Newspaper: Booswell, George - Oil City, Venango County, PA


Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by McQuaid
         mcquaid@countryilink.net

USGENWEB NOTICE: Printing this file by non-commercial individuals
               and libraries is encouraged, as long as all notices
               and submitter information is included. Any other use,
               including copying files to other sites requires
               permission from the submitters PRIOR to uploading to
               any other sites. We encourage links to the state and
               county table of contents.
 -------------------------------------------------------------------
Newspaper clipping - believe to be from the Derrick:
 

SAD NEW YEAR’S

BRAKEMAN LOSES HIS LIFE ON THE RAILS
 

The Sorrowful Manner in Which the New Year Came to the Family of 
George Boswell - Crushed by the Car.
 

To at least one poor family in this city the advent of the new year brought 
nothing but sorrow.  At the very hour when most people were joyous and happy, 
giving the new year a royal welcome, one poor woman in south Oil City was 
brought to a realization of the fact that she was a widow and her two little 
children fatherless.  While others were happy, her grief knew no bounds.  
Her husband, her supporter, her life, had been stricken down most untimely, 
and that, too, when he was within a few rods of his home, where he had arranged 
to spend the holiday in unadulterated enjoyment with his little family about him.  

   George Boswell, the unfortunate young man, was a brakeman on the Allegheny Valley 
road.  His home was in south Oil City, and his run between this city and Pittsburgh.
On the night before New Year’s day, he went down and at Brady’s Bend changed off 
with another brakeman, named Robert Campbell.  There was some hesitation about 
changing, but Campbell wished to spend the holiday in the smoky city and Boswell 
was anxious to be with his family. They therefore made the trade.  Campbell went 
on his way to Pittsburgh and Boswell came home to die.

   The train on which Boswell came up was No. 5, the one which arrives here 
shortly after five o’clock in the morning.  Attached to the rear of the train 
was a heavy scale test car, a small, four-wheeled, iron car, very heavy, used for 
testing scales along the road, which had been brought up from Pittsburgh.  
In the south Oil City yards this car was backed in on the scale track, and it 
was while uncoupling it from the train, or immediately after, that the accident 
occurred.  When picked up, Boswell was conscious and said that he had been 
standing on the platform and had fallen under the wheels.  This was about six 
o’clock in the morning, and as it was very cold it is presumed he was numb and 
perhaps a little clumsy.  At all events, the occurrence was not witnessed and 
it is not known exactly how it happened.  He was carried by his companions to 
his residence, only a few rods away, where his wife, unaware of what had happened, 
was waiting to wish him a "happy New Year".  
Her feelings, when he was brought in, crushed and bleeding, may be imagined.

            Surgeons were sent for and Drs. Egbert, Davis and Ritchey responded.  
They found that the wheels had passed over his right shoulder, crushing the 
shoulder blade, the joints, etc. They amputated _______and rendered what-
[remainder of clipping cut-off and missing]