(The following story by Morris Stephenson appeared on the Franklin News Post website on January 2.)
ROCKY MOUNT, Va. — On Jan. 3, 1903, a head-on train crash in Boones Mill killed two engineers, but little is known about the wreck other than the details passed down through relatives of one of the men killed.
Saturday marks the 106th anniversary of the train crash, which happened at 5:33 p.m. on an isolated trestle north of Boones Mill on a section known as “The Pumpkin Vine” that ran from Roanoke to Winston-Salem, N.C.
Two grandchildren of one of the train’s engineers marked the occasion with an informal gathering Tuesday evening in Hardy.
Their grandfather, Arthur Tilton Spencer, 26, of Roanoke died 25 days after the crash from burns. Another engineer, C.M. Willey, was killed instantly.
Lillian Howell, 89, of Hardy and her cousin, Thomas Tilton Meador, 88, of Moneta and five other relatives gathered Tuesday at Howell’s home to review and discuss the known details of the crash.
Howell and her son, Tom, have spent four years trying to reconstruct the accident.
For some reason, that perhaps will never be known, the two could not find any newspaper accounts of the wreck.
In searching The Roanoke Times archives, all the pair could find was their grandfather’s obituary.
“Because he was so young, doctors first believed he would recover from the burns, but he didn’t,” Lillian Howell said.
The obituary reported, “While it was known that Mr. Spencer was in critical condition, the news of his death came as a surprise to his many friends, as owing to his age and splendid physical condition. It was hoped that he would recover.”
The obituary also gave them some insight into the wreck, but there were no details of that dark, snowy night’s pile-up that sent Spencer’s train off the trestle, while leaving the other sitting on what is still known as Wright’s Siding.
It is known that the second train, a work train, had arrived in the area first and was backing into the siding when Spencer’s freight train, running ahead of schedule heading to Roanoke, barreled into it.
The obituary goes on to report that Spencer had been “in the employ of the railroad 11 years, having entered the service when he was but 15 years old. For some time, he held the position as fireman, but for the past six years he has been an engine(er) on the Winston-Salem division.”
“Mr. Spencer, like many other engineers, has been in wrecks on several previous occasions, but the fascination for the work was such that he continued. He was one of the most popular men in the train service, both here and along the line of the road, and was a member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, in which he was insured for $3,000,” the obituary reported.
That was the only mention of the wreck, leaving the Howells to rely on accounts of the wreck passed down over the years by their widowed grandmother to her children and then on to them.
The obit also noted that Spencer’s father, known as Zach, was one of the oldest engineers in service at N&W.
All of the information and photographs they have gathered have been placed in a large framed board, which will be presented to the Franklin County Historical Society at a later date.
The Howells, despite 106 years since the wreck, have recorded all the information they have collected and have been told.
They have an old photograph that N&W gave their grandmother after her husband’s death. They also have a copy of the train’s schedule from that date.
They also have a copy of an old photograph of Arthur Spencer’s father, Zacharian or Zachary, sitting in his old wood-burning locomotive.
The photograph is identified as “N&W locomotive that hauled the first train through Franklin County in 1892.”
The story goes that Arthur Spencer, a dashing young man with dark hair and a heavy moustache, was trying to get back to Roanoke early that night because it was his wife’s birthday. She was the former Essie Tench of Boones Mill, according to Howell.
She recounted the story told to her that the work train had arrived at the siding early, and the conductor had walked up the track with a lantern to see if Spencer’s train was approaching.
The conductor was walking back to the work train as it was backing into the siding when Spencer’s train came around the curve “balling the jack,” according to Howell.
The impact of the crash sent Spencer’s locomotive off the high trestle and onto the ground below, apparently rupturing the train’s boiler. The escaping steam apparently scalded Spencer badly. It is not clear if the engineer who died at the scene was in the locomotive with Spencer or was in the work train.
Howell also pointed out that A.C. Needles, president of N&W, was an honorary pallbearer at the funeral. Needles later went on to establish the Phoebe Needles Center at Callaway.
Howell said it was during the funeral that relatives learned Mrs. Spencer was pregnant with the couple’s third child, who died two months later. He was survived by two daughters, Reba, who was 3, and Mamie, who was one year old at the time of their father’s death.
The third child is buried at the father’s feet in the Fairlawn Cemetery, off Orange Avenue in Roanoke.
His tombstone, paid for by N&W, features an elaborately-carved locomotive and coal car atop the stone, and underneath it is a trestle.
The Howells recently visited the cemetery to see the tombstone.
“Acid rain has eroded some of the finer details of the locomotive and coal car, but it is still a piece of work,” Tom Howell commented.
Other relatives attending the gathering Tuesday night along with their spouses were Tammy Meador Webster, granddaughter of Tilton Meador, who now lives in Columbia, S.C., and her daughter, Brittany Michelle Webster; Marie Meador DeLong of Moneta; Author Tilton Meador, son of Tilton, who also lives at Moneta.
While the search by the Howells to get the Pumpkin Vine train wreck did not produce all the details they had hoped, they do have many more facts and accounts from family members to enrich the Pumpkin Vine Room at the Franklin County Historical Society.
Other relatives who were unable to attend Tuesday evening include Dr. William “Ron” Howell of Franklin County, Ann Taylor Lapata of Maryland and Susan Heidorn of Burnt Chimney.