Carl John Alfred Hammerberg. Case No. 5148. Duluth News Tribune, January 18, 1924.
Type of event: Incarcerations
Location: St. Cloud; Stearns County; Minnesota; United States
Document date:
Document type: Newspaper(s)
Documents: Carl John Alfred Hammerberg. Case No. 5148. Duluth News Tribune, January 18, 1924.
Citation:
Minnesota State Reformatory for Men [St. Cloud State Reformatory}.
Carl John Alfred Hammerberg: Case No. 5148
Inmate History and Record.
Volume 16, July 1920-April 1921.
Case no. 5148, 1921-1924 (entries)
Duluth News Tribune, January 18, 1924
Image text
2 Duluth Youths Found Dead in Freight Car; ‘Beating’ Way
Ends Futile Search for
Work
Clarence Gauthier and Carl
Hammerberg, Trapped in Ice
Compartment, Die From Fumes of Charcoal
Burners.
Clarence Gauthier, 20, 429 N Sixtieth av W. and Carl Hammerberg, 21, 431 N Sixtieth av W. were found dead in the ice compartment of a Northern Pacific railroad refrigerator car Wednesday morning, following arrival of the car in Duluth from Minneapolis. Fumes from charcoal burners placed in the car to keep the goods from freezing, snuffed out their lives, an autopsy conducted by Coroner C. F. McComb revealed. It was several hours before identification of the two was made.
‘Beat’ Way to Mill City
The two young men, it was disclosed, left Duluth on a Minneapolis bound
freight train Tuesday noon with the intention of looking for work. Apparently
they had changed their minds about seeking work in the Mill City and forthwith
looked to the refrigerator car of a night train as the only means of aiding them
to ‘beat’ their way beck to the city.
Their bodies were
discovered by Hjalmer Haugland, 921 Tenth av E. an N. P. freight depot employee,
when he mad his rounds shortly after 8 a. m. to remove the charcoal burners from
the car.
Sever Duluth telephone numbers found on a piece of paper in the
pockets of one of them, and an employment ticket made out to Carl Hammerberg, by
the Virginia & Rainy Lake Lumber company on Nov. 14, furnished Coroner C. F.
mcComb with his first clues to their identity. The bodies were taken to
Crawford’s mortuary.
Raymond Wolfe, 708 E Second st, was the first to
identify Hammerberg. Later, Mrs. Clyde Gauthier, a sister-in-law of Clarence,
and her sister, Mrs. Harold McLellan, identified both bodies.
Miss Vanda
Hammerberg, 23, a sister of Carl, was notified of her brother’s death late
Wednesday. The two were supporting their aged mother, Mrs. Betsy Hammerberg. The
father also survives, but his present whereabouts is not known.
“Carl
would have been 22 next month,” Miss Hammerberg said. “He
hadn’t had any work for many months and although I tried so hard to keep
him at home as I have been taking care of things with my wages, he felt he ought
to help.”
In the Gauthier home, three brothers and five sisters and
the parents, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Gauthier, survive. The father, in this case
also, is away from home.
From the position of the tow bodies when found in
the car, it is thought that one of them made a struggle to reach the top of the
car where the trap door is located. The boys are thought to have let themselves
down through the hold and pulled the straps tight to keep from being found by
the train crew. This sealed the car tight and the fumes from the burning
charcoal made quick work of the helpless victims.
The body of young
Hammerberg will be taken to Bell Brothers undertaking rooms today and that of
Gauthier to M. J. Fliatrault, pending completion of funeral arrangements.