Casey Jones, Kentucky Hero
From "Erie Railroad Magazine" Vol
24 (April 1928), No 2, pp. 13,44.
On the last day of April [1928] occurs the 28th anniversary of the death of
Casey Jones, probably the most famous of a long line of locomotive engineer
heroes who have died at their post of duty, one hand on the whistle and the
other on the airbrake lever. Casey Jones' fame rests on a series of nondescript
verses, which can hardly be called poetry. They were written by Wallace
Saunders, a Negro engine wiper who had been a close friend of the famous
engineer, and who sang them to a jigging melody all his own.
Mrs Casey Jones still lives in Jackson, Tenn. She has two sons and a daughter.
Charles Jones, her younger son, lives in Jackson; Lloyd, the older son, is with
a Memphis auto agency; and her daughter, Mrs. George McKenzie, lives in
Tuscaloosa, Ala.
Although 41 years have flitted by since Miss Janie Brady said "I do" and became
the bride of John Luther (Casey) Jones, Mrs Jones still keeps green the memory
of that glad occasion. Today, still on the sunny side of 60, the plump blond
woman with her cheery smile tells graphically the story of how her husband was
killed, and how Wallace Saunders composed the original air and words that later
swept the country for years as the epic ballad of the railroader.
"My husband's real name was John Luther Jones," she told her latest interviewer.
"He was a loveable lad - 6 feet 4 1/2 inches in height, darkhaired and
gray-eyed. Always he was in good humor and his Irish heart was as big as his
body. All the railroaders were fond of Casey, and his wiper, Wallace Saunders,
just worshipped the ground he walked on."
The interviewer asked Mrs. Jones how her husband got the nickname Casey.
"Oh, I supposed everyone knew that!" she replied. "He got it from the town of
Cayce, Kentucky, near which he was born. The name of the town is locally
pronounced in two syllables, exactly like 'Casey'."
Mrs. Jones remembers Wallace Saunders very well, although she has not seen him
for years.
"Wallace's admiration of Casey was little short of idolatry," she said. "He used
to brag mightly about Mr. Jones even when Casey was only a freight engineer."
Casey Jones was known far and wide among railroad men, for his peculiar skill
with a locomotive whistle.
"You see," said Mrs. Jones, "he astablished a sort of trade mark for himself by
his inimitable method of blowing a whistle. It was a kind of long-drawn-out note
that he created, beginning softly, then rising, then dying away almost to a
whisper. People living along the Illinois Central right of way between Jackson
and Water Valley would turn over in their beds late at night and say: 'There
goes Casey Jones,' as he roared by."
After he had put in several years as freight and passenger engineer between
Jackson and Water Valley, Casey was transfered early in 1900 to the
Memphis-Canton (Miss.) run as throttle-puller of the Illinois Central's crack
"Cannonball" train.
Casey and his fireman, Sim Webb, rolled into Memphis from Canton about 10
o'clock Sunday night, April 29. They went to the checking- in office and were
prepared to go to their homes when Casey heard somebody call out: "Joe Lewis has
just been taken with cramps and can't take his train out tonight."
"I'll double back and pull Lewis' old No. 638," Casey volunteered.
At 11 o'clock that rainy Sunday night Casey and Sim Webb clambered aboard the
big engine and eased her out of the station and through the South Memphis yards.
Four o'clock of the 30th of April. The little town of Vaughn, Miss. A long
winding curve just above the town, and a long sidetrack beginning about where
the curve ended.
"There's a freight train on the siding," Casey yelled across to Sim Webb.
Knowing the siding there was a long one, and having passed many other freights
on it, Casey figured he would do the same this night.
But there was two seperate sections of a very long train on the sidetrack this
night. And the rear one was a little too long to get all its length off the main
track onto the siding. The freight train crews figured on "sawing by"; that is
as soon as the passenger train passed the front part of the first train, it
would move forward and the rear freight would move up, thus clearing the main
track.
But Casey's speed-about fifty miles an hour-was more than the freight crews
bargained for.
But when old 638 was within a hundred feet of the end of the siding the
horrified eyes of Casey Jones and Sim Webb beheld through the gloom the looming
shape of several boxcars in motion, swinging across from the main line to the
side-track. In a flash both knew there way no earthly way of preventing a
smashup.
"Jump, Sim, and save yourself!," was Casey's last order to his fireman. As for
himself, Casey through his engine in reverse and applied the air-brakes-all any
engineer could do, and rode roaring 638 into a holocaust of crashing wood that
splintered like match boxes. Sim Webb jumped, fell into some bushes and was not
injured.
When they took Casey's body from the wreckage (old 638 had plowed through the
cars and caboose and turned over on her side a short distance beyond) they found
one hand on the whistle cord, the other on the air-brake lever.
"I remember," Sim Webb told Casey's widow, "that as I jumped Casey held down the
whistle in a long, piercing scream. I think he must have had in mind to warn the
freight conductor in the caboose so he could jump."
Probably no individual, excepting a member of Casey's family, was more affected
by the sad news than Wallace Saunders.
A few days later he was going about singing a song to a melody all his own. The
air had a lilt that caught the fancy of every one who heard it. But Wallace,
honest old soul, had no idea of doing more than singing it as a sort of tribute
to his white friend's memory.
But one day a song writer passed through Jackson and heard the song and the
details of Casey's tragic death. He went off and changed the words, but retained
the lilting refrain and the name Casey Jones. That was about 1902.