Swept to Death
Part 1
Such was one of the horrific headlines of Vancouver’s The World newspaper, Nov. 10, 1916.
Beneath the page-width banner, FOURTEEN KILLED IN B.C.E.R. WRECK, startled readers were informed that a “motor stage,” as multi-passenger forerunners to buses were defined a century and more ago, had plunged into the Fraser River with a load of passengers.
It’s one of B.C.’s worst public transit disasters in history, third only to the collapse of Victoria’s Point Ellice Bridge on May 26, 1896, and a collision between a railway car and a streetcar in November 1909 that killed 15.
The grim headline of the Vancouver News Advertiser, Nov. 12, 1916. —Newspapers.com
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In the immediate confusion that followed it’s not surprising that the death toll ranged from nine (The World and the News Advertiser) to 14 (the Vancouver Sun). The day after the tragedy, beneath the headline, STAGE CRASHES THROUGH OPEN DRAW OF BRIDGE, the Advertiser was able to give a concise if unconfirmed summary in its front-page subhead of November 12th:
Terrible Toll Taken When Automobile From Ladner Plunges Into Fraser River—Machine Carried 11 Passengers and Driver, But Only Little Girl and Two Men Were Rescued—Car Was Travelling at High Rate of Speed—Little Known of Those Who Perished and Bodies Have Not Been Recovered—May Be Still in Submerged Car—Accident Cannot Be Explained as Driver, Who Is Missing, Was Thoroughly Familiar With Road.
Adding to the general consternation and grief was the fact that the bridge tender had tried to warn off the approaching vehicle’s “chauffeur”.
“Nine are thought to have perished when the Ladner auto stage plunged into the river through the draw of the North Arm bridge in South Vancouver at 7 o’clock last evening... A little girl and two men were rescued. The body of another little girl was recovered, but up to the time of going to press, no more bodies have been found. It is believed that the bodies of one woman and seven men are still in the water.
“The bus, driven by George Smith, who was drowned, burst through the gate guarding the draw, breaking the padlock and loosing the chain which held the gate closed.”
Actually, three bodies had been recovered within minutes of the crash; but initial attempts to raise the vehicle were unsuccessful and it was feared that more bodies had been swept downstream by the current and possibly might never be recovered, their identities never known.
As it happened, eight bodies, including those of Mrs. Arthur Wellseley Evans, her seven-year-old daughter Lorna, and driver George Smith were recovered the next day. Six-year-old Muriel Evans had survived as had Henry Hutchinson and Thomas Shortreed, thanks to the efforts of bridge tender Thomas Dodson and Alexander Mitchell who lived at the end of the bridge, and the master of the tug Isaac which had just passed through.
Posted as missing were Arnold Wilcox, farm manager, and possibly two other unconfirmed passengers, with guesstimates as to how many had been on board ranging as high as 14.
Looking north at the Fraser Ave. Bridge over North Arm, 1916. Bridge tender Thomas Dodson is on the right in the foreground. He appears to be standing on the approach to the draw bridge where the people are gathered. The farm gate at this end of the bridge couldn’t have stopped any vehicle of size let alone a heavy seven-seater car carrying 13 people any more than its counterpart at the other end of the bridge through which the “auto stage” crashed.—Vancouver City Archives
Survivors could only say that the bus was “filled” when it left Ladner and picked up several more passengers while on its way to Vancouver.
“The exact number of passengers was known only to Driver George Smith, and his body lies cold in death alongside seven other victims in the Hamilton Undertaking company’s morgue in South Vancouver, where they were taken after being recovered from the chilly depths of the Fraser yesterday.”
Miss Annie Dodson, daughter of the bridge tender who’d witnessed the accident, said the draw bar had been lowered immediately upon the tug’s passing through. As the bus approached “at a high rate of speed,” she and her father could only watch, stunned, expecting that the vehicle would begin to slow down. (Dodson shouted and wave his lantern frantically, but to no avail.)
“The car kept right on and father and daughter were horrified to see it crash into the locked gates at the south end of the draw span.
“The heavily laden car carried away the locked gates as if they had been only matches, and plunged headlong into the muddy, chilling, swift-flowing current while agonizing cries for help rang out but were soon stifled as the unfortunate passengers were carried down in the icy flood.”
Dodson roused Alexander Mitchell who lived at the end of the bridge; he launched a rowboat and it was he who saved Muriel Evans and recovered her sister who failed to respond to resuscitation. Miss Dodson rushed Muriel inside where she and her mother “administered restoratives” and bundled her in blankets beside the kitchen stove. Still in shock, Muriel shyly tried to answer questions put to her by a newspaper reporter.
She said she had a sister and a brother named Albert, that her father worked in Ladner [he was a doctor in Victoria] but as to where she lived and where she was going she was vague. She petted the Dodsons’ cat as she spoke, saying she had one of her own at home that she wanted to go back to.
