Chapter of Fatal Accident

Asheville, Oct. 26. – Jas. PRATT and Mrs. Dan SHEHAN, of Marion, were run over by a passing train near Nebo, a station five miles from Marion, last night, and instantly killed. Few details of the accident have been received, but it is stated that these two and Mrs. PRATT, wife of the victim to the accident, were walking along the track and failed to heed an on-coming train. Another account has it that the couple were killed. Both bodies were horribly mangled, and it is stated that fragments of the man’s body were scattered along the track for some distance. Both Mrs. SHEHAN and PRATT were elderly.

There was another fatal accident near Marion last night when Horace NICHOLS, aged 24, the son of a prominent McDowell county farmer, was run over by a local freight and had both legs completely severed from his body. He died at Biltmore hospital early this morning. It is said that NICHOLS was also walking the track when a train struck him and inflicted the injuries that resulted in his death.

Robert WILLIAMS, a section hand of the Southern Railway, was also struck by an engine yesterday near Balsam, Jackson county, but his injuries, while serious, are not thought to be fatal. His nose was broken and he was otherwise painfully cut and bruised.

Earle SMITH, an employee of a planning mill, at Marshall, Madison county, was yesterday caught in the machinery and seriously, if not fatally injured. He was attempting to make some repairs when he was caught in the belting, carried into the machinery and horribly crushed. One leg was splintered and he sustained other serious injuries.

Source: Kinston Free Press, October 27, 1905