Citation
  • "Locomotive Firemen's Magazine" (January 1905).
Data
  • Category: Transcript
Detail
  • Publisher: January 1905
Source Note
Submitted by Nick Hyslop, November 2008
Page: 136
  • Text: Lodge 391-- (Chas. A. Weckless, Ft. Madison, Ia.) Once more, and with bowed heads and tearful eyes, we drape our charter in mourning and thus pay the last sad rite to our brother, Woodson W. Harvey, who so suddenly met his death by a terrific explosion on the A.T. & S.F.R.R., engine 163, Brooks type, which was attached to a local freight, train no. 55, running between Ft. Madison, IA and Chillicothe, Ill.

    The exact time of the explosion was recorded by Bro. Harvey's watch, which stopped at five o'clock, seventeen minutes and seventeen seconds on the eve of Saturday, November 26, 1904. When within only six miles of home and nearing the little station of Pontoosuc, Ill., the terrible accident occurred. The force of the explosion was so great and engine was thrown up into the air and turned completely around, then going to pieces. The force of the explosion was downward, as well as upward, and a hole was made in the ground about four feet deep. It also demolished several freight cars and threw some on one side of the track and some on the other, besides breaking the windows or near dwellings and throwing a piece of grate through one side of a house and setting fire to one small out-building.

    Under the water tank of the engine, which like the engine, had been turned end for end and upsdie down, all that was mortal of Bro. Harvey was found torn into an unrecognizable mass, making interment immediately necessary. Engineer Joseph Milton was thrown entirely off the right of way, a distance of possibly seventy-five feet, and was seriously injured, but not fatally wounded. Brakeman Wm. Forsyth was also killed, as he stood on the steps of the doomed engine, and he leaves a wife and two children residing in Galesburg, Ill. Bro. Harvey boarded at the home of Mrs. M. L. Lane, at 1715 Front Street, and was only 25 years of age. He was held in high esteem in the community, being of a cheerful disposition, and his smiling face won him friends wherever he was known. Quite recently he united with the Christian Church of this place and was a devoted Christian. Three brothers and a sister survive him. One of the brothers is a soldier in the Phillipine Islands, one brother lives and in Oregon and the other in Berkley, W.Va. The sister, Mrs. Mary E. Thompson, lives at Fairmont, Mo. To her home the body was taken, but owing to the necessity of immediate internment only eighteen members of the B. of L. F. Lodge accompanied the body to Fairmont, and from there to the little church at Woodville, where avery touching funeral sermon was delivered.

    The floral offerings were beautiful and appropriate. He was buried in the beautiful little cemetery of Woodville, where, by the side of his parents, who had "gone before," sleeps in its last resting place the body of our brother, awaiting the last summons to receive his reward, and there again we hope to meet him where "we shall know, as we are known."

    "Leaves have their time to fall,
    Flowers to wither at the north wind's breath:
    The stars to set, but thou hast all
    Seasns for thine own, O Death!"
Events & Attributes
PersonClaimDateDetailAgeEvidence
William Marion ForsythDeathNov 26, 1904Pontoosuc, Illinois, United States [S2] [S6] [S12] [S13] [S873] [S1075:136] [S1110:19041129] [S1113:19041128] [S1154] [S2706:19540424]
Sante Fe Railroad engine boiler explosion
33y9m
primary
William Marion ForsythOccupationrailroad brakeman [S862] [S1075:136] [S1113:19041129] [S2214:Galesburg]
primary