Thursday, June 07, 2007

1904 Train Wreck




Posted by Jan Patrick Mongoven on Ancestry.com is the following window into a tragic accident in our region over 100 years ago, that has a local connection...

My great-grandfather, Michael Stephen (Steve) Mongoven, was a Northern Pacific conductor who was killed when his train - stalled on the tracks during a winter blizzard in the earliest hours of Sunday, 7 Feb 1904 - was demolished by the train sent to his rescue. The accident happened about three miles northeast of Grafton, Walsh County, North Dakota. Steve had requested rescue and told authorities that his stalled train's location was about one mile north of Grafton...in actuality it was about three miles north. The rescue train from Pembina came down from the north at about 25 miles per hour. It approached Grafton at around 2 a.m., believing the disabled train was one mile north of the town. The rescue engine smashed into the caboose where my great-grandfather and his brother sat waiting. He was killed and his brother was burned and suffered injuries that later healed.

My great-grandfather's body was taken the next morning to his home in East Grand Forks, MN, where his wife was informed of his death. Elizabeth Mongoven was already very ill, recovering from her final pregnancy. In a cruel twist, her newborn baby had died only hours before her husband was killed. The news left her grief-stricken, but she survived and lived to raise her five young children. A coroner's jury was convened on the Monday after the crash outside Grafton. They pinned blame on Conductor Mongoven for an error in judgement...that he had incorrectly informed the rescue authorities that his train was one mile north of Grafton instead of the actual three. Later that year, his wife (with the aid of a family friend who was a Catholic priest) received a $7000.00 payment from Northern Pacific in Minneapolis, and the case never went to court. According to newspaper accounts from the time, there were many who believed my ancestor could not have been to blame, that he was a meticulous individual who knew what he was doing and was not prone to misjudgement. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:43 PM

    Trish,

    My name is Jan Patrick Mongoven. I am the great-grandson of Michael Stephen Mongoven, the conductor who was killed in this train crash in 1904. Could you please tell me, is this a photo of the actual wreck? Or is it just a photograph of another train crash? I really would love to know, because I have been trying to find information on this for 10 years...to no avail, other than the (many) newspaper articles chronicling the sad incident. I would so greatly appreciate your help in identifying the photo. Thanks!
    Jan

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  2. Jan, to the best of my knowledge, the photo is not a photograph of the actual, specific train wreck involving your great-grandfather, but rather a stock photo of a similar wreck of the same time period. I wish I had better news for you...Contact me off-blog using my email available by clicking 'View my Complete Profile' - I'd love to be in touch some more about this...

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  3. The picture says it all. It is a tragic accident. My deepest condolences to the families of those who deceased. May their souls rest in peace.

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