Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/402

 nominated J. Lee Plummer for State Treasurer and Charles E. Rice, James A. Beaver and George B. Orlady for judges of the Superior Court. One of the resolutions set forth:

“The intense Pennsylvanianism of Governor Samuel W. Pennypacker, the rugged honesty of his administration and the independence, fearlessness, wisdom and watchful care with which he has executed the laws, safeguarding in every possible way all the interests of this commonwealth, command our admiration and respect.”

At two o'clock on the morning of May 11th, we were aroused by a call on the telephone for help. Near Steelton, a freight train on the Pennsylvania Railroad met with an accident, the result of which was that one or two of the cars fell on the west-bound track. Just then the express passenger train, going westward, came along, struck these cars and exploded a lot of dynamite on the freight train. It was a remarkable combination of unfortuitous events. About twenty people were killed and about a hundred injured. On one of the sleepers were James R. Tindle and his wife, the daughter of Senator Knox, who were both somewhat cut with glass. She is a little woman, but she showed her breeding and at once took command of the situation. She walked in her night dress and bare feet a mile along the track to Steelton, and there suggested calling me up at the mansion. Bromley Wharton went for the Tindles in an automobile, brought them to the mansion, where they were put to bed and treated, and there they remained for a day or two. The Senator, coming on from Washington, found that they had not been seriously injured.

On my suggestion the legislature appropriated $30,000 for the purpose of erecting an equestrian statue of Anthony Wayne at Valley Forge. The commission appointed consisted of Richard M. Cadwalader, president of the Pennsylvania Society Sons of the Revolution, John Armstrong Herman, great-grandson of General John Armstrong, and Colonel John P. Nicholson, the authority on the history of 384