Thread: 1854 Huggleston 4WD steam wagon, great read

This is a good read... all that is missing is the

"TUNE IN TOMMOROW FOR THE NEXT EXCITING EPISODE, WILL STOKER OUR HERO GET THROUGH UNHARMED, WILL HUGGLSTON COMPLETELY FLIP OUT AND KILL EVERYONE? WILL THEY MAKE IT TO THE 'OTHER SIDE'?

TUNE IN TOMORROW, SAME BAT TIME, SAME BAT CHANNEL...."


When/If they finish methinks HUGGLESTON will need some "hospital time" (like maybe the rest of his life.) I reckon that it would be interesting to hear everyone else version (stoker, the lima steam company/anyone else!!) because in there will be an interesting version of these events... When this is finished Im going to google earth the 49th parralell and look for the "fire trail"....


Hey, maybe this is what Nero's diary was like?

I am loving this, I hope for STOKERs sake they make it, (at which time HUGGLESTON will be able to name the HUGGLESTON Ocean!) but in another way I hope it goes on for a long time because I am finding it very enjoyable!


This could have been a stickly thread if you had have changed the waggon name to land rover (eg "I shall call it a land rover as it can rove the land free of the metal rails constraining other engines")


HUGGLESTONs real fortune was made from inventing MR POTATO HEAD wasn't it?

bravo my good man, bravo!....more popcorn and I shall be ready for the next installment.


digger

Article from the Vancouver (BC) Times, August 9, 1857:

STRANGE DOINGS IN THE OREGON COUNTRY

STABBING, MAYHEