ID #: MAT-04600
Subject: Canadian Pacific Railway Co.,Wreck,Déraillement
Collection Name: Aubrey Mattingly Transportation Collection
From the Ottawa Citizen August 20, 1948
Gananoque Man Injured
CARLETON PLACE Walter Cross, 58, Gananoque steam roller operator, suffered a possible skull fracture and other injuries yesterday when a Pembroke-Ottawa passenger train struck his machine. The roller was cut in two and some minutes later Cross was found, semi-conscious, on the front of the locomotive. Carleton Place is 40 miles northwest of Brockville.
Winnipeg by way of Carleton over railroad. By Sid Anabelle
They left Toronto March 1, 1885, and arrived at Carleton Junction on March 3, In one of the worst blizzards Ontario has ever known. The first section was snow-bound immediately on its arrival,” said Mr. Annable. Tom Bagley, yardmaster, got lost in the snow trying to find sidings to store the sufficient heat to warm the wooden coaches, a consequence of which was that the volunteers suffered greatly from the intense cold.
The snow was six feet deep on the level over the village and all trains were held up at this point for five days. Every foot of siding was utilized for the coaches. The only Pullman car in the service was that which served as headquarters for Major Fred Middleton of the Queen’s Own Rifles, Colonel Otter and their officers. This was placed on a siding opposite the old C.P.R. station, two hundred yards from the railroad gates. The shanty which sheltered Bob Taggart, the gate-man, still stands in the same old spot.
Yardmaster Bagley and his crew, composed of Andy Armour, Bill Carr, Tom Carter and Jack Annable had maneuvered the snow plows around to clean the sidings, they put the coaches on the north bound sidings from the station to the railroad bridge which crosses the Mississippi below the rapids.
There were only two streets for crossing purposes in the lower part of the village commonly called Chisleville —McLaughlin’s crossing on Lake avenue and Annable’s. Our crossing was not used much as the traffic was light. Later they placed fifty coaches on these sidings. Regulars were stationed along the sides of the train to prevent volunteers leaving without passes. These privileges were few and hard to obtain.
The writer’s home was only a hundred feet away, and as the men were calling for someone to run their errands I decided to make myself useful. The snow was set and soft and I was the proud possessor of a toboggan and a team of dogs, the only ones in the village. As the boys were calling for postcards, my first investment was one hundred penny postcards. Before I had finished one coach I had sold my stock at for five cents each.
I then bought writing paper, envelopes and stamps and sold them for ten cents a set. By this time I had realized fifty dollars on my original investment of one dollar. After the second day I loaded my toboggan with eatables pies, doughnuts, oranges and apples and drove them up and down between the snow-bound trains. As the food in the baggage cars was getting low I found ready buyers for my cargo.
I worked from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. and by the time the trains were ready to move on I had cleared over three hundred dollars. The last day of his sojourn in Carleton Place Colonel Otter sent for me and asked me to go to the Bank of Ottawa for him. He gave me a large envelope covered with sealing wax, which I was to deliver to the manager, John A. Bangs, and return immediately with an answer. Mr. Bangs told me afterwards that the envelope contained two thousand dollars.
When I returned Col. Otter invited me to Join the Queen’s Own Rifles. Owing to the fact, however, that my mother was sick in bed at the time, my father refused to give his consent. Later I went to Col. W, W. Wylie and Capt. Joe McKay of the 43rd Regiment of volunteers of our village and told them I wanted to get out to the West. If I had to run away to do it. McKay refused to heed my plea; he sent for my oldest brother to take me home.
Mr. Annable then tells of preparations made by a companion whom he chooses to call Peck and himself to “make a break for it” in the spring.
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