A Locomotive’s Boiler Bursts.
BALTIMORE, Md., Sept. 26.—The engine attached to the Baltimore and Ohio train from New York, due here at 8:30 to-night, burst her boiler about a mile outside the city limits. The engine was completely wrecked, and the baggage and smoking cars telescoped. Fireman Charles Lizer was scalded fatally, and Engineer Jeremiah Morningstar was badly injured. Two passengers were slightly hurt.
Culled from the collection of The Comtesse DeSpair
1886 Morbid Scrapbook
A YACHT DISASTER.
Four Members of a Pleasure Party Go Down With the Wreck.
ST. JOHNS, N. F., Sept 24.—A disaster occurred in the Bay of St. Johns this morning, the British schooner Mary Ann, and cutting her in two. There were twenty-seven persons on board the ill-fated craft, four of whom were drowned. Their names were Charles Weeks, Nicholas Milley, Leander Milley and Sarah Ann Fahey. The others saved themselves by clinging to the main rail of the Summerset or were picked out of the water by her boats.
The Mary Ann sank within two minutes after the collision. Fahey had hold of his wife’s hand, and was drawing her out of the companionway of the sinking vessel, when the mainmast and mainsail fell, parting husband and wife forever. Gregory Leman, another passenger, was fatally injured.
Culled from the collection of The Comtesse DeSpair
1886 Morbid Scrapbook
On Friday of last week Mr. Daniel Dunn, an old man about 75 years old, living with Garret Joyce of Washington Lake [Minnesota], went into the field to burn some brush and while so doing his clothes caught fire, and although assisted by the daughter of Mr. Joyce, before the fire could be extinguished he was so badly burned that he died in a few minutes after being helped to the house. On arriving at the house he asked for bread and coffee, but before he had tasted them death intervened. [April, 1878]
Culled from Coffee Made Her Insane
CHICAGO, Sept. 27.—Attorney Lawrence J. J. Nissen was found lying dead in his office at 170 East Madison street yesterday morning. Upon a table near by stood an empty morphine bottle. At his late home, 107 Schiller street, whither the body was at once conveyed, the theory of suicide is discredited, and the confidence expressed that he died of paralysis. The deceased was for forty years a resident of Chicago, and was formerly a partner of Judge Barnum in the law business. He was fifty-nine years of age and leaves a wife and several grown children.
Culled from the collection of The Comtesse DeSpair
1886 Morbid Scrapbook
So I was going to put this in the “Suicide” category, but then I did additional research and found this article that made me change it to the “Accidental Death” category:
An inquest was held yesterday at No. 432 West Twelfth street on the body of the lawyer, Lawrence J. J. Nissen, who was found dead in his office, No. 170 East Madison street, Sunday morning. A partly emptied bottle labeled morphine was found on a table by the side of the dead man. From the testimony of the daughter, Miss Emma Nissen, a teacher of elocution, it was learned that the lawyer had for years past suffered from insomnia, and that he was always in the habit of taking the drug to induce sleep. Some five years ago he had a narrow escape from death by taking an overdose. Judge Barnum, a former law partner of deceased, also stated that Mr. Nissen was long a sufferer from sleeplessness. The verdict was in accordance with the facts.
Culled from the September 28, 1886 issue of the Chicago Tribune.
PITTSBURG, Pa., Sept. 28.—A lamp exploded in the house of Mrs. Mary Flanagan, on Penn avenue last night, badly burning four persons, one of them fatally. Mrs. Flanagan had unscrewed the burner from the lamp without extinguishing the light and was filling it up with oil. The flame suddenly flashed up and the burning fluid was scattered over Mrs. Flanagan, her daughter Sadie, aged eight years, and an infant aged eighteen months. Hugh McGuire, a boarder in the house, succeeded in putting out the flames, his hands being terribly burned. The injuries by Mrs. Flanagan and the daughter are not serious. The babe will die.
Culled from the collection of The Comtesse DeSpair
1886 Morbid Scrapbook
CHICAGO, Sept.28.—Near Andalusia, Ala., the three children (ranging from two to six years old) of a family went out Sunday afternoon to play near the house. A large tree had been blown down and they were playing around in the hole made by the roots of the tree being torn up. The afternoon passed and at night the children were missed. The parents instituted search, and they soon found them laying near the roots of the fallen tree. The two younger ones were dead and the eldest was in a dying condition. Upon investigation it was found that the children had all been bitten by a rattlesnake which had made its den under the roots of the tree. The bodies were terribly swollen, and looked as if they had been bitten in several different places. The elder child died during the night and the three innocents were buried together.
