A Life Cut Short by the Rails
A superintendent at the Stetson & Post Mill dies in a horrific workplace accident involving a runaway freight car.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Mr. Stetson was killed yesterday at Franklin. Intending to return to Seattle, he walked down to the track to board the train. The train backed up to allow the incoming train to pass. As the cars backed up the track, the conductor spotted a loaded car of lumber standing on the side track and endeavored to signal the engineer to call for brakes, but owing to the length of the train and a sharp curve in the road, he could not accomplish it and the train came up against the car of lumber with terrible force. Mr. Stetson was standing with a companion on the platform of the caboose, little dreaming of danger. Just as the shock occurred, his companion jumped and called for him to do so. While in the act of leaping, the force of the shock raised a log car up onto the platform of the caboose, catching Mr. Stetson across the hips and pinning him. He was taken from his awful position as soon as possible. He lived but five minutes, and the only words uttered by him after the accident were: 'Boys, I guess this is enough.' Mr. Stetson was a native of Maine, and 34 years of age. He came to Puget Sound ten years ago and worked for the Puget Mill until late in the seventies, when he came to Seattle and joined his fortunes with the Stetson & Post Mill Company, with which he has been connected ever since. He was a man whose loss will be felt by the entire community, for he was an excellent citizen in every way.
“Boys, I guess this is enough.”
Workplace safety remains a persistent, evolving struggle in Washington’s industrial sectors. The loss of a key mill operator in 1888 resonates with the ongoing historical tension between rapid economic expansion—like the massive mill operations of the time—and the human cost of dangerous labor conditions.
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