A SAD ACCIDENT
Mr. Tom P. Collins, section foreman for the railroad company, and for the past six or eight months a resident of this city, was killed by a Southern Pacific special train carrying a part of the Tennessee regiment of volunteers, en route home from Manila, last Monday morning at 7:36 (as shown by his watch which was crushed in the accident and stopped at that time).
Mr. Collins left here at 7 o'clock with his crew of six or eight negro men. They had proceeded nearly to the Navidad, and just as they were emerging from a curve, they beheld not fifty yards away an engine and train of cars traveling at a rapid rate of speed and bearing down upon them.
Quickly giving orders to his men, they stopped the car, and, as there was danger of wrecking the on-coming train with its hundred of passengers if the hand car was left on the track.
Mr. Collins and his men endeavored to get it out of the way. In this they partially succeeded, but as the men saw they were in danger of being killed if they remained longer, they left the car and sought a place of safety.
Not so with the brave section foreman! Believing that the lives of many others depended on that car being removed from the track, he stayed at his post of duty to the last moment, and when the huge mass of steel and iron struck him with the velocity of a cannonball, was instantly killed, his body being hurled nearly one hundred feet.
As quickly as possible the train was stopped, and the bruised broken body of this hero of the rail was tenderly taken up and brought on the train to Weimar, where Undertaker Walker and numerous friends prepared the body for burial.
There was hardly an unbroken bone in the poor man's body, the back of his skull was badly crushed, and cuts and bruises almost covered his body.
There is no question in the minds of those who saw the accident that poor Collins lost his life in the attempt to save the lives of others.
Mr. Collins was a quiet, unassuming gentleman, a man whom to know was to esteem; honorable in all his dealings with his fellow-men, and ever ready to aid those in distress. His remains were laid to rest in the Masonic cemetery Tuesday afternoon, Rev. T. E. Muse, pastor of the Baptist church, performing the last sad rites.
He leaves a heart-broken wife and four little children to mourn the loss of a kind and indulgent husband and father.
God pity and comfort them, is the sincere wish of the writer.
"Weimar Mercury, December 2, 1899"
Mr. Tom P. Collins, section foreman for the railroad company, and for the past six or eight months a resident of this city, was killed by a Southern Pacific special train carrying a part of the Tennessee regiment of volunteers, en route home from Manila, last Monday morning at 7:36 (as shown by his watch which was crushed in the accident and stopped at that time).
Mr. Collins left here at 7 o'clock with his crew of six or eight negro men. They had proceeded nearly to the Navidad, and just as they were emerging from a curve, they beheld not fifty yards away an engine and train of cars traveling at a rapid rate of speed and bearing down upon them.
Quickly giving orders to his men, they stopped the car, and, as there was danger of wrecking the on-coming train with its hundred of passengers if the hand car was left on the track.
Mr. Collins and his men endeavored to get it out of the way. In this they partially succeeded, but as the men saw they were in danger of being killed if they remained longer, they left the car and sought a place of safety.
Not so with the brave section foreman! Believing that the lives of many others depended on that car being removed from the track, he stayed at his post of duty to the last moment, and when the huge mass of steel and iron struck him with the velocity of a cannonball, was instantly killed, his body being hurled nearly one hundred feet.
As quickly as possible the train was stopped, and the bruised broken body of this hero of the rail was tenderly taken up and brought on the train to Weimar, where Undertaker Walker and numerous friends prepared the body for burial.
There was hardly an unbroken bone in the poor man's body, the back of his skull was badly crushed, and cuts and bruises almost covered his body.
There is no question in the minds of those who saw the accident that poor Collins lost his life in the attempt to save the lives of others.
Mr. Collins was a quiet, unassuming gentleman, a man whom to know was to esteem; honorable in all his dealings with his fellow-men, and ever ready to aid those in distress. His remains were laid to rest in the Masonic cemetery Tuesday afternoon, Rev. T. E. Muse, pastor of the Baptist church, performing the last sad rites.
He leaves a heart-broken wife and four little children to mourn the loss of a kind and indulgent husband and father.
God pity and comfort them, is the sincere wish of the writer.
