July 25, 1909

A washout made by the recent floods which had washed away practically all the support of the tracks, caused a part of Wabash train No. 4, out of Kansas City, to plunge into the Missouri river at Hull's Point, Mo., two miles east of Orrick about 10:15 o'clock last night. Orrick is thirty miles east of Kansas City.

Four are known to be dead and thirty-nine injured, some seriously.

The engine, baggage and express cars are in the river, almost entirely covered by water and the bodies of the engineer and fireman, a baggageman and a baby are buried in the wreckage.

The train consisting of engine and nine coaches left Kansas City for St. Louis at 9 o'clock last night in charge of Conductor W. M. Frye of St. Louis.

There were four sleepers on the train, one of them for Des Moines and according to Conductor Frye's story he carried sixty-eight passengers.

BIG CONSIGNMENT OF MONEY.
In the baggage and express car was Harry Eckhert, Pacific express messenger, who had charge of between $30,000 and $40,000 consigned to St. Louis.

Immediately after the news of the wreck reached Kansas City a relief train was sent out and all of the injured were brought to Kansas City.

The train bearing the injured and other passengers arrived at the Union depot at 2:30 o'clock this morning. Seven ambulances with surgeons were in waiting and the injured were given temporary treatment in the main waiting room before being taken to the hospitals.

An hour after the wrecked passengers reached Kansas City, a new train was secured and the uninjured passengers were sent on to their destination.

RIVER ATE BANK AWAY.
The train was running at 35 miles an hour when it reached the line of track, a quarter of a mile in extent, which had been undermined and washed away by the Missouri river. Into this space the train suddenly plunged, though passengers say that they felt the shock of the grinding brakes. At the point where the derailment occurred the track is practically straight and the river makes no perceptible curve.

The river had eaten its way fifty feet beyond the inmost rail so no vestige of track remained visible. When the engine struck the water it hurled itself forward carrying the baggage and mail car and sleeper with it. The baggage car crashed on top of the engine and the two were forced beneath the water, the engine being completely submerged and the baggage car standing on end in the water. The mail car overturned in the water and the clerks were forced to climb over the wreckage before they could get to safety. Every one of them was injured in some degree by the force of the shock.

The washout occurred after 6:30 o'clock, for at that time another Wabash passenger train, eastbound, went over the track in safety and no danger was noticed.

DIED AT POST OF DUTY.
Engineer Flowers and Fireman Bond both went into the river with their engine and were drowned. It is thought that the escaping steam would have scalded them to death even had they not been held under the water by the weight of the engine. Baggageman Harry Eckert was caught in his car which sank to the bottom of the stream and he was drowned like a rat in a trap.

The death of little Donald King, the infant who was thrown from his father's arms into the river, was particularly sad. The child was but 2 years old and both parents were with him and his two little sisters, but little older than himself. Just before the train was precipitated into the river his father took him forward to the toilet room. When Mr. King got to the front of the coach the first shock came and he lurched heavily. The child was forced from his arms in some way and, it is thought, fell into the stream through one of the open windows. When the parents were seen at the Union depot last night they were both so dazed they could hardly give a coherent account of the accident.

Ten or twelve people who were only slightly injured left the train at the scene of the accident and went back to Orrick, Mo. Their names could not be learned this morning.

BIG CROWD GATHERED.
News of the wreck was not long in reaching the depot and long before the relief train arrived the platform resembled the ward of a hospital. Along track No. 1 on which the train was scheduled to come in, was a long line of cots, while emergency surgeons in shirt sleeves strolled up and down or sat on the cots awaiting the arrival.

At about ten minutes past 2 o'clock there was a stir in the crowd of those waiting, the crowd having steadily increased as the news of the wreck filtered through the early morning air. A "flash" was received that the train had reached Randolph, just across the river, and would be at the station in ten minutes. Policemen showed up from apparently nowhere and took up their station along the track.

