From Andover News, July 17, 1916
Transcribed by Crist Maddaugh
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Matthew Cannon Instantly Killed
He Was Hit By Train 3, Early Thursday Morning, As He Was Starting For Home On The Railroad Tracks.
Matthew Cannon was instantly killed Thursday morning by Erie Train No. 3, on the Main Street crossing in this village, at about 12:30 a.m.
Mr. Cannon and three other Andover men, Clint Rice, Joe Madden and Will Gallagher, had been visiting on the steps to the Village Hall for twenty or thirty minutes, enjoying the cool evening breezes after a blistering hot day.
Officer Chase saw the men there and heard their conversation not more than ten minutes before the accident. He informed the Coroner that while they might have been drinking a little, they were not drunk. They were not noisy nor talkative, nor did they show any signs of intoxication, but were visiting quietly together talking about their work.
The four men left the Village Hall and walked out to the railroad track. They stood by the railroad crossing sign for a few minutes when Cannon stepped on the track with the evident intent of walking up the railroad to Water street, the most direct way to his home, his companions believe.
When Mr. Cannon had gotten in the middle of the track, he took off his hat and waved it. This was the only really boisterous demonstration he had indulged in, and the locomotive hit him almost at the same instant.
The train just have been making sixty miles an hour, and it is a question never to be answered whether Mr. Cannon ever saw the approaching engine or not. It is supposed that he did, however, by his companions. They think he believed it to be a troop train with soldiers, and was going to cheer for them, forgetting for the moment that he was on the track.
Mr. Gallagher rushed to the Village Hall and notified Officer Chase, who, with the others, hurried to the spot where the body lay, about 100 feet down the track, just off the ties.
The locomotive had done its work; he was terribly mashed and mangled. His head was badly smashed up and his arms and legs broken. He was dead before his companions arrived.
The body was taken to the C. E. Brown undertaking rooms, and Coroner Ayers, of Alfred, notified, who after a thoro examination and taking of evidence from Officer Chase, and a deposition from Wm Gallagher, issued a burial permit.
Matthew Cannon was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Michael Cannon, of Water street. He was born in the town of Hartsville, May 18, 1885.
Arrangements for the funeral have not yet been made.