By: Donna Hunt
Written January 9, 2016
Some time ago, I wrote a column looking for information about a mystery woman, a heroine of a railroad wreck. I don’t believe I had any responses, but super sleuths Jim Sears and B.C. Thomas found more than anyone could ever need about our heroine. She was 17-year-old Mae Mosse, who grew up in Denison.
She was the heroine of the Chambers Creek wreck on the Houston and Texas Central passenger train that went off a trestle and fell off a 12-foot bridge into Chambers Creek, five miles north of Corsicana on Sept. 27, 1898.
The young Denison woman who was on her way to school in Austin saved the life of R.D. Berry of Dallas, who would have drowned if she had not come to his aid and supported his head above water until help came. As it was, Berry received a facial cut and a bruised arm.
The sleeper and a chair car went off the trestle when the southbound train was traveling at a high rate of speed when the wreck occurred, crushing Judge G.W. Davis of Dallas under a seat car. He did not survive. A.B. Yantis, a brother of state Sen. Yantis, was caught between seats and badly crushed. John Richardson of Richland as pulled from the wreck and Superintendent L.A. Daffan of Ennis, the division superintendent of the H&TC, was thrown violently against the rear end of the chair car and received serious spinal injuries. A later report said that Daffan lost two fingers.
When a portion of the train plunged from the trestle into the water below, Miss Mosse went down with it. She was the only woman who did not scream or go into hysterics according to an Oct. 2, 1898 article published in the Denison Gazetteer. Instead, she noticed how Superintendent Daffan, who was seated in the same car with her, was pinned to the floor with several seats piled on top of him. She went to his assistance as the water rushed into the car windows and through the open doors. She kneeled beside him and lifted his head into her lap just as the water almost reached his lips. When she saw that he was out of danger, she went to the aid of others in the car who were injured and groaning in anguish and pain.
The tender of the engine jumped the track on a short bridge, throwing the last two coaches from the track and over a bridge about 12 feet. The train was heavily loaded with passengers and it was said that it was a miracle that anyone was left to tell the story.
The chair car of the train went off the trestle into a pool of water. Miss Mosse was bruised about her body and face and she lost her purse that contained her money. Two new hats were floating in the water and ruined. When she reached Superintendent Daffan, he was nearly strangled by the water that was up to his lips. In a letter afterwards, she said she thought she may have also saved the life of R.W. Moore of Trenton, who had mouth and nose cuts, a bruised head and chest injuries.
Fourteen people were injured in the wreck, two fatally. After the wreck, passengers hugged Miss Mosse and complimented her so much that she was embarrassed. In the letter she wrote later she said that she “simply did her duty” and for her parents not to worry.