Ten minutes, twenty, thirty minutes passed and when shortly after the half-hour the train backed in. The crowd was so dense it was with difficulty the police made a passageway for the surgeons and stretchers.

LONG LINE OF WHITE COTS.
Conductor Frye was the first man off the train. As soon as his lantern flashed its signal to the waiting hospital attendants, a line of white cots came into view, while the police had a difficult time keeping back the morbidly curious.

"A man in the sleeper is badly hurt," said Frye.

Men carried in a cot and because of the crowd it was necessary to pass the cot holding the injured man through a car window.

Others were carried or helped out by trainmen, hospital attendants and uninjured passengers, some bleeding and dazed, with temporary bandages wrapped about heads, arms and bodies.

Those who were able were left for the time being to shift for themselves, while surgeons bent over the cots of the more seriously injured to administer temporary relief.

Meanwhile uninjured passengers besieged Frye to know when they could "go on."

"Just as soon as we can get a train crew," was the invariable reply of the patient conductor.

PASSENGERS AIDED DOCTORS.
Dr. Robert Sheetz and Dr. G. O. Moore of Orrick were the first physicians on the scene. They impressed those of the passengers who were able to assist them and gave temporary relief to most of the injured by the time the train reached Kansas City.

Miss Irene Dorton, 20, and Mrs. Sam Hackett, 40 years old, both of Orrick, were within a few miles of their home when the accident occurred. They had been visiting friends in Kansas City and were getting their luggage ready to get off the train when they were suddenly thrown out of their seats and across the aisle. Both lost consciousness and were revived by some of the passengers who were not as severely injured. They were attended by Drs. Sheet and Moore of Orrick.

"I can't tell you a thing about how the accident happened," said Miss Dorton, who was hurt the least. "I remember saying something to Mrs. Hackett about getting off the train, but that is all."

ONE OF THE WORST INJURED.
Frank Gardner, 40 years old, of Mount Vernon, was one of the worst injured. His hand was gashed and his left arm was almost crushed off. He was in the forward car and was caught beneath the wreckage.

"Our escape from death was simply miraculous," said Miss Mamie Donnelly of Mexico, Mo. "I was holding my little niece, Mary, 6 years old, in my lap, when suddenly a feeling passed through me similar to that one feels when riding a chute the chutes, then came a terrible jar and Mary was thrown clear out of my arms and her little head struck the roof of the car. I caught her dress and she fell back on me. We were both scratched a little but outside of the jar were not hurt."

BOTH OF THEM BRUISED.
Mr. and Mrs. C. F. Moore of Pueblo, Col, who were on their way to Huntsville, Mo., were both hurt. Mrs. Moore was badly bruised and cut and her back was sprained.

"We were in the chair car when the accident occurred," said Mr. Moore, "and we felt as if the earth just slipped out from beneath us. My wife was thrown against the side of the car and then into my arms. For a moment it felt as if we were to be engulfed and then all was still. Then came the cries for help. It seemed as if everyone was crying for help even though they were uninjured. Everyone was just panic stricken. I gathered my wife in my arms and we soon found ourselves outside the car. The scene was awful. The engine had bone beneath the river and was followed by several cars, we could not see how many. When I attended my wife's injuries I helped to look after the other passengers who were hurt."

BRAKEMAN SWAM ASHORE.
Z. T. Finney, the brakeman, was on the head end of the deadhead sleeper and was pitched far out into the Missouri river when the embankment gave way beneath the train. He was half buried beneath coal from the tender and was cut and bruised. The water restored him to consciousness and he swam to shore.

"I was on the head end of the deadhead sleeper," said Brakeman Finey, "when the crash came. Just before we went into the water I felt the platform sort of sway and a sickening, falling sensation came over me. The next I remember I felt myself hurled over the top of the tender and then all was blank until I found myself swimming back to the train. The engine as it sank into the soft bank came to a sudden stop, and this jammed the cars together and threw me over the tender. That's how I happened to get hurt, although I am lucky that I was not carried beneath the cars."

