Failure of a brakeman to walk far enough to the rear of the stalled Montreal train to flag the freight in time, is said to have caused the smashup.
The news of the banker’s death had no effect on the stock exchange, where prices were slightly above the close last night.
Spencer Trask, who was born here in 1844, entered the banking business immediately on his graduation from Princeton. His financial acumen was quickly recognized, and he soon became a power in the banking world.
Mr. Trask was among the first to recognize the genius of Thomas A. Edison, and identified himself with the Edison electric enterprises. The banker was a director in many railroads and realty companies and was deeply interested in educational and philanthropic societies. Several years ago he bought and reorganized The New York Times. He was president of the National Arts club and a member of numerous other prominent New York clubs. Mr. Trask was married in 1874 to Miss Katrina Nichols.
NOTE--_The following two stories should be compared as reports of the same accident given in two New York morning papers._
Death followed triumphant achievement with terrible swiftness for three men yesterday, when they were smothered in the hold of the steamship H. M. Whitney, of the Metropolitan outside line to Boston, which they had helped to raise only a few hours before after a month of hard work in the raging currents of Hell Gate.
One, a diver, went down into the hold to see if a patch he had put on the wrecked bottom from the outside was holding well. He died, it is supposed, as the poisonous gases rose about him, and two more, going after him to see why he did not return, met the same fate.
It was not until three men lay dead in the fetid hold, suffocated by the gases that the cargo of hides, beer and perhaps half a hundred other things gave off, that a glimmering of reason seemed to come to those in charge of the work. Then the needless sacrifice of more lives was prevented. Some one took charge, and men equipped with divers’ helmets rescued two more men who had gone down for their comrades, and brought up the bodies of the dead.
Augustus Bjorklund was the diver who brought about the fatal ending of the day’s work. No one knows just why he went down into the hold, warned as he had been to beware of the poisonous gases that always accumulate when a vessel has lain long in the water, but the officials of the Merritt-Chapman Wrecking Company suppose that he wanted to see his work from inside.