PARKER, William E.
Date of death: 15 Aug 1900 – Pierson, Montcalm County, Michigan
The Franklin Democrat, Friday, August 17, 1900,
Volume XLI Number 7, page 1 column 6
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SAD ACCIDENT
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Caused by Two Trains Colliding Near Cedar Springs Mich.
William Parker, living near Smiley’s Mill, left his home Tuesday evening for Traverse City Michigan. Wednesday at noon his cousin, E. G. Barnhizer, received a telegram announcing his death, the result of a railroad wreck near Cedar Springs, Mich.
Wednesday morning about five o’clock two passenger trains on the Grand Rapids and Indiana railway collided, and nine persons were instantly killed, among the number being Mr. Parker. Mr. Parker was on the train going north and when between Cedar Springs and Sand Lake the train was met by the train from the south. Both were running at a high rate of speed.
The collision was the result of a negligent telegraph operator who let the south bound train on the main track.
Mr. Parker was a well-known and respected farmer of this county, owning a farm of 200 acres just this side of the Shelby County line. He was fifty years of age and born in Shelby County. He leaves a family of grown children.
Mr. Barnhizer left Wednesday evening for Michigan to return with the body.
The News-Palladium (Benton Harbor, Michigan),
Thursday, August 16, 1900, page 6 columns 5-6
MET IN A DENSE FOG.
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Trains on the Grand Rapids & In diana Roads Collide.
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DISASTER OCCURS AT PIERSON, MICH.
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A Sleepy Operator Mainly Responsible for the Accident — Seven Persons Killed and a Number Injured
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Grand Rapids, Mich., Aug. 16—A dense morning fog, a changing of train orders and a moment’s drowsiness of a telegraph operator combined Wednesday morning to cause a collision and wreck of two of the heaviest and finest trains in the service of the Grand Rapids & Indiana railroad and the loss of seven lives and the injury of about a dozen more persons. All of the dead and most of the injured were employes [sic] of the company.
The Killed and injured.
THE DEAD— Letts, Charles M.; Grand Rapids, conductor of north-bound train No. 5.
Groetveild, Gilbert, Grand Rapids; engineer No. 5.
Fish, William H., Grand Rapids; engineer No. 2.
Woodhouse, Edward D., Grand Rapids; fireman of No. 5.
Boyle, Louis G., Grand Rapids; fireman of No. 2.
Pierson, C. [sic Parker, William E.] , passenger, of Franklin, Ind.
Levan, Ralph, son of baggage man Levan of Grand Rapids, who was in the car with the father.
FATALLY INJURED—Blossom, Mark, Grand Rapids, news agent, base of skull ruptured.
THE INJURED—Dennis, H. A., Grand Rapids, passenger, cut on hand, legs jammed, left shoulder hurt; Graves, W. M., Grand Rapids (colored) waiter on No. 5, compound fracture of right arm and badly cut; Ford, C. M., Grand Rapids (colored) waiter on No. 5, injured about legs and chest; Powers, David C., Grand Rapids, baggageman No. 2, scalp wound, throat cut, contusions on limbs, both eyes closed; Boroff, Frank, Traverse City, trainman, head badly cut; Barnes, William, Grand Rapids, dining car conductor, left of chest hurt, head cut; Taylor, Harvey, Grand Rapids, colored waiter, both hands lacerated, arms cut; Hartsaw, W. G., passenger, badly hurt about face and chest.
The injured and the bodies of the dead were all brought to this city on a relief train as soon as extricated from the piles of debris.
A Fatal Combination.
The absence of any one of the circumstances which caused the accident would have overcome the disastrous effect of the other two. At the point where the collision occurred the track is straight as a die for over three miles and the engineers would have had ample time to check their trains had the air been clear, though they were both running at a speed of sixty miles an hour. As it was, the fog was so dense as to hide from sight every object no matter how large, outside a radius of a hundred feet from any given point. Train orders had been changed the night before but after the Northland express, a resort flyer containing through sleeping coaches from Cincinnati, Louisville and St. Louis, had left this city at 4:05 a. m. the train dispatchers’ Offices decided to cancel the arrangement. One engineer received his orders all right; the other did not. The operator at Mill Creek, a small station five miles north of this city, had been asked if the express had passed him and upon replying in the negative was told to flag it and give new instructions. But it had passed him unnoticed a few minutes before while he slept. He is an experienced operator and had always been one of the most trusted employees of the road, but fate had decided that he should lose his faculties at a fatal moment.
The other train demolished in the wreck was a regular passenger due at Grand Rapids at five a. m. The two had been passing at Sand Lake, a station some 18 miles north of this city. The changed orders would have made them pass at Woohson, four or five miles further north, but the engineer on the south-bound train had received his instructions to pass at the usual place, and at the moment the Mill Creek operator was standing in front of the station waiting to signal the express was far this side of any station by which he could be reached and ignorant of his danger. The express flying toward him could have been stopped at Pierson, but the Mill Creek operator discovered his awful mistake a moment too late, He rushed to his instrument and notified the Pierson operator just as the flyer went whizzing by his office. Half a mile further, covered in a short 30 seconds, and the tragedy had occurred.
The Wreck.
The Pierson operator heard the crash and notified Grand Rapids at once. In a few minutes later a wreck train with a number of physicians was on its way to the rescue and a few minutes later another one followed. Heroic work in extracting the injured from their predicament and they were placed upon cots in the relief train and taken to Grand Rapids. The bodies of the dead were also brought here. The wreckage was piled 30 feet high by the terrific impact the the trains met. Both engines, the heaviest in the company’s service, were totally destroyed, the boiler of one exploding and adding to the completeness of its demolition
The Financial Loss.
No trains were run Wednesday, as the track was lifted from its bed for a space of 200 yards and thrown aside, rails, ties and all. A temporary track is being built. The company’s loss can not be accurately calculated, but will amount to nearly $50,000.
Link to William E. Parker’s grave
Submitted by Mark McCrady, Cathea Curry and Lois Johnson