Durand Union Station
P.O. Box 106
200
Railroad Street
Durand, MI 48429
Office Hours:
Tuesday to Friday
9 AM to 5 PM
Telephone:
(989)288-3561
Fax:
(989)288-3494
Email:
Durand Union Station
Everything was about in readiness for
the Wallace parade this morning when Hazel, whose mate
was killed in the wreck at Durand balked and refused to
go with the procession. She ran back into the tent where
Jip, the elephant injured at Durand, stood.
Hazel's keeper, in an endeavor to make her obey, ran his
spear through her ear. This the elephant did not seem to
like, and quick as a flash she grabbed her keeper in her
trunk and knocked him to the ground. She was then
securely chained to a stake, but in her anger, easily
broke away.
The crowd of boys and others in the tent, thinking there
would be things of a serious nature doing, rushed out of
the place and took to tall timber. Soon afterwards the
unruly beast was quieted and no further attempt made to
take her out.
Jip, the huge elephant on top of whom the rest of the
menagerie was piled in the accident at Durand, looks as
though she were getting along all right. She seems
restless, shifting her standing position every few
minutes and now and then taking a mouth full of hay, but
most of the time throwing it towards the roof and
scattering it about on the ground. [8/10/03]
Wallace Circus Wreck
Durand - 7 August 1903
W.L. Cone, the steward of the company, a big, jolly fellow, lay in the further end of the medical ward, partly propped up on his pillows. His back is sprained and he is badly bruised, but there is plenty of life remaining.
Wrecked Animal Car
"Well, sir, I don't know how it happened
that out of the three who escaped death in the last sleeper,
two of us, Burt McGrath and myself, are fat men, but such is
the case," said he. "The trouble was that there were too
many hoodeos aboard."
Cone looked over into the next cot, where a colored man,
Joseph Anderson, lay, and the latter rolled his eyes
apprehensively, but there was nothing personal meant by the
remark.
"We have two hunchbacks with us this trip, and that is too
many," went on the speaker. "Do I mean it? Of course I do. I
am perfectly willing to admit that I am superstitious. I was
sleeping in an upper berth near the rear end of the car, and
when the crash came, the shock turned me over on my stomach,
and something began to shove me forward. I grabbed a beam,
and that pulled me still further, and out of danger. When
the movement finally ceased, one leg was caught somewhere in
the wreckage, but I was able to pull it loose and walk out
over the splinters. The first fellow I saw was McGrath, who
had occupied a lower berth across the aisle from me.
"What's the matter?" he yelled. "Why, I guess we are mostly
split up into kindling wood," I answered.
"I'm through with the show-business," declared Anderson,
emphatically, as he rolled his eyes again. "This is the
second wreck I have been in with this company, and the next
time it will be the undertaker that will get me, not the
hospital.
Of quite a different mind was Joe Patterson, an 18-year-old
Driver. "Such things as that don't take my nerve at all," he
declared.
"Sleep on the train after this! Well, I guess so. If you
went to bed at midnight and got up at half-past 5 or 6 you
would sleep, no matter what was going to happen. But what I
don't understand is, how I got under a car, when I went to
sleep in a bunk. I did not hear the crash, I did not wake up
until I found myself lying on my stomach and being dragged
along feet first. Then I paddled crab fashion with both
hands, and managed to keep up. Pretty soon one leg swung
loose and I went over on my side. It was then that my face
got all scraped up. An instant later the car stopped. I
jerked loose, crawled out and walked down the line. After
that everything is a blank, and I don't know how what
happened until I came to and found myself in the car where
they were helping the wounded."
Where The Men Were Killed
"No, the cars were not old ones," broke in
Burt McGrath, in answer to a general question. "They were
two tourist sleepers given to Wallace by the Chicago &
Eastern Illinois railroad in exchange for the sleeper that
was wrecked at Shelbyville, but there is not a car in
existence that could have stood that shock without going to
pieces."
W. H. Howe, a driver, aged 38, was once thought to be dead,
but he is now in the hospital and apparently on the road to
recovery. "I was pinned down so I could not move," said he.
"The wreckage above shut off my breath, and I was almost
unconscious when I heard someone say: 'No use trying to get
that one, he is all jammed to pieces.' Then, though I was
half dazed, I managed to wig wag with my boot, and that
brought help. And all I got was a good squeeze."
* Wallace Circus Wreck * Raymond Stevenson Collection * A Predawn Disaster *
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