David W. McKibban (1880)
MCKIBBAN
Posted By: Kent Transier (email)
Date: 8/29/2006 at 23:54:53
Winterset Madisonian, Winterset, Iowa
Thursday, June 17, 1880, page 7A SAD ACCIDENT
Last Monday afternoon the telegraph brought the sad news of the death of David McKibban, caused by being run over by the cars at Des Moines.
He was an industrious, hardworking young man, respected by all who knew him, and his death in this sad manner, throws a gloom over the whole community.
A large concourse of people attended the funeral on Tuesday. The following from the Des Moines Register is an account of the sad accident:
Just about two o’clock yesterday afternoon, Mr. D. W. Mckibben, employed by the C., R. I. & P. Railroad yards on the East Side, met his death in the discharge of his duty, although all accounts seem to show that his conduct in the matter was rather rash.
It appears that Yardmaster McBride was endeavoring to connect some flats on which he was standing, with a couple of cars standing still on the oil mill sidetrack, and McKibben running towards the moving train, he called to him to keep out from between the running cars and the car which it was intended to couple them, but McKibben stepped in on the track, with the evident intention or arranging the coupling, while he walked backward in front of the moving train, so that the connection with the standing car could be made without difficulty.
When the cars struck, McKibben staggered back, and was struck by the car in the rear of him, falling and going under the cars.
McBride immediately let the brake off and jumping down, tried to extricate him from under the wheel; the body had thrown the car off the track, and it had evidently passed the full length of his body, crushing upward across his breast. Mr. McBride, E. N. Brown, David Devore, and Fergus Friel, employees in the yard, were examined by Coroner Griffiths, before the jury (consisting of H. E. Teacher, Jackson Wisehart, and Abel Carson), and their testimony is somewhat to the same effect as the above statement.
The body of Mr. McKibben was subsequently taken to the old East Side passenger depot, and prepared for burial, before being thereafter taken to his home. Although comparatively a young man, he leaves a wife and two children.
The verdict of the coroner’s jury was that the death was accidental, and that the railroad company was in nowise to blame.
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