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Washington Evening Journal
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1905 train derailment a well-kept family secret
Part I
MARENGO — Moline, Illinois resident Kathy Hotchkiss was surprised to find that she and fellow Quester Pam Todd married men who are eighth cousins once removed.
She was even more surprised when that revelation led her to the Amana Colonies, a 120-year-old train derailment and a murder charge for a German nobleman.
The beginning
Kathy was vice president of the Quester International Board in 2021, and Pam, who lives in Red Lodge, Montana, is president of the board of that historical preservation organization.
While researching her husband’s genealogy, Pam discovered a Hotchkiss connection on Find A Grave and sent Kathy to that website.
The Find a Grave entry for Alvin C. Hotchkiss, the great-great-grandfather to Kathy’s husband, Steve, said that Alvin died March 29, 1905 at the age of 53 from injuries sustained in the wreck of train No. 41 on the Rock Island near Homestead, Iowa March 21, 1905.
Next to the entry for Alvin Hotchkiss was a flower icon, placed by a man named Mark von Kutzleben in June of 2021, a stranger to Kathy and the Hotchkiss family.
Kathy contacted Mark through Find a Grave, and he told her a surprising story that linked their two families, a story that neither family had heard in 120 years.
The derailment
A large headline on page three of The Mount Pleasant Daily News of Tuesday, March 21, 1905 screamed “Rocky Mountain Limited Wrecked.”
“Train Robbers Wreck Train Near Homestead Iowa. Seven Persons Injured, Three Fatally. Robbers Make Their Escape.”
As is often the case with breaking news, some of the initial information was not accurate. Only the engineer died, and that was days later.
“The booty secured by the robbers has not been stated,” the article said, and the robbers escaped.
But subsequent reports disputed that robbery was the motive for the catastrophe.
The Rock Island train was carrying 53 passengers and was traveling 60 miles per hour when it derailed after midnight at Brush Run, a small creek and valley about a mile and a half west of Homestead, according to a 2008 article by Peter Hoehnle.
At that point, the rail ran on top of a 54-foot high embankment. The engine, mail car, a baggage car and two sleeping cars slid down the slope which was wet from recent rains, Hoehnle wrote.
Newspaper accounts at the time estimated the embankment at 30 and 40 feet. One newspaper said the train carried 65 passengers, and one said the train was traveling at 45 miles per hour.
When word of the accident reached Homestead, a group of volunteers boarded a pump car kept at the Homestead Depot and rode to the site to help the wounded, according to Hoehnle.
The engineer, Alvin Hotchkiss, was lying across a couple of train seats in the rear sleeper, one end of which was still on the rails, when Dr. William Moershel found him and cleaned his wounds. He had serious cuts and was scalded from steam, newspaper accounts reported.
They did not think that Alvin was fatally injured, said Kathy. They didn’t even take him to the hospital. Alvin told the doctor he was uninjured except some burns on his hands.
At a meeting of the Rock Island System Surgical Association in December 1905 Moershel said that Brush Run was considered one of the most dangerous spots for rail passengers because of the numerous holdups by highwaymen.
In the news
The derailment made page one of the Mount Pleasant Daily News Wednesday, March 22, 1905.
“Unidentified men removed bolts and spikes from the Rock Island railroad track near Homestead and wrecked the Rocky Mountain limited a little after midnight,” the newspaper said.
The accident injured five trainmen and a passenger and did $25,000 damage to the train. The Secret Service was investigating the attempted robbery.
The Mediapolis News said the train consisted of a mail car, baggage car, chair car, smoking car, observation car and three Pullmans. The engine left the track first and plowed along the ties for nearly 300 feet before toppling over the embankment. The engineer and the fireman jumped from the train as it slowed.
The engine turned completely over and stood on its head. The baggage and mail cars were demolished. Only the observation car, in the rear, remained on the track.
Engineer Hotchkiss was rescued from the debris with serious cuts and badly scaled from escaping steam, the Daily News said.
A few days later, the story of the derailment took a strange turn.
Page six of the Mediapolis News for Thursday, March 30 announced “Demented Man Wrecks Train.” Erich Kutzleben had confessed and was in jail in Marengo, the newspaper said.
The suspect
Kutzleben, a 25-year-old German who spoke in broken English, reportedly told investigators that he wanted to see the effect of a fast train being wrecked on a high embankment. Kutzleben, who was living in South Amana, said he was a German nobleman who had been forced to leave the Fatherland due to a trivial offense against the kaiser.
Mark confirmed that the von Kutzleben family was well placed in German society, Kathy said. Erich had come to Amana to see his father, Ferdinand. Erich’s mother was still in Germany, though the couple hadn’t divorced.
Investigators were led to Erich by a schoolteacher who said he had met Erich the night before the wreck on a bridge near the scene.
Erich was drinking wine straight from the bottle, the schoolteacher said, and talked about what a great sight it would be to see the wreckage of a train thrown from the rails. The teacher thought nothing of it until after the wreck, when he reported the encounter to investigators.
Kutzleben was taken to Superintendent Smalley’s car and questioned but maintained that he was home that night and had retired about 8 p.m.
But a proprietor at the house in South Amana where Kutzleben stopped said he’d not returned until 2 a.m. and had left again at 4 a.m.
Investigators got a confession out of Erich after putting him through “the sweat box,” according to newspaper accounts.
Erich told investigators that he took tools from a section foreman’s tool house, removed some spikes took up a rail, and threw the tools into the river. He covered the break in the track with newspapers so the engineer would not be able to see that a rail was missing.
Erich became frightened after preparing for the wreck and fled, he initially told investigators, but “Pioneer Recollections,” published in 1941, reported that Erich stayed to watch the wreck and stayed for about two hours. He got to bed about 4 a.m.
The publication also says that Erich confided to a Mr. Specht that he planned to rob the train to get enough money to return to Germany for his sister’s wedding.
Following the death of Hotchkiss from internal injuries or severe burns — depending on which newspaper account is believed — Kutzleben was charged with murder. One newspaper called him a demon.
(Next week: Part II: the victim, the trial and the end of the story.)
