I am looking for some more info on a train wreck that occured in 1901, on a Sunday evening at 88th st in South Chicago. The article I have lists it as being "Lake Shore Train No. 28" with ten wheeler no 544, a "60 per center". The fireman on the engine was my great, great grandfather, Addison Jerue, who did not survive. There was very little info passed through the family and the info I did find came from two Elkhart, IN newspaper articles, my relatives home.

I am trying to verify what train this was. The way the articles were written goes to show how big a part of life the trains were at that time. Lots of technical info and railroad slang that most people would not understand today. Was this a LS&MS train? Does anybody know the route of #28? Any pictures of 4-6-0 #544 out there. Any wreck pictures?
Thanks in advance
E

OK, some things I would do. Try and find time tables from that time period, even photo copies will do to get better train information. Go to the historical society's local to that area and see what they have and check their newspaper files. Finding things like this out requires a lot of foot work and research, you won't find it sitting at home.

Getting to Elkhart or Chicago is the difficult task at this point. My big question is wanting to verify if this is in fact a LS&MS train or some other rail line. The articles only state "Lake Shore Train No. 28". Once I can verify this info then I can move forward and look at planning a trip. Some suggested the NYC museum as a pssible source. It looks like NYC had a Lake Shore train.

I have a (repro) Official Guide, from February, 1901.

Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Train 28 is the New York and Boston Express.
Runs Daily.
Sleeping Car, Chicago to Cleveland
Sleeping Car, Chicago to New York
Day Coach Service. Carries Baggage.

Leaves Chicago at 10:35 p.m.
Englewood: 10:50 p.m.
LaPorte: 12:01
South Bend: 12:33

JR

JR,
Thank you. The times match up with the times listed in the old news articles. It sounds like #28 was considered part of the Lake Shore Limited. Some of the info I found stated that at that time the Lake Shore Limited ran on LS&MS tracks from Ohio into Chicago. My Grandmother had thought that her Grandfather worked for LS&MS, but was not sure how accurate that was. More digging, but now I have a direction to go.

They were separate trains.

Lake Shore Limited was train 22, in that timetable. Departed Chicago at 5:30 p.m.

JR

It occurs to me that the "Lake Shore Train No. 28" may just be referring to LS&MS No. 28, not specifically the Lake Shore Limited.

So far I have not found a reference to LS&MS train 28. Because the NYC train 28 ran on the same route as the Lake Shore Limited, I wondered if that is why the paper called it the "Lake Shore Train". This is the piece of the puzzle that has held me up.

There is a refference to a westbound second #73 that almost joined the wreck, but was stopped 200ft short.

If we had better internet service, I could be a lot more help, but here are my best hints:

Sign up for a free account at familysearch.org. It’s run by the Mormons, but no one has sent me junk mail or otherwise bothered me in many years of use. (They WILL send you hints to hook onto your family tree if you want to make one.) I was able to find him, but access is so slow I couldn’t see his death certificate. You should be able to use them to see the 1900 census, his marriage record, probably his death certificate and so on. Their search engine is extensive, but frustrating at times because they’ll give you “name sounds vaguely like that” hints or leave out obvious matches. Still, free is better than cheap and the info will verify.

Find a Grave has a lot of Jerues in southern Michigan, but no Addison of the right age (the one they do have died in 1955 at age 39 and is probably a relative or yours.) I do notice a lot of them went by middle names, so that might indeed be the problem. Find a Grave doesn’t always have everything, but it’ll point you in the right direction a lot of the time.

Newspapers.com will offer you a free one-week subscription. Double-check the articles you have and see if you can find follow-up material in the next week or so. Once you have the exact date, you can run a narrow search. I couldn’t find his name, so he might have been in the paper as First Name He Never Used Addison Jerue, etc. or his name might have been misspelled in the commotion (it happened a lot.)

When you use any of the search engines, vary your terms. One of our local mine disasters won’t show up if you use the obvious terms, but if you change one word, the whole story is there in great detail.

Wish I could do more to help, but as I said, we’re overpaying for very marginal “broadband” that won’t always do a good search.

The Lake Shore and Michigan Southern RR was in 1901 owned by the Vanderbilt interests, which also owned the New York Central and Hudson River. I believe the nickname for the LS&MS was "Lake Shore," so "Lake Shore train #28" would probably be the 10.35 LS&MS train from Chicago to New York via Elkhart as shown in the 1901 Official Guide.

LS&MS was later merged with NYC&HR to form New York Central, then becoming Penn Central, then Conrail and is now Norfolk Southern. Amtrak trains use the LS&MS route from Chicago to the East.

Phil Mulligan

You might look for a Coroner's report. They sometimes give considerable detail of the circumstances of the death. I found one for a Chicago relative who was murdered in 1882. I don't remember where I found it, but there are a lot of archived records linked from the Illinois Secretary of State's web page and I may have found where to order a copy from there.

The Lake Shore was the LS&MS. It operated the Lake Shore Limited, which was not the train you are concerned about.
If you can get internet access at, say a library, you can get free trials at Geneologybank that has a great set of digitized newspapers. You can find most of Newspaper Archives through Elyria Public Library. Illinois has some type of Public Utilities Commission that may have issued an annual report that might include accident investigation reports. But, your best bet for info on that event is the Elkhart newspaper. It is digitized. They covered the LS&MS everyday down to the level of who was assigned to what jobs and why the freight and passenger yards were jammed or empty. You might find items about him during his tenure with the company in that daily column.