Finney's injuries, while severe, are not serious.

BABY LOST IN RIVER.
"I'll never forget this night as long as I live," said Miss Birdie Dugan of 2829 St. Louis avenue, St. Louis, who was on the wrecked train. "It was terrible to see the injured as they were brought into our car, and to think of the others lying in the river. A man in our car lost his baby right out of his arms, and it went into the river. The poor mother was just a little distance away. There was an awful crash as the car broke in two, and the roof came down and the sides came together and caught so many people so they could not move. Everybody worked to get them out before the other half of the car fell into the river. The accident occurred shortly after 10 o'clock. We left Kansas City at 9 o'clock, right on time."

WOMAN DOCTOR AIDED.
Dr. Mary Turner Loahbeck of 2829 St. Louis avenue, St. Louis, Mo., was on the train, and assisted in aiding the injured. "About all that was possible for me to do was to bandage the cuts," the doctor said. "I had no bandages with me, but we secured twenty or thirty sheets from the sleeping cars, and tore them into bandages. I attended about twenty people myself. The people of Orrick, Mo., were very kind. They gave us dry underclothing for the persons who were wet, and offered us all the assistance they were able to render."

Had it not been for the fact that the Wabash train No. 9, being the passenger train from Boston, was delayed at Moberly an hour, it would have met the fate of its sister train. If the train No. 9 had been on scheduled time it would have reached the washout before No. 4. Train No. 9 was due in Kansas City at 9:45, but arrived at 2:40, just after the relief train got into Kansas City. No. 9 was detoured over the Missouri Pacific after having been held for three hours by the wreck.

Labels: accident, children, death, Des Moines, drowning, flood, Missouri river, railroad, St Louis

December 9, 1908

Information that men and women who had participated in the shooting had escaped and were making their way to a houseboat they had moored in the river was given to the police. Chief of Police Daniel Ahern ordered Captain Walter Whitsett, Lieutenant Al Ryan and Inspector of Detectives Charles Ryan to go to the river with thirty detectives and patrolmen.

When the officers arrived at the river bank, foot of Delaware street, they found one woman, two girls and a boy guarding the boat. Inspector Charles Ryan acted as the spokesman for the police and, climbing down the sand embankment, approached the gang plank. He was stopped by the woman, Mrs. Della Pratt, who threatened to shoot. The woman stood at the head of the scow gesticulating with her left hand as she warned the officers not to come any nearer, while she kept her right hand on a rifle hidden behind the canvas flap of the boat covering. Lining the top of the bank for a block in each direction, people stood watching the police trying to induce the woman way from the boat. She refused to allow anyone to approach the boat nearer than the end of the gang plank.

When ordered to come out on the bank she said she would give herself up if the police would bring Mrs. Melissa Sharp to the river and allow her to talk to her. The police refused to grant her request. Then she asked them to have James Sharp, whom she called "Adam," brought to the house boat.


For forty-five minutes the police argued with the woman and pleaded with her to surrender, but she stubbornly refused. Her two daughters, Lula, 14, and Mary, 11, joined the tirade against the police. While the officers did not want to shoot the woman and two girls, they were afraid to make a run for the boat, as it was believed that some of the men might be in it.

Finally a woman allowed William Engnell, a 15-year-old boy, to leave the boat and the police officials urged him to try to influence the woman to give up. He returned to the boat, but he did not have any success and again left the boat and was placed under arrest.

Untying a skiff which was alongside of the small houseboat, the woman ordered the two girls into it, and taking several revolvers and a rifle, the woman entered it and shoved off toward midstream. As the skiff, which had a canopy over it in the bow, floated out into the current, loud cheers rent the air from many of the persons in the crowd who sympathized with the woman and her kind.


