Showmen's Rest

170 Views

Thanks! Share it with your friends!

You disliked this video. Thanks for the feedback!

Published Feb 16, 2017

Daywalkers Paranormal visits Woodlawn Cemetery in Chicago to pay our respects and to reach out to the members of Hegenbeck -Wallace circus.
The tragedy that marked the beginning of Showman's Rest took place the night of June 22, 1918. The Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus, the nation's third-largest, was traveling on a pair of trains to an engagement in Hammond. The first train carried the show's animal acts and arrived without incident. But at 4 a.m., the second train — in which roustabouts, performers and their families were sleeping — was being moved to a spot near Gary so a mechanical problem could be addressed. The last cars were still on the mainline track when a passenger train plowed into them.

There were no passengers aboard that train, and the engineer and conductor survived to give varying accounts of the accident. One version was that steam from their engine obscured the track signals. According to the Tribune's account of the coroner's inquest that followed, the conductor testified that the engineer told him: "I must have been dozing."

A flagman on the circus train, seeing that the passenger train wasn't stopping, ran down the track waving a flare. In a last desperate attempt to get the engineer's attention, he tried to throw the flare through the locomotive's window. The coroner's inquest heard testimony that the engineer paid no heed to the flare that bounced off his cab.

Upon impact, the circus train's kerosene lamps ignited its wooden passenger cars, and a massive fireball consumed anything in its path. Families and acts were divided into those who managed to escape and those who perished.

Noting that one member of the Flying Wards was killed and three others were seriously injured, the Tribune observed that they "had fought their way up from poverty-stricken childhood to the position of the best-known trapeze artists in the profession."

Joe Coyle Jr., 2 1/2, billed as "the youngest clown in the United States," and his brother, Howard, 11, were members of a celebrated clowning family. "Joe Coyle, their father, saw them and their mother burned to death before his eyes," the Tribune reported.

Accounts varied, but as many as 86 were killed, including: Verna Connor, a Wild West rider; her husband, James, who was in charge of the horses; the McDhu Sisters, another equestrian act; Zeb Cattanach, the circus' lighting rigger, and his wife, Bessie; and Leroy Jessup, an usher.

Despite those tragic losses, the circus only missed two performances: the one in Hammond and another at its next stop, Monroe, Wis. Rival circuses lent some of their performers, enabling the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus to keep its date at Beloit, Wis. "They bravely went about their work and did their accustomed stunts," the Tribune reported.

The troupe went on to fulfill the rest of its schedule, including a September appearance in Chicago's Grant Park. A benefit for a World War I charity, it was an emotional occasion. When their colleagues lay wounded and dying on those Indiana train tracks, the Trib noted, "scores of members of the Stage Women's War Relief hurried from Chicago to give comfort and aid."

Some whom aid couldn't save were buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, five days after the train wreck. The Showmen's League, a fraternal organization, had recently bought a sizable plot of land there, scarcely imagining how soon it would be needed.

The coffins arrived on three trucks. Upward of 1,500 mourners, most of them circus people, were there to pay their last respects. Among the floral tributes was one sent by George M. Cohan, the famed song-and-dance man. His parents had toured on the vaudeville circuit.

Five identifiable victims got individual graves. The remains of 48 other victims, who were so badly burned they couldn't be identified, were buried in a common grave measuring just 25 by 35 feet. Their headstones were laconically labeled "Unknown Male," "Unknown Female," "Four Horse driver." One is identified as "Baldy." Another as "Smiley."

Those last two could have been roustabouts. Nomads by nature, roustabouts might join the show at one stop and leave it at another. Perhaps Baldy and Smiley were so recently hired that other members of the troupe only knew their nicknames.

It didn't take long for another showman to join the train wreck's victims. John B. Warren, the Showmen's League president, died a week after he attended to the funerals and interment of those who were killed in the train wreck. He was buried alongside them.

Category: PARANORMAL VIDEOS FROM OTHER COUNTRIES

Be the first to comment

Sign in

Create your account

Showmen's Rest

Up Next