FATAL ACCIDENT AT COLAC BAY
A sad and fatal accident occurred yesterday morning on the Riverton-Orepuki line, to a fireman named James McDonald. Deceased was in the act of shunting a carriage at Colac Bay, when his foot slipped, and he was thrown down, the carriage passing over his thigh and abdomen. He was promptly placed in a carriage and brought to the Riverton Hospital, but the poor fellow died in less than half an hour after admission. The deceased was greatly respected by all who knew him as a steady and hard working young fellow. His parents reside at the Bluff. -Southland Times, 14/3/1882.
NOTES FROM COLAC
Is the baptism of blood requisite on the opening of our Southland new lines? This is not, perhaps, a question for mortal to ask, seeing that the great “I am” knows what is best for us. But oh! it is sad at the age of twenty one, full of youth, vigor, and expectations, to find our thread cut, and only left time to think that we lived, and fainting slip into another existence. James McDonald, who but a short time ago was as anticipative of a bright future as any of us — who still live and indulge in the sanguine, —is living in God’s acre. Suddenly called upon to deliver up the breath given him by his Maker, he left this world as I’d wish to leave it, viz. — leaving none behind to speak an unkind word. I have been many, places in my time, and seen many faces too, but none did I ever see that so continually wore that smile which was the signification of inward happiness that denoted so kindly — I live at peace with all men. I am saying nothing but what I feel. I liked the lad — as did everybody — and though sadly given my mite towards getting a memorial tombstone — it was genuine pleasure to be able to contribute to the memory of one so good. This is a subject I don’t feel myself fit to handle with justice, as it takes me back to the morning I saw a stoker’s cap, with tidily kept monogram, lying beside a pool of blood on the platform of the carriage that was to carry him along a line he’d never travel over again. That he was a provident youth I have full proof; that he was ever anxious to do his best may be gathered from the fact that he was always busy cleaning his engine, evidently having his soul in his work. One special feature in young McDonald I cannot help remarking, and that was his freedom from indulgence in familiarity. If anyone thing annoys me more than another, it is this “larrikin familiarity” which is the studied forte of puppets. None of that about McDonald; his mild “yes, sir,” or “no, sir,” as occasion required, was delivered in a manner that would shame many with far greater pretentions. I fully — as do we all out here — sympathise with his bereaved parents, and in conclusion, I think no more suitable words could be cut on his tombstone than: — “To the memory of James McDonald, aged twenty-one. His duty was the cause of his death.” -Western Star, 29/3/1882.
The late Mr J. McDonald.— The friends of the late Mr James McDonald (who was recently killed at Colac Bay) have evidently not forgotten him. They have determined upon showing their goodwill by erecting a stone to his memory in the Bluff cemetery, and have already collected a large sum towards defraying this expense. Besides this, his fellow-workers have had the cap, which the deceased wore at the time of his death, placed in a very handsome glass case, which they have forwarded, with expressions of sympathy, to the bereaved paients. This kindly feeling truly shows the estimation in which the deceased was held, and fully proves that "our works do live after us." -Southland Times, 12/5/1882.
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| Bluff Cemetery. |
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