New Palestine, Indiana
Train Wreck
September 21, 1910
Farmer is Seriously Injured on Rushville
Line.
Fred W. Claffey, 45 years old, driving near New
Palestine, Ind., was thrown from a covered farm
wagon five miles out on the Rushville division
of the Indianapolis & Cincinnati line at 7:15
o’clock last night when an inbound express car,
No. 403, struck the horse attached to the wagon
and instantly killed the animal. Claffey
sustained injuries to the right leg which
necessitated amputation last night at St.
Vincent’s Hospital after he was brought to
Indianapolis by the crew of the express car.
According to the crew of the Rushville car,
Motorman Clyde Clarkson, 817 East Twenty-third
street, and Conductor Harry Stricker, Rushville,
the car was going at the rate of twenty miles an
hour at the time it struck Claffey’s rig.
Motorman Clarkson said last night that he
whistled for the road on which Claffey was
driving, and before he reached the crossing
whistled again for a curve just the other side
of the road. Clarkson said the car was but ten
feet away from the wagon when he saw it and that
the car struck the vehicle full force.
The shock as the car struck the body of the
horse, standing partly on the track, bent and
broke the big headlight of the express. Pieces
of flying glass from a front window, broken by
the impact, sailed over the head of Conductor
Stricker, who was sitting on the right side of
the car, near the front windows. It was
miraculous, according to the crew that Claffey
was not killed instantly.
The Indianapolis Star, Indianapolis, IN 22
Sept 1910
Transcribed by
Loraine Jordan. Thank you, Loraine!
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