Sunday, 7 March 2021

1909 - Tragedy at the High Level Bridge

Before the early 1850s, there was no need for a High Level bridge on the Burlington Heights. Even after the completion of the original Desjardins Canal, connecting Hamilton Bay with Dundas via, Coote’s Paradise, there was no need for a bridge as the canal followed the natural outflow of water between the marsh and bay.

However as a decision was made to have the route of the Great Western Railway got into the City of Hamilton, there had to be some major alterations to the landscape. The train tracks had to be kept at a level, which required the blocking original outlet of marsh waters, except for a tunnel through the landfill required. The original canal was thus blocked for use by tall-masted ships passing from the bay to Dundas or vice versa. The answer was to dig out a huge gap in the sand and gravel bar, the Burlington Heights overland traffic along York street would need something in place to bridge that gap.

Over as the gap was being dug out, fatalities along what would be called the Desjardins Cut, began to happen. In February, 1851, laborers employed with only shovels, picks and wheel barrows, were at work on the dig. The project was being rushed to accommodate the need to build the railway as soon as possible. So work on the Cut continued. Alternating freeze and thaw temperature had loosened the high wall of sand and gravel. A collapse of a massive amount of the Heights completely buried the men at work. Hasty rescue efforts managed to allow some to get free but ten men were killed.

Once the Cut was completed, the first of a series of High Level Bridges was installed on the Heights to allow travelers to continue to go into and out of Hamilton via York street. In Particular, most of the farmers headed to Hamilton Market to sell their goods would use the High Level Bridge.

In March, 1909, the High Level Bridge at that time had only been in place a little more than a decade. On a Saturday morning, March 6, 1909, the afternoon edition began its coverage of an incident on the High Level Bridge at about 8 a.m. that day as follows:

“Plunging over a hundred feet; dropping from the High Level bridge to a thin sheet of ice on the Desjardins Canal, an unknown foreign young woman came to her death this morning a few minutes after 8 o’clock. She was seen to take her last plunge by two people, both of whom were compelled to watch, but were too far away to do anything to stop her. The woman swooped down from the dizzy height with such force that the ice was smashed and water was splattered for yards around where the body fell.”1

1 Hamilton Times March 6, 1909.

A few people who were later interviewed by a Times reporter, told of what they had seen that morning:

“Half a dozen people, most of them children, saw a woman walking out York street a few minutes before the stroke of 8 o’clock this morning.  She wore a man’s coat , men’s heavy working boots and a red handkerchief or small shawl over her head. Making all possible speed out of the city towards the west, she was an object that drew attention at once. She appeared to all to be a foreigner, young and pretty, and many of those who first saw her watched her till she went out of sight around the bend, past Anderson’s hotel.”1

The woman was moving along fairly rapidly although there were no obvious signs that she was in distress. As it was a Saturday morning Market day in Hamilton, there were several people around the High Level Bridge:

“Lizzie Horning was the next to see her. Lizzie is a small girl who lives on the road past the High Level and she was walking over the bridge to come to the city when the woman passed her. Lizzie had only gone a few yards past the end of the bridge when she heard a noise and turned in time to see a woman falling through the air, almost headfirst, towards the ice beneath. Daniel (Sandy) Harrison, who lives on Plains Road, and is a market gardener, was driving towards the bridge on his way to the city when the terrible affair happened. He was almost fifty yards north of the High Level bridge, and saw a woman, whom he had been watching as she came towards him for some time, stop near the centre of the bridge.”1

By this time the woman and her actions were closely watched by Sandy Harrison:

“Hesitating only to glance around and see that no one was near enough to stop her, the woman climbed the four or five foot iron feet and, getting over, climbed down to the floor of the bridge which projects a few inches outside of the railing. Standing with her back towards the bay and holding the top of the rail, she took one last look around. Harrison could not mistake her intention now, and he aroused himself from the horror of the situation enough to whip up his horse. Just as he did so the girl closed her eyes and let go her grip. She turned almost around when she started to fall and must have struck the ice with her head and shoulders first. When Mr. Harrison reached the spot from where she had taken the fatal plunge, he saw the body far below him, floating on the water in a little clear space where the woman’s fall had broken the ice. There was not even a twitch of the muscles and Mr. Harrison raced for the Cemetery Chapel from where he telephoned for the police. The officers arrived at 8:45. Patrol Driver English and Constables Fuller, Jno. Clark and Burch going out.”1

Down below at water level, a few men went to the canal to be of help if they could:

“In the meantime, a section foreman who was at work on the C.P.R. tracks north of the bridge, Wellington Murphy, 111 Sophia street, heard of the affair and went at once to the scene. Two farmers who were driving in to market, George Unsworth, Aldershot, and Kenneth Cummins, Millgrove, went down with Murphy, and the three got a long wire and twisted a hook into the end of it. They managed to entangle this in the clothing of the girl, who was only about six feet from the north shore of the canal, and in a few minutes had the body on shore, They all three stated that she was living when they got her out of the water. She was dead when the police got there a few minutes later. The body was put in the patrol sleigh, and had to be hauled around from the side of the canal up the old gravel road on the west side. It was taken to the city morgue.”1

As the afternoon edition of the Times hit the streets, the police were endeavoring to find out the name the young woman who had died so suddenly. Also there was a hastily assembled coroner’s jury who went to the city morgue to view the body of the as-yet unnamed woman.

On Monday March 8, 1909, the Times was able to publish the story as to how the woman’s identity was made:

“Nicholas Koelanske, 32 Locke street north, was horrified on Saturday evening to be told that the young woman who took the terrible drop to death from the High Level bridge was his young sister. Budimir carried him the sad information. The well-known interpreter viewed the body, and although he knew the face, he did not know the name of the girl. He set out to hunt for foreigners with missing relatives or friends. At first sight of the girl, Protich decided that the girl was Polish, and this narrowed down his investigation somewhat. He found Nicholas Koelanske, at last, and he was rather nervous at the absence of his sister, who had not shown up since she started to go to work at the Tuckett cigar factory that morning. He said she had been acting rather queerly for the past few weeks. She had been out here only a year. Protich got a description of the man’s missing sister, and this assured him that it was she who had killed herself that morning. He took the man to the morgue, and he identified her. There was a most pathetic scene when the man saw his bruised and battered sister laid out cold in death.”2

2 Hamilton Times. March 8, 1909.

On Tuesday, March 9, 1909, Anne Koelanske’s body was taken along York street and over the High Level Bridge to the Holy Sepulcher Cemetery for burial. That evening, the coroner’s inquest which had been organized to investigate Anne Koelanske’s death. The testimony at the inquest was much the same as had been published in the local press. The jury was out only a very short time before delivering that the young woman “had committed suicide while she was not in her right mind.” 

 


 

 

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