OBIT: William SAYLOR, 1942, Somerset, Somerset County, PA

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Meyersdale Library.
Transcribed and proofread by: Richard Boyer.

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WILLIAM SAYLOR

Would-Be Train Wrecker Expired

  William Saylor, erstwhile constable and tax-collector of Ursina Borough and 
janitor of the Confluence school building, who made three attempts to wreck B. & 
O. trains in Brookes tunnel near Ursina last winter, died in the Somerset State 
Hospital last Friday morning of lobar pneumonia.
  Saylor had been an inmate of the State institution as a mental patient since 
last March.  He was arrested last January 30 by an FBI agent, after he had made 
three attempts at train-wrecking, by placing obstructions on the tracks in 
Brookes tunnel between Dec. 20, 1941, and Jan. 1, 1942.
  After his arrest Saylor was confined in the Somerset County Jail for a short 
while and was then taken to Pittsburgh and confined in the Allegheny County jail 
as a Federal prisoner to await trail in the United States Court.
  After questioning and observation the Federal authorities became convinced 
that Saylor was demented and that his attempts at train-wrecking were the acts 
of a maniac.  He was thereupon returned to Somerset County and committed to the 
State Hospital as a mental patient.
  He had been an inmate of the mental hospital for some time in the summer of 
1941, and was discharged after apparently having been cured, but his "cure" was 
not permanent, as later developed when his mental derangement took a criminal 
turn which resulted in his arrest as a would-be train-wrecker.
  Saylor was 63 years old.  He was the son of the late Mrs. Andrew (Coughenour) 
Saylor of Addison Township, and was known to a good many people as William 
Coughenour.  He was a peaceful, industrious man of good character and had never 
shown any criminal tendencies until less than a year ago.
  Funeral services were conducted Monday afternoon at 2:30 at the Humber Funeral 
Home in Confluence, followed by interment in the Ursina cemetery.

Meyersdale Republican, November 26, 1942