Tragedy at Bucklodge Station

By Jack Toomey

Willis Windsor was proud of his truck.  He had purchased a 1913 Ford roadster when it was five years old and eventually put a 1921 Ford truck body onto it.  Willis used it to haul things for friends, deliver furniture, and sometimes drive his pals around the countryside.  He had even put chairs in the back and installed curtains to provide his passengers with some privacy. 

Windsor had been a motorman on a streetcar in Washington for three years before he moved to Montgomery County.  He worked on various construction jobs and did farm work wherever he could find it.  He lived with his aunt at Thompson’s Corner which was a small village north of Boyds.  As one would expect, Willis was popular because he owned a vehicle and enjoyed the freedom that the machine gave him.

As was the custom of the time, most towns in Montgomery and Frederick Counties fielded baseball teams.  Boyds, Germantown, Dawsonville, Poolesville, Adamstown, and Rockville all had teams, and they would play before large crowds on the local ball grounds.  These games became a popular social event, and spectators could catch up on the latest gossip.  Lemonade would be served from large vats, and cakes and sandwiches were available.  Because most ballgames were played on weekends, fans had all week to talk about upcoming games, and some people made fairly long treks to the ballparks while others could easily walk.

On June 12, 1921, Willis and some friends decided to attend the ballgame at Boyds.  He picked up Clagget Hawkins and Dick Nicholson and then drove to Bucklodge where Joe Carlin and Earl Springer joined them.  At the ball grounds, the young men became separated as they moved through the crowd talking with other friends.  After a while, Nicholson asked Willis to drive him to his aunt’s home in Bucklodge which was then a small community surrounding the Baltimore and Ohio railroad tracks and present-day Bucklodge Road.   Hawkins and Nicholson went along, and a fifteen-year-old, Charlie Cooley, asked to join them.  When they arrived at the farmhouse, Nicholson found that no one was home.  Everyone got back in the truck and they drove back towards the ballgame.  In those days, Bucklodge Road crossed the railroad tracks at grade level.  Now, there is an underpass, and Bucklodge Road passes beneath the railroad.  As Windsor approached the crossing, he slowed down but did not stop.  As they approached Wade’s Store, a small general store and depot at the crossing, Charlie Cooley heard a roaring sound and saw a fast-moving passenger train approaching.  He jumped off the truck and landed on the roadbed.  Just as he jumped,  the train, a Baltimore and Ohio express train to Cumberland, struck the truck and carried it at least a half mile down the tracks.  The conductor and engineer stopped the train and jumped off and found the wreckage of the truck pinned under the engine.  Nicholson and Clagget were dead, and Windsor was badly injured.  It was decided to put Windsor in the baggage car and head for Brunswick.  When the train arrived at Brunswick, an ambulance was waiting, and Windsor was taken to the hospital at Frederick.

The Maryland State Police sent an investigator to the scene, but it seems that most of the investigation was done by the railroad.  Surprisingly, there were several witnesses to the accident. Charlie Kohlhoss, a mechanic and part-time mail handler from Poolesville, William Roberts, a mechanic from Beallsville, and Paul and Karl Brunner from Dawsonville were all approaching the crossing from the opposite direction, coming home from the ballgame, and saw the accident.  Lewis Hamilton, of Bucklodge, who had just put a five-year-old boy on a train to Germantown, and a man named Simms who handled milk jugs on the platform at Wade’s Store were also there.

Willis Windsor stayed in the hospital for over two months, and when he was released, he needed a wheelchair to move about; later he used crutches.  In 1923, he sued the railroad. The points of contention were whether the warning bell at the crossing was working and whether the engineer had blown his whistle as required.  About twelve witnesses were called at the trial in Rockville, and they differed over what they had heard and seen. 

After a number of appeals, the railroad paid for all of Willis Windsor’s medical expenses and also paid him an award of eight thousand dollars.

Years later, an attorney, who had represented Willis Windsor in court, was riding on a train from West Virginia to Rockville. As the train passed through the rolling countryside of upper Montgomery County, he told his fellow passengers about the accident there in 1921 and about Charlie Cooley’s leap that saved his life.  A man sitting in the seat behind the attorney was listening intently to the story.  As the train passed through Bucklodge, the man leaned over the seat and said, “I am Charlie Cooley.”  The attorney had not recognized the survivor of the wreck and the son of Montgomery County’s first police chief.