Culled from the collection of The Comtesse DeSpair – 1886 Morbid Scrapbook
A little boy named George Killian, aged six years, lost his life on Thursday last under most painful circumstances. In company with a younger brother he was playing upon a plank across the flume of Engle & Co.’s mill, from which it is supposed he fell into the water. The smaller boy missed him, and supposing he had stolen away, ran off in search of him. His inquiries excited alarm and Mr. Engle caused the gate to be closed, when it was found to be obstructed. The mill was stopped by choking the stones, and upon search, the body — except one leg, which had been severed and floated away — was found lying upon the top of the wheel, which is of the Turbine pattern, and has a lateral motion. It is supposed that the leg was forced into one of the buckets — they being too small to receive the whole body — and by contact with the case, in which the wheel revolved was crushed off. It was not found until after the body was interred. Coroner Barnes held an inquest which resulted in a verdict of “accidental death by drowning.”
Culled from the August 1, 1872 issue of the Mower County Transcript (Austin, Minnesota) as quoted in the excellent compilation book Coffee Made Her Insane.
LAFAYETTE, Ind. Oct. 3.—A horrible and fatal explosion occurred at Bringhurst, Carroll county, on Friday. A man named Britton came to the store of Shanklin & Kearns for some powder. Mr. Kearns, with a lighted cigar in his mouth, poured out the powder from a large can into the scales. In setting down the can the cigar was knocked from his mouth into the can of powder, which exploded with great violence, tearing out the front part of the building and scattering the goods into the street. It was a fearful wreck. Mr. Kearn’s arm was broken in two places, his shoulders were dislocated, and his head and face were burned in a frightful manner. He died in a few hours after intense suffering. Britton had both arms broken and was terribly burned. His injuries are fatal.
Culled from the collection of The Comtesse DeSpair – 1886 Morbid Scrapbook
It’s time for another ghastly tale from our troubled past, this one courtesy of Joy Kemnitz who sends a clipping from the November 5, 1868 issue of the The Sweetwater Forerunner, Sweetwater, Tennessee. As Joy says, “They really don’t pull any punches in the old article descriptions” – and that is why the Comtesse loves them so!
Special dispatch to the Louisville Journal.
CINCINNATI, Oct. 30.–One of the most horrible railroad accidents that has occurred in this vicinity for some time past, took place at Gravel Pit, a station distant about eighteen miles from this city, on the Ohio and Mississippi road last night about 8 o’clock. A special freight train left this city at 6:25 last evening in charge of Mr. Mills Howe, conductor, and Jos. Gardner engineer. Reaching Gravel Pit about 7 1/2 o’clock, the train was stopped on the main track for the purpose of taking in wood for the engine.
Shortly after the train stopped, while the brakeman was passing the wood aboard the tender, the engineer oiling the engine, the fireman piling the wood as it came on board, and the conductor and a party of little boys who had gathered about to see the locomotive standing alongside the engine, a powerful freight locomotive exploded her boiler with a report that was heard for miles around, and with such force that it killed the conductor, fireman, and one of the boys outright, and wounded two more of the boys, who have since died.–The engineer and a brakeman named Henry Howe, brother to the conductor, were also injured quite severely.
So terrible was the force of the explosion that the engine was shattered into fragments, some of which were blown to the Kentucky side of the river, a distance of nearly a mile, while others, large and small, have since been picked up around the scene of the accident within a radius of a thousand yards. The wood in the pile alongside was sent flying in the air in every direction, and a stationary engine used for sawing the wood and the house that enclosed it were blown to fragments.
The conductor was lifted up and thrown against the wood pile, struck in the face and body with several fragments of the boiler, and so fearfully mangled and burned by the escaping steam as to be almost unrecognizable. Both legs were broken and his body crushed to jelly, and his face and neck gashed and skull crushed. The fireman, John Malone, who was standing near the fire doors in a position to feel the full force of the explosion, was also horribly mangled and died instantly. His limbs were broken, body covered with cuts and bruises, and his skull blown off and brains spattered all over the river side of the water tank.
One of the boys named John Smith, son of one of the employees of the road, residing at the gravel pit, was blown a long distance of 300 yards against a gravel bank and instantly killed. He was about twelve years of age. His brother, a few years younger was also blown a long distance, together with the flying wood, and so badly injured that he has since died. The boy, Thos. Murphy, about fifteen years old, was lifted up and thrown a distance of fifty feet against a wood-pile, which fell on his body, completely hiding it from view. He died in a few minutes after being taken from the debris. His little brother, about six years of age was blown a distance of forty feet into a lot of tall weeds, where he was found crying lustily, but slightly injured.
Mr. Gardner was knocked down and badly injured in the head, shoulder, and hip.
Henry Howe, the brakeman, had his hip and knee crushed, and received internal injuries, which, it is feared, will prove fatal. Several other person were bruised by the flying fragments. The trucks of the engine were not moved from the track, nor the tender moved more than three feet backwards. the force seems to have acted from below, lifting the boiler up and scattering the fragments in all directions.
READING, Pa., Dec. 6.—Joseph Seaman, of this city, met a friend on the street today, who had a bottle, which he jokingly said contained old rye, and offered Seaman a drink. Seamon placed the bottle to his mouth, and before he could be stopped drank some of its contents, which proved to be ammonia. His stomach and intestines were so badly burned that he became unconscious at once. His injuries will prove fatal.
From the Collection of The Comtesse DeSpair
The 1886 Morbid Scrapbook