MOSHER, George c1859-1911

MOSHER

Posted By: Lydia Lucas - Volunteer (email)
Date: 3/23/2015 at 23:04:02

From the Rock Valley Bee, June 23, 1911:

Eugene Mosher, an umbrella repairer who has frequently been in Rock Valley plying his trade, was instantly killed near Matlock a few days ago while sleeping on the railroad track. He had started to walk along the track in the evening. After crossing a railroad culvert he evidently sat down to rest and to brace up on some diluted alcohol which he had with him. He probably went to sleep on the track and before he woke up a freight train struck him. His body was mutilated almost beyond recognition. An attempt was made to locate some of his relatives, but was unsuccessful. He was buried at George the day following the accident.
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A news note in the Alton Democrat, June 17, 1911, appears to refer to the same incident:

Geo. Mosher of Chicago was killed Thursday evening by the night freight going east. Mr. Mosher was found the next morning by his partner. They had worked together the same day cleaning gasoline stoves in town. The inquest was held by the Lyon county coroner and remains were taken to George for burial. The only relative that could be found is a brother living in Michigan.

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The following lengthy account was found in the Rock Rapids Reporter, June 11, 1911. (The reporter seems to have enjoyed the grisly details.)

KILLED BY A TRAIN
George Mosher, a "Tourist" Sleeps on Bridge and is Run Over near Matlock Thursday Night.

Coroner Corcoran was called to the vicinity of Matlock Friday morning to inquire into the death of a man who was found beside the Illinois Central track, five rods north of the Sioux county line. Sheriff Wheatley, Attorney Fisher and a Reporter man accompanied the coroner, and they certainly looked upon a gruesome sight, when they reached the place where the man had met his death. The fellow had evidently sat down on the end of the railway bridge, fallen asleep and failed to awaken as the fast stock freight approached. He was dragged the entire length of the bridge and frightfully mangled.

The body was discovered first by a man named William Van Norwick, who had been travelling through the country with the dead man, repairing gasoline stoves, lawn mowers, and the like, and he reported to the section men and agent at Matlock, from which place word was sent here. After viewing the remains, the officials went to Matlock, where the partner was being held for the investigation, and from him learned who the dead man was, and the circumstances surrounding the case.

Van Norwick, who unhesitatingly acknowledged that he was of the genus hobo, said that he and the dead man, whose name was George Mosher, hd been on the "road" together the past sixteen or seventeen years each summer. They plied their vocation, and occasionally picked up a job of paper hanging or decorating, at which he claimed they were both experts. They had started from Chicago and were working west. At Sheldon they worked a couple of days and then came to Matlock on the afternoon train Thursday, but were unable to pick up a cent and both were broke. About 6 o'clock they both went down near the tracks and laid down in the shade to sleep. Both were under the influence of liquor. Mosher had evidently been aroused and concluded he would walk up to George. Van Norwick wakened about 8 or 9 o'clock, and finding his partner gone, had crawled into a box car and slept until daylight the next morning. He then started for George, intending to reach there before the sun got hot and find his partner. A mile from Matlock he saw the grip and coat of the partner and then his remains lying underneath the bridge. He hurried to a nearby farmhouse and tried to telephone, but it was too early and he walked back to Matlock to give the alarm. The section crew went out, but concluded not to touch the remains until the coroner arrived.

When found, the man was lying under the south end of the bridge, which is about 100 feet in length. He had apparently been sitting or lying on the north end of the bridge when hit, and had been rolled and ground under the wheels of the heavy engine, and his intestines, heart and lungs torn out and strewn all along the bridge. One foot was cut off above the shoe and the other at the instep. The bones were broken and crushed and he was nothing but a mangled mass of flesh. His clothes were all torn off except his undershirt, and bits of cloth and flesh were carried along the track into town, a mile distant from the bridge.

He apparently walked to the bridge and sat down to rest. His coat and hat, grip containing his tools, and a half emptied bottle of alcohol rested on the railway embankment at the end of the bridge. He was struck by the stock freight south Thursday evening at 9:45, and probably never knew what hit him. The accident was not noticed by the trainmen and was not reported until morning.

Mosher is said by his partner to have been a man 52 years of age, with a wife and two sons living in Chicago. He was separated from his wife, who is employed in the Sears-Roebuck factory on the west side. One son is employed in a store and the other is a comedian with a traveling show. Van Norwick said he had known them all well, and had boarded with the family in Chicago ten years before, when the husband and wife were living together. He said Mosher also had a brother, who was a deputy United States marshal in Michigan, but so far inquiries for him have been unanswered.

The body was gathered up by Undertaker Behrends of George and buried in the cemetery at that place, after Coroner Corcoran had decided that an inquest was unnecessary. The dead man was of heavy build, weighing about 180 pounds, and had sandy hair and mustache. He was dressed as a laboring man, and his grip contained a full assortment of tools for doing the work his partner said he was engaged in.
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From the Rock Rapids Reporter, June 22, 1911: Local and General

County Attorney Simon Fisher has received a letter from E. D. Mosher of Marquette, Mich., a brother of the man who was killed two weeks age on the Illinois Central a short distance north of Matlock, which confirms in great measure the story told of the dead man by his partner, VanNorwick. Mr. Mosher says that his brother has been a hard drinker for years and preferred tramping over the country picking up a precarious existence to living with his family as he might have done. He says his brother had a fine family, and two grown sons, and that he would try and locate them in Chicago, and that they would pay all expenses of burying the father, and that he thought they would probably wish to have his remains moved to the Chicago home for burial. Mr. Fisher has, in response to the request, forwarded a bill of expense that had been incurred by the county in the matter.