This Day In Norwood History-August 22, 1902-Terrible Trolley Accident

A TERRIBLE TROLLEY ACCIDENT.

Tragic Death of Miss Nellie Park of East Walpole. Her Brother Injured.

One of the saddest and most terrible electric car accidents known to the history of the town occurred on last Wednesday night near Dean Street, resulting in the death of Miss Nellie A. Park of East Walpole and the serious injury of her brother, George C. Park, Jr. It was a little after 8 o’clock and the car which leaves the Norwood Press at the hour named was proceeding on its way toward East Walpole. Mr. Park and his sister were driving to Norwood to attend the band concert. The horse was a restive and excitable animal and apt to shy at things. Mr. Park had owned him only about two weeks.

The vehicle and its occupants met the electric car a little beyond Dean street near the subway. The horse shied and sprang directly in front of the car. Miss Park and her brother were thrown out and carried along for some distance by the fender. Miss Park was beneath, Mr. Park above. Both were picked up and taken to the house of Peter Waldron nearby. Miss Park lived only about half an hour and was partially conscious. She called for water and asked permission to sir. up. A physician and a policeman were at once summoned. Her skull was fractured and she received other horrible injuries, internal and external. Officer Creed summoned an undertaker and the dead woman was removed to Gillooly’s undertaking rooms.

Her brother was at first conscious and able to walk about and talk a little. He was unable to tell what frightened the horse and could not understand how the accident had occurred. He asked concerning his sister’s condition, but was not informed of her death. He was taken to his home in East Walpole, where he soon collapsed aud became delirious. He is now in the care of a physician and is suffering from concussion of the brain. He continually talks about the accident and asks how and where Nellie is. His condition is dangerous but there are some hopes of his recovery.

Beyond the statement made by Mr. Park himself no one knows just how the accident happened. Apparently no one is to blame for the sad fatality excepting the horse. The car was driven by Motorman Hatch, an old employee of the road. He was hysterical and half frantic over the occurrence and was crying, sobbing and bewailing all through the evening and night. No one, however, is disposed to blame him for the occurrence.

The horse escaped with the buggy, the wheel of which had been wrenched off. He was captured near George H. Morse’s hill. His hind legs were badly cut and bruised. He was turned over to Ezra Hubbard Thursday morning and the Park family wish to see no more of the animal.

There was one very sad feature connected with the accident. Mrs. Horace Hathaway, sister of the dead woman, lives on Dean street, near Washington, and within a stone’s throw of the very spot where the accident occurred. She did not know of the accident till some time after. She saw the wheel lying in the road and made the remark that there must have been an accident.

Her sister was already dead.

Owing to Mr. Park’s precarious condition it was thought best to leave the remains of his sister for a time at the undertaking rooms. He is kept absolutely quiet.

Mr. and Mrs. George C. Park, Sr., parents of the deceased, are elderly people and the blow has been a most terrible one to them. Many friends have called at the house, but few have been admitted. Miss Nellie Park was a woman in middle life and was born in East Walpole. She was a granddaughter of the late Rev. Harrison G. Park of Norwood, related to the family of Hon. F. W. Bird and otherwise connected with the old families of this vicinity.

The blow is felt to be a personal one to all the people of East Walpole, where she had always lived and where she was held in high and universal esteem. She was the light and comfort of her home, attending to the household duties and ministering to her aged parents in their declining years. She was of a genial and attractive personality and disposition, bright, witty and jovial in her ways and liked by all. She leaves a brother and two sisters, Mrs. Horace Hathaway and Miss Martha Park, a teacher in the Walpole public schools.

Miss Park and the younger members of her family, with a number of relatives, were to have followed an annual custom by taking an electric car ride to Mansfield Thursday.

Owing to the condition of the brother arrangements for the funeral are, at the present writing, held in abeyance. Not very much was known about the accident to most people in Norwood Wednesday evening. Some who attended the band concert failed to hear of it till next morning. Occurring in a quiet aud lonely port of the town, with one of its victims dead and the other delirious, a certain mystery is likely to surround the affair for some time. It seems to have been one of those sad fatalities which the deepest prudence could hardly have prevented.

A New Theory Of The Accident

A new explanation of the terrible accident of last Wednesday night brings a bicycle into the affair and looks more reasonable than the supposition that the horse was simply frightened by the electric car.

It is said now that the horse saw a bicycle coming towards him just as the car was also approaching, and turned half around, tearing off the wheel of the buggy and then running away in a fright. This theory will, perhaps for the present do as well as any.

George O. Park, Jr., though he now seems likely to recover, is hardly in a condition to give any detailed account of how the whole thing happened. In fact how it did occur is what he is all the time asking.

Both horse and buggy are now in the hands of Ezra Hubbard. The buggy, which has rubber-tired wheels is almost uninjured aside from the loss of the wheel. The horse, though somewhat cut about the legs, seems likely to recover. Though some declare that the animal has a bad eye, he may not turn out to be quite so wicked as represented. An electric car and a bicycle make a pretty hard combination for some horses to meet within the evening.

AUTOMOBILES AND THE DANGER THEREFROM.

Editor Advertiser:
Dear Sir,—The sad accident of Wednesday night cannot but draw the attention of our townspeople to the possibility of similar accidents due to the1 rapid and apparently careless driving of automobiles through our streets’ both by residents of the town and by strangers also. No doubt hundreds of horse owners, as well as myself, would be glad to have you call the attention of „our police department to the fact that there is not only a law regulating the speed of automobiles, but that the drivers of the same are liable for damages caused by reckless driving; also that it is the duty of the police to see that this law is enforced. The writer trusts you will deem this matter of such importance as to give either this article or your views on same space in your paper.

A HORSE OWNER.

Norwood, Aug, 21, 1902.
The above writer speaks very truly, though the point he strives to make is somewhat blunted by the apparent fact that no automobile or any automobile driver, as far as can be learned, had anything whatever to do with the fatal accident near the subway last Wednesday night.—Ed.