Details of Railway Accidents in the Ottawa Area

1884, August 13 - Train hits a hand car near Bissett's Creek, CPR - one fatality

Almonte Gazette 22 August 1884 TERRIBLE DEATH. - last week's Observer contains the following: An unfortunate occurrence took place on the morning of the 13th inst., on the C.P.R. track at Bissett's Creek, in which Mrs Josephine Langlois Latour, wife of Mr. Joseph Latour, of that place, lost her life. The circumstances of the case are reported to us as follows: it seems that Mrs. Latour, the deceased, with Mrs. Patterson and another female, asked the section men, as a favor, to give them a lift on the hand-car down the road, as the women were going down on business. The section foreman, Luke O'Connor, was at that time, in accordance with his orders, going over the section, having three men of his gang on the hand-car. On coming down a grade round a very sharp turn the men on the hand-car saw three telegraph poles ahead, a train coming on them. They had not a second of time to work on; they flung the women off, but Mrs. Latour was too late, and the engine and tender passed over her. She lived about five minutes, dying alongside the train, which was brought to the instant the hand car was seen. W.W. Dixon, MD., Coroner, and Captain Hollingsworth, High Constable, went up on first train, and held an inquest. Fourteen witnesses were subpoenaed and sworn, and the testimony throughout bought out the subsequent verdict of the jury, viz. : that no blame of negligence attached either to the section foreman or his men, or to the train hands, but that it was an unavoidable accident, and that the deceased came to her death by being run over by a train, whilst on a hand-car on which she was riding by the courtesy of the foreman of the said car, at her own request, and not otherwise. Mrs Latour was about 48 years of age, and the mother of a family. Almonte Gazette 29 August 1884 Mrs.Jas.Latour, of Bissett's Creek, near Pembroke, was killed a short time ago by a hand car upon which she was riding was run down by a train. She leaves a large family

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Updated 11 October 2022