J. B. DAVIS JR.

DAVIS, WINTERS

Posted By: Shirley (email)
Date: 9/10/2008 at 23:58:03

A fatal accident happened near Panora, Saturday afternoon on the line of the D.M.N.& W road.

Between 3 and 4 o'clock, J.B.Davis Jr, one of the brakeman of the Fonda branch, was killed and his head terribly crushed. No one saw the accident as far as is known.

Mr. Davis had been in the caboose and left to set brakes on the box car next ahead. When the train reached Panora Conductor Overton asked another trainman where Davis was, and finding that no one knew what had become of him, went into the office and telegraphed back to Yale that he feared Davis had fallen from the train.

The engine was then sent back up the track and the men found the body of the poor man a mile west of the town, lying in the snow, the neck broken and head crushed.

It was placed on the engine and brought to Panora, and later sent to Des Moines.

It is supposed that Mr. Davis had slipped on the icy top of the car and fell to the track, to be run over by the caboose.

Deceased was 34 years old and leaves a wife and a child, and a sister, Mrs. Jennie Winters living in Minneapolis.

He belonged to the order of Railway Conductors, the Knights of Pythias and Masons-Des Moines News.

Source - Fonda Newspaper - 7 Dec 1893