When found by Mitchell, she’d drifted some distance downstream, as had the body of her sister. Annie and Lorna Evans are interred in the family plot in Victoria’s Ross Bay Cemetery.)
The water, although only 18 feet deep, had been so cold, the News Advertiser marvelled, that most of those who’d managed to free themselves from the vehicle had been overcome by hypothermia before they could make it to shore or be rescued. In fact, “it is remarkable that two men and the girl kept afloat”.
Luckily for passenger Tom Shortreed, he managed to struggle free of the wreck and began swimming for the nearby shore which proved to be a long way because of the cold water and swift current. He owed his life to the captain of the tugboat. Ashore, Mrs. Mitchell helped him warm up and dry out before heading home. The tug Isaac’s master had also saved Henry Hutchinson.
A Fraser River bridge, 1910. Heavy river traffic and wintry driving conditions: it’s easy to see how accidents could happen. —Vancouver City Archives
Motor stage operator George Smith was recognized as a “usually careful” driver—what had gone wrong?
Had he not seen the red light signalling that the draw bar was down, the gate closed? What really caused “this awful tragedy which has taken a heavier toll of human life than any other motor accident since automobiles commenced to operate in Greater Vancouver?”
Bridge Tender Dodson had lowered the bar and closed the gates which were made of steel bars and heavy wire and fastened in the centre with a padlock. “These gates,” it was explained, “are located at each end of the bridge next to the draw span and are always closed and locked before the draw is opened.”
Proof that the gates were closed when struck by the bus was graphically shown by the snapped lock and green paint, presumably from the bus where it had been scraped off as the chain stretched before breaking.
Compounding the mystery was the fact that red and green traffic lights that clearly indicated stop and go for vehicles, that for river traffic still showed green. Among the several theories advanced as to the cause of the disaster was that Smith’s windshield had been steamed up, and the drop-down side curtains in place because of the cold.
In the words of survivors Hutchinson and Shortreed, the windshield was “all steamed up,” the car “all closed in” thanks to the combined body temperature in such a confined space.
This theory was suggested by South Vancouver Police Chief Joseph Lee, in charge of the investigation into the cause of the accident. As it happened, he knew driver George Smith well “and cannot otherwise account for how such a generally careful driver who knows the road so well, making such an awful mistake–for his mistake it was, seems pretty clearly established. He had been operating on this run a large black touring car and generally made three round trips daily and sometimes four on Saturdays.”
A large black touring car—some bus! A McLaughlin seven-seater with a canvas top crammed with a dozen adults and two children who must have been sitting on each other’s laps, and two more clinging to the running boards!
George Smith’s ill-fated passengers were crowded into a McLaughlin touring car similar to this 1915 model. Canvas curtains would have been lowered to keep out the cold. —Wikipedia
As so often seems to be the case, Fate played a hand in the tragedy. Normally, marine traffic was suspended at night, but the span had been opened to allow passage for the tug. And a slight mist could have led driver Smith to mistake the fogging of his windshield for just another patch of mist along the river.
“In any event whatever caused the mistake, it was a tragic one.”
To no one’s surprise, young Muriel Evans “was too badly frightened by her sudden plunge into the icy waters,” and “too young anyway to understand much about it”.
Dragging operations were continued through the night and, early Sunday morning, Diver Harry Cook and his crew were on hand. On his first descent he found the car but no bodies inside, and he attached a cable for hauling when the government snag boat Samson could arrive to oversee recovery.
Farther downstream Chief Lee ‘s dragging team found three victims; four more bodies soon followed. An inquest, scheduled to take place in the Hamilton undertaking parlours where the bodies had been taken, was delayed until the “death car” was recovered for examination.
All this time, one victim remained unaccounted for, Arnold Wilcox, the young Ladner farm manager. The body of his friend Kenneth Ritchie, a salesman for the Ladner-Delta area, had been recovered. It was reported that driver Smith left a wife and five children. William Henry Walker, an engineer for the Pacific Milk Co., was going home for the weekend, having just heard that his son, serving in France, had been seriously wounded by shellfire.
Both wives were said to be “prostrated” by the news of their husbands’ deaths.
“Particularly heart-rending, too, was the disaster to Mr. A.W. Evans, a well known resident of North Vancouver, who lost both his wife and his eldest daughter.” They’d been visiting friends in Ladner and had started home sooner than expected.
Victim John Marshall, single, of North Vernon, WA, had been headed to town for a dance that evening.
Driver George Smith had been operating the Ladner stage for several years and “was considered to be making a fair competency lately since the ferry system had been improved”.
Which left the final known victim, an unnamed Chinese man. Described as middle-aged, “rather large sized for his race and [who] appears to be well-to-do, the body being dressed in a grey cloth suit of good texture,” he was later identified as Dun Jit.
(to be continued…)