Mayor Thomas T. Crittenden, Jr., and Police Commissioner Andrew E. Gallagher were spectators along the river bank, and had ordered the police not to shoot the woman and children. But it was seen that the woman and children would soon be out of reach, Mayor Crittenden gave the police permission to attempt to shoot holes in the boat in an attempt to endeavor to compel the woman to put back to shore.

Immediately upon receiving the order, Lieutenant Harry E. Stege, armed with a riot gun, shot at the boat and his fire was at once returned by the woman, who used a Winchester. As the bullets from the skiff were aimed at the crowd and were heard to sing as they passed overhead, the crowd wavered and finally broke and ran. The police fired volley after volley at the skiff, but could not tell whether the bullets were having any effect. After using all of the ammunition in the boat, the woman sat down and the girls got under the canopy.

Previously, and during the shooting, the three had been standing up in the boat, singing and waving their arms. It was seen that the boat had passed behind the range of the police guns and a new form of attack had to be planned. Mayor Crittenden ordered several patrolmen to enter a skiff and follow the fanatical woman and her children. He ordered them to stay out of rifle range but to keep them in view and arrest them at the first opportunity.


But as the crowd of police officers and followers ran east along the river bank they came to the Ella May, a ferry boat, and impressed it into service. The captain of the boat was ordered to follow the floating skiff and near the piers of the old Whiner bridge the Ella May drew alongside of the skiff and its occupants. Inspector Ryan and Captain Whitsett asked them to take the woman out of the water.

The water became so shallow that the ferry boat had to back up, and it was then steered to the regular Harlem landing and the police ran up to where McCoy was standing on the bank with Mrs. Pratt and her daughter, Mary.

The woman informed the officers that her other daughter, Lula, 14 years old, had been shot in the cheek and was in the boat. The little girl's dead body was huddled in the bow of the skiff. It was placed on some bedding found in the skiff and two patromen rowed it back to the foot of Main street, where an ambulance was waiting. The woman and living child were put on the ferry boat and brought to police headquarters. The dead child's body was sent to Wagner's morgue.


With her clothes wringing wet from dropping into the water as she attempted to get out of the boat after her mother said they would surrender, Mary Pratt, 11 years old, stood shivering on the sand bank near Harlem. An officer shed his coat and wrapped it around her. Pity was expressed by every police officer for the girl, but none was shown for the woman who was led to the boat with her wet clothes clinging to her body.

They were placed in the engine room while the ferry boat crossed the river, and then taken to the station in the police ambulance. While crossing the river Mary, who is a sweet-faced intelligent little girl, told about the shooting.

"Our faith you know teaches us that we have the right to kill police who interfere with us. We were strangers and did not know we had to have a permit to sing in the street. When the officer came out there and told us to get off the street, then we believed that they were not peaceful and we had a right to shoot them."

"Does your religion teach you that it is right to kill people?" was asked. "No, you be just and understand my position," Mary said. "We are a peace-loving people and believe that this country is free and we have a right to preach on the streets. If the police try to stop us our religion teaches us to believe that they are wrong and should be killed."

"Did you all have guns with you up town, Mary?" was asked by Lieutenant Al Ryan.

"Yes, we all had guns except Dewey and Edna. Papa had given them to us and we always carried them when we went up town to preach," she said. As she told her story she smiled every little while, and the fact that her sister had been killed did not seem to trouble her.

She told the police that the tribe of religious fanatics had drifted down the Missouri river from North Dakota, where they had spent the summer. Two boys named William and Alexander Engnell joined the clan at Two Rivers, S. D. The boys lived at Pelan, Minn. Alexander fell from the faith, Mary said, and left the band before they reached Iowa. William is still with the people and was arrested at the houseboat.

Labels: Adam God sect, boats, Captain Whitsett, children, Delaware street, Fourth street, guns, Harlem, Main street, Mayor Crittenden, ministers, Missouri river, murder, Police Chief Ahern, violence, women