Train Accident at Eastham Injures James Morgan of Yarmouth Port, MA (1877-1906)


James Anthony Morgan was born at Yarmouth, Massachusetts on 21 May 1877 to Irish immigrant parents Patrick and Mary (Howard) Morgan.  They lived on Summer Street in Yarmouthport.  James, a railroad employee, died on 8 March 1906 having suffered for over 18 months from paralysis and severe injuries sustained in a railroad accident while working on the New York, New Hampshire & Hartford Railroad.  He is buried with his parents at St. Patrick's Cemetery in Hyannis, a small graveyard situated in a very busy and congested intersection.

Patrick and Mary Morgan had 11 children, seven of whom survived birth; the children were Mary E. born 1863; Thomas Henry born 1864 - died 1891; Margaret born 1867; Sarah Eliza born 1869; Lavinia Howard born 1874; James born 1877; and the youngest, my great grandfather, William born 1880.

[1892 The Register]                                      
On 18 January 1894 an illegitimate male child, James Morgan Cotelle, was born at Yarmouth to Daisy Cotelle.  Daisy would have been approximately 15 or 16 years of age at the time. From a quick research, Daisy was born 5 August 1879 at Dennis and at 11 months old is enumerated in the almshouse at Barnstable with her seventeen year old mother Anna.  Daisy's father, David Kelly Cotelle, 18 year old sailor, is living at his mother Caroline's house in Dennis.  By 1900 research finds David Cotelle a prisoner at the Massachusetts Reformatory Institution in Concord, Massachusetts; in April 1897 he had been found guilty at the Barnstable Court of breaking and entering and sentenced to three years.   


On the 15th of November 1893 Daisy Cotell of Barnstable filed a complaint with the District Court at Barnstable claiming that she was pregnant with the child of James Morgan of Yarmouth.  She claims James "beget her with child" at Yarmouth on or around the 20th of May 1893. She requested that James Morgan be apprehended to answer the claim, and he was brought before the District Court on 28 November 1893.  James paid a $500 bond with sureties for his later appearance at the Superior Court.  Daisy delivered a male child on 18 January 1894 and continued the claim that James was father and requested he be so named as well as agree to maintenance and support.  Ultimately, in April 1894 James entered his answer, and the Overseers of the Poor of Barnstable requested to prosecute the case.  The Overseers proceeded to file a request to settle the suit which was agreed to by all parties.  A Judgment for the Defendant was entered.  I do not know the specifics of what was otherwise included in the settlement. (Daisy later married Bartlett Sears and it appears that her son James Morgan took the last name of Sears.)

James Morgan and 19 year old Helen L. Snell, both of Wareham, married on 23 September 1897.  James' occupation was identified as baggage master.  Helen was the daughter of William and Maria (Tripp) Snell.  James and Helen had one child named Mary Louise Morgan born 21 July 1898 who died of cholera at Wareham on 20 September 1898. Helen Morgan is identified in the 1900 U.S. Federal Census at Plymouth, a boarder in the home of George Merrill.  Helen had had one child though none living, and is working as an inspector of cloth.  That same year James, identified as married, is enumerated in the home of his parents in Yarmouthport.  Helen Snell, aged 27, married second, Chester Washburn, aged 19, on 14 October 1905; she married third (called widow) Herbert Leach who had been a boarder in her home and worked with her at a cloth mill.  I currently find no divorce record for James and Helen, but as James died in 1906, after her marriage to Mr. Washburn, I can only assume the marriage was either annulled or negated in some way.

Railroad Work


As stated above, in 1897 James' occupation had been identified as baggage master, and in the 1900 U.S. Federal Census he is again identified as railroad laborer.  In 1903, an announcement in the Yarmouth Register places him as working in this same capacity at Yarmouth station. On 15 September 1904, James Morgan was working as a freight brakeman when he was thrown from atop a train at Eastham where he sustained serious injuries.
  



In Barnstable Court Records, James A. Morgan of Yarmouth, Massachusetts is Plaintiff in an action brought against the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad Company of Boston. James provides that on 14 September 1904 he was working on a freight train in the capacity of brakeman near the Eastham Station when he was violently thrown from atop the train due to dangerous and defective conditions of the railroad. James received severe permanent injuries and had suffered much pain, anguish, and costs for medical and surgical care. He further claims the railroad was negligent in that it had put an incompetent and unskillful engineer, with no knowledge of this particular section of the railroad at Eastham, in charge of the train.  Morgan claims the Railroad had not given the engineer sufficient time to become acquainted with this section of the railroad, and was not familiar with "the general character of it's 'siding' and spur tracks."  Additionally, Morgan stated that there were unremedied defects in the "ways, works, machinery, locomotive engineer, cars, and road bed" that had been known to the Railroad.  It appears from the record that Plaintiff Morgan asked for $25,000 in damages.  Defendant ultimately answered the complaint and the two parties came to agreement.  Judgment was for James Morgan but the entry in the record gives the amount of damages as "one dollar."  I am not clear if this was the actual settlement or only a record for the "official" filing.  



James Morgan's mother Mary Morgan died 22 April 1905.  Her death announcement in the Yarmouth Register mentions her years of devotion to her injured son. 


After his mother's death James went to the home of his sister Mrs. Mary Slavin in Hyannis.  He died less than a year later on 8 March 1906.








Sources:

The Boston Globe, 15 Sep 1904, Thu, Page 11, Newspapers.com.

The Boston Globe 8 March 1906, Page 4, Newspapers.com.

Massachusetts Superior Court, Barnstable County, Volume 8, Page 83, Image 828, Film No. 8731311, Familysearch.org.

Massachusetts Superior Court, Barnstable County, Volume 13, Page 350, Image 415, Film No. 8731312, Familysearch.org.

Yarmouth Register, online access at smalltownpapers.com.

Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, Yarmouth Vital Records, Ancestry.com.

U.S. Federal Census Records, Massachusetts, Barnstable, Yarmouth, Ancestry.com.

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