Trainwreck-Letter Inside Cover

Hi there!

I've got a cover from US to Sweden, with CDS 1893. Inside this cover there are 3 letters. Two of them is written in Sweden and addressed to people that were related to my grandparents. However there is a third letter, written in English, about a trainwreck in 1895 August 5th. I've tried googling a bit after a such trainwreck on that given day but haven't found anything so far. Here are pictures of the letter, I hope it's big enough to read.


Some sort of heading.


Upper half.


Lower half.


I can read most of the letter, but the writing isn't easy and the used language is a bit historic so I haven't figured everything out.. Was hoping you could help me with it. As I have understood, it says that "we find from the evidence that the accident might have been prevented(?) by the services of a brick?/deck?-walker which was shown the Company doe not employ." ?

At the bottom it says that the undersigned certify... and correct copy of the coroners ????..., ohio office. Then at the end there is something about 14 ? 1891 or 1897?

I am a bit puzzled why this.. deathnote was inside that cover, since the swedish letters doesn't relate to this letter at all.. So probably it was inserted here later on.. Also, I haven't yet found any cover from 1895 in the collection that I've got. There is a gap between 1894 and 1898..

Auditor of Mason County Wash. Terr. is the marking on the letter and the signature at the end.

Any help would be much appreciated in this puzzle!

Thanks!

That's an interesting piece of history Tomten, albeit a tragic one.

I think the letter refers to a "track walker" an employee of the railroad charged with inspecting sections of track for damage. Apparently this railroad did not do this.

The findings were compiled by a "Coroner's Jury now on file in this office".

I found this small article on the railroad but no info about a crash.
http://www.craigmagnuson.com/peninsular.htm

How is this for some information...quoted from a paper prepared by Irene Davis for a talk given at the Union River Basin Protection Association on January 14, 1993:




Here's the link from where I acquired the above quote:

http://www.thelercenter.org/readtex...%20River.txt

For easier reading, this is a re-typed copy of the scanned document:

Finally found some newspaper accounts of the incident which occurred as a result of major fires in the region ... the newspaper accounts are from across the country, from Maine to Virginia to Montana, (probably due to the only ones that are digitized and available free on-line). Nevertheless, the newspaper accounts do record the incident, but apparently got the name of the second victim wrong (typical), as I assume your document would have the accurate name:

You're totally amazing wt1!

Yes, I think you are right with the name.

So they drove straight into a burning trestle? Driving a logging train into forest fires... Doesn't sound so smart.. and obviously wasn't.. And the fact that Thomas White had SIX children.. :/

I thank you very very much for the re-scanned image, I'll be printing that one and keeping it as a translation paper. I can't believe you spent your time trying to help me with this, it's unbelieveable. I think that answered most of my questions!

*blush* I love you! :D

Thanks again!

That's some A+ detective work wt1.

Just wondering how you pulled those newspaper articles from all over the country. Is there a single link to them or did you search using information contained in the letter and get linked to those newspapers?

How did I find the newspaper articles? I went with the quote from a paper previously posted that revealed the incident occurred in Shelton, Washington (nothing came up when searching for Mason County, as indicated in the original document). Then I searched for archives for the year 1895 and entered the key words "train, "Thomas White", "Shelton, Washington" and voila! the search engine came up with this:



It doesn't work all the time, and you do have to be a bit persistent to enter different word combinations, etc., to get to what you're looking for, but usually something dated back to the 1800's is there, as it's dated before most fees are attached to referencing newspaper articles.

Contrary to popular belief, I really don't spend that much time researching these things. I'm a history buff as much as a stamp collector, so it's a hobby for me and when I see something interesting on SCF, it's always a challenge to try and find more information about it.

It doesn't work all the time, though. Sometimes there are dead ends!

Wow! wt1 is like thee "StampCommunity online all knowledgeable librarian"!