Historical train derailment links German visitor, Iowa engineer

Part II:

MARENGO — While researching her husband’s family history, Kathy Hotchkiss, of Moline, Illinois, discovered a 120-year-old secret linking the Hotchkiss family with the Amana Colonies and a German baron.

Shortly after midnight March 22, 1905, the Rocky Mountain Limited went off the rails and slid down a 54-foot embankment at Brush Run, about a mile and a half west of Homestead with 53 passengers.

The only fatality was the engineer, the grandfather of Kathy’s husband, Steve. Alvin Hotchkiss died a few days after the wreck from internal injuries or from burns, depending on which source is believed.

Officials initially thought the derailment was the work of robbers, but they later concluded that 25-year-old Erich Kutzleben, a German visiting his father in South Amana, removed a rail just to watch the train wreck.

Kathy heard the story from Kutzleben’s great-nephew, Mark Kutzleben, while they were both researching family members on Find a Grave.

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The engineer

Alvin Hotchkiss was born in New York City in 1852, according to The Daily Times in Davenport, March 31, 1905. In April of 1873, he married Carrie R. Winfield of Port Jervis, New York.

Alvin moved to Stuart, Iowa in 1875 to work for the railroad and lived there until 1897, Kathy said.

When the Rock Island Railroad started a line from Kansas City through Valley Junction (now West Des Moines) to Minneapolis, the roundhouse at Stuart was no longer convenient, Kathy said. The railroad closed it and moved everything to Valley Junction.

Stuart lost 400 people. Alvin moved to Rock Island.

Alvin had worked for the railroad for 30 years serving as a fireman before becoming an engineer and driving the Rocky Mountain Flyer from Chicago to Colorado.

When the engineer died, Kutzleben was charged with first degree murder and malicious train wrecking and was tried in Marengo.

“The trial was a media circus,” said Kathy.

The trial

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The Wellman Advance reported Thursday, April 6, 1905 that Erich appeared to be intelligent. He was slim, about 5 feet, 10 inches tall and had a light mustache. Erich’s father, Ferdinand, was employed by the Amana Society in West Amana, it said.

County Attorney W.E. Wallace prosecuted the case, and Popham & Havner were appointed by the state to defend the prisoner, according to “Pioneer Recollections,” published in 1941. The defense said Erich was insane and incapable of premeditated murder.

The defense attorney asked the judge to throw out Erich’s confession on the ground that the detective, Mr. Stiefel, had hinted that Erich might be granted clemency if he confessed. The judge allowed the confession but also allowed evidence of duress.

Stiefel was later convicted of fraud and coercion and was sent to prison, said Kathy.

The Fairfield Journal of April 6, 1905 reported that Von Kutzleben withdrew his confession and would fight the murder charge. “Von Kutzleben will plead not guilty, claiming that the confession was wrung from him by threats and through a sweating process,” the newspaper reported.

Erich’s father was not on good terms with him and refused to help him, the Journal said, but a wealthy uncle in Germany offered money to secure the best legal talent.

Eventually Erich’s mother arrived in Marengo to plead for her boy.

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“Sacrificing her last right to occupy a castle at Bradenberg, Germany, selling every property belonging to a family of noble blood which had given many lives to the cause of liberty, Baroness von Kutzleben occupies a rickety chair today in the little court hose in [Marengo] in her endeavor to secure the liberty of her favorite son…,” said the Fairfield Tribune, Wednesday, Nov. 8, 1905.

“In mine own language I could tell you how awful it is for my son to be accused of this terrible murder,” said the baroness. “Why do they not let him go? He is but a child. He does not know what he is saying.”

Baroness Clementine von Kutzleben also claimed that the United States owed her family a debt because her ancestor, General von Steuben, fought in the revolutionary war with George Washington for this country and this flag and her cousins came with Prince Heinrich at invitation of the president to visit the Centennial Exposition and make a tour of the United States in 1876.

A jury took only 12 hours to convict Kutzleben of first-degree murder Nov. 9, 1905, says the Fairfield Tribune. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Erich’s mother was not present due to her health; she had fainted a number of times during the 10-day trial.

Erich was sent to Anamosa where he spent most of his time in the insane ward.

In November of 1907, the Iowa Supreme Court reversed the conviction. The Court upheld the regularity and legality of the indictment but held that Erich should have been granted a continuance so he could get witnesses from Germany in an attempt to prove that he was mentally unbalanced, the Lone Tree Reporter said.

The von Kutzleben family was friends with Sigmund Freud, Mark von Kutzleben told Kathy. He believes Erich was coached what to say so as to succeed with a plea of insanity, Kathy said.

In November of 1907, The Fairfield Tribune reported that Erich would be tried a second time, this time in Pottawattamie County.

In June of 1909, Erich was released from prison “because of unsound mind and permitted to return to his native country,” said the June 30, Fairfield Ledger.

“Judge A.O. Byington of Iowa City, who presided at the trial of Von Kutzleben, denounces the releases of this man as an ‘inexpressible outrage.’”

The judge said that Iowa laws and Iowa courts seemed to be organized for the protection of the criminal from the assaults of society, the Ledger said.

The Fairfield Daily Journal wrote that Erich’s is a story “of the love of a mother who has sacrificed all for her boy.”

“After four years of struggle and weary waiting in an alien land, mother love in the breast of Baroness von Kutzleben of Berlin has triumphed over the prison bars of Anamosa,” the newspaper said.

The baroness took her son and returned to Germany.

Prologue

According to Mark’s research, Erich fought in World War I, was injured and married a nurse he met while recovering, said Kathy. Erich never told his children or grandchildren about the Homestead derailment and murder conviction, she said.

One cousin told Mark, “Grandpa would never do that.”

Alvin Hotchkiss had 11 children, but only four survived to adulthood, said Kathy. One of the surviving sons was Steve’s grandfather, but he died before Steve was born in 1954.

“This whole thing was just such an unexpected story,” said Kathy, for both the Hotchkiss and the von Kutzleben families. “We were doing the parallel research after all this time.”