"Weimar Mercury, December 2, 1899"
A SAD ACCIDENT
Mr. Tom P. Collins, section foreman for the railroad company, and for the past six or eight months a resident of this city, was killed by a Southern Pacific special train carrying a part of the Tennessee regiment of volunteers, en route home from Manila, last Monday morning at 7:36 (as shown by his watch which was crushed in the accident and stopped at that time).
Mr. Collins left here at 7 o'clock with his crew of six or eight negro men. They had proceeded nearly to the Navidad, and just as they were emerging from a curve, they beheld not fifty yards away an engine and train of cars traveling at a rapid rate of speed and bearing down upon them.
Quickly giving orders to his men, they stopped the car, and, as there was danger of wrecking the on-coming train with its hundred of passengers if the hand car was left on the track.
Mr. Collins and his men endeavored to get it out of the way. In this they partially succeeded, but as the men saw they were in danger of being killed if they remained longer, they left the car and sought a place of safety.
Not so with the brave section foreman! Believing that the lives of many others depended on that car being removed from the track, he stayed at his post of duty to the last moment, and when the huge mass of steel and iron struck him with the velocity of a cannonball, was instantly killed, his body being hurled nearly one hundred feet.
As quickly as possible the train was stopped, and the bruised broken body of this hero of the rail was tenderly taken up and brought on the train to Weimar, where Undertaker Walker and numerous friends prepared the body for burial.
There was hardly an unbroken bone in the poor man's body, the back of his skull was badly crushed, and cuts and bruises almost covered his body.
There is no question in the minds of those who saw the accident that poor Collins lost his life in the attempt to save the lives of others.
Mr. Collins was a quiet, unassuming gentleman, a man whom to know was to esteem; honorable in all his dealings with his fellow-men, and ever ready to aid those in distress. His remains were laid to rest in the Masonic cemetery Tuesday afternoon, Rev. T. E. Muse, pastor of the Baptist church, performing the last sad rites.
He leaves a heart-broken wife and four little children to mourn the loss of a kind and indulgent husband and father.
God pity and comfort them, is the sincere wish of the writer.
"Weimar Mercury, December 2, 1899"
Mr. Tom P. Collins, section foreman for the railroad company, and for the past six or eight months a resident of this city, was killed by a Southern Pacific special train carrying a part of the Tennessee regiment of volunteers, en route home from Manila, last Monday morning at 7:36 (as shown by his watch which was crushed in the accident and stopped at that time).
Mr. Collins left here at 7 o'clock with his crew of six or eight negro men. They had proceeded nearly to the Navidad, and just as they were emerging from a curve, they beheld not fifty yards away an engine and train of cars traveling at a rapid rate of speed and bearing down upon them.
Quickly giving orders to his men, they stopped the car, and, as there was danger of wrecking the on-coming train with its hundred of passengers if the hand car was left on the track.
Mr. Collins and his men endeavored to get it out of the way. In this they partially succeeded, but as the men saw they were in danger of being killed if they remained longer, they left the car and sought a place of safety.
Not so with the brave section foreman! Believing that the lives of many others depended on that car being removed from the track, he stayed at his post of duty to the last moment, and when the huge mass of steel and iron struck him with the velocity of a cannonball, was instantly killed, his body being hurled nearly one hundred feet.
As quickly as possible the train was stopped, and the bruised broken body of this hero of the rail was tenderly taken up and brought on the train to Weimar, where Undertaker Walker and numerous friends prepared the body for burial.
There was hardly an unbroken bone in the poor man's body, the back of his skull was badly crushed, and cuts and bruises almost covered his body.
There is no question in the minds of those who saw the accident that poor Collins lost his life in the attempt to save the lives of others.
Mr. Collins was a quiet, unassuming gentleman, a man whom to know was to esteem; honorable in all his dealings with his fellow-men, and ever ready to aid those in distress. His remains were laid to rest in the Masonic cemetery Tuesday afternoon, Rev. T. E. Muse, pastor of the Baptist church, performing the last sad rites.
He leaves a heart-broken wife and four little children to mourn the loss of a kind and indulgent husband and father.
God pity and comfort them, is the sincere wish of the writer.
"Weimar Mercury, December 2, 1899"
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