met him. He was one of the McClelland mysteries I inherited when my mother died. He was living with his parents in the 1870 census, but couldn't be found in the 1880 census.
 |
| Rufus Buchanan McClelland |
Ten years ago I visited Marion County and examined the records of the Marion County Genealogical & Historical Society. Their McClelland file had only this on Rufus, "Rufus McClelland, born 1857, died before 1889–killed in a railroad accident in Indiana." Not much help there. I searched every newspaper database available online but never found him. I did learn railroads were a dangerous place to work. There were an awful lot of railroad accidents in Indiana in the 1880s.
I didn't find another clue until I went through the entire run of the Marion County Genealogical Society's publication, Footprints of Marion County. They wisely sell it on cds and it was the best souvenir of Marion County that I brought home. Better even than the railroad spikes I picked up near the rail line that runs past the old McClelland farm near Sandoval-Odin.
For many years Dr. George E. Ross compiled "gleanings" from the Centralia, Illinois newspapers and submitted them to MCGHS for publication. I found this in one of those articles, “Railroads in Marion County–Newspaper Gleanings,” submitted by Dr. George E. Ross, 19 Orchard Drive, Sandoval, IL 62882, published in Footprints in Marion County, , Vol. 9 No. 1, Summer 1984, published by the Marion County Genealogical & Historical Society, P.O. Box 342, Salem, IL 62881, page 65
Marion County Herald 24 November 1876 “Rufus McClelland, son of Alexander, was scalded to death in a railroad accident near Shoals, Ind.”
Articles on the accident were quickly located in newspaper databases. A passenger train going west on the Ohio and Mississippi railroad collided wit a freight train this afternoon near Shoals, killing the engineer, Scott, and the firemen, Kieffer. Some of the passengers sustained slight injuries. Rufus McClelland was not mentioned in any newspaper. I was bummed.
Then I realized the Herald may have confused the Shoals accident with another one in Indiana. Maybe there were two deadly accidents in Indiana on 4 November 1876.
There was. And it was widely reported. The brakeman killed in this horrific accident was named as Lucas McClelland, not Rufus.
The most complete coverage was published in the accident location's local newspaper. The kind folks at the Jackson County (Indiana) Historical Center sent it to me:
The Brownstown Banner, Brownstown (Jackson County), Indiana Thursday 23 November 1876
Printed and Published by William Frysinger
Jottings Roundabout Medora
SHOCKING RAILROAD CATASTROPHE.
Perhaps no case of railroad catastrophe, in glaring carelessness, equals the terrible one of the night of November 17th, 1876, at Sparksville, on the O. & M. road. A west bound freight train side-tracked at Sparksville to allow No. 3 (west bound night express) to pass. The rear brakeman of the freight train, supposing that the extra freight was following close and ahead of No. 3, left the switch gate open so that the extra could pull right in, and the brakeman who left the switch open and another brakeman took themselves to the caboose for a quiet sleep. The extra, however, instead of following to Sparksville, sidetracked at Medora for No. 3, which in due time came thundering along, having no stop to make at Sparksville. It ran on at high speed, of course, into the switch. The No. 3 engineer, beholding the situation, leaped from his engine just in time to save himself; but the engine mounted right into the freight caboose, smashing up both trains and springing a leak in No. 3’s boiler, which at once filled the caboose with hot water and steam, fearfully and fatally scalding the two unfortunate brakemen. Unutterable the agony which the poor fellows suffered, until, in a few hours, death came to their relief. The luggage car was literally crushed to atoms, but the baggageman, strange to say, escaped being killed, but had one leg fearfully snagged. No passengers were fatally injured, though several were slightly and two or three more severely wounded. But a few days before there had been a terrible colliding of trains at this station, fortunately with no fatal casualties. Collisions have occurred of late all along the road, always damaging the railroad property and often with loss of life. Why is it? If the company cannot, for its own interest, it ought to be compelled by statute to bring all its trains to a complete halt at every such locality as the one at Sparksville, where nothing can be seen on the track a train length ahead. It seems that at least one-half of the collisions occur under such conditions as that at Sparksville, where there are sharp curves around hills, the hills obstructing the view; or in deep cuts where the embankment obstructs the vision, so that two trains approaching can not see each other until the very moment of the collision. To say the least of it, certainly something might be done to insure safer passage of trains on such curves and close places without doing violence to time cards, and it certainly would not be amiss for the public good for the press to call the attention of the next Legislature to this matter of safer precautions for passage of railroad trains.
We might add that one of the brakemen killed was by the name of McClellan, whose father and uncle arrived at Medora on Sunday, and on Sunday night removed the corpse to the parents’ home in Illinois. The other brakeman’s name not being ascertained, nor the whereabouts of his people, the body was therefore buried at Medora Cemetery on Sunday evening last.
J.H.N.
Medora, Nov. 20, 1876
No comments:
Post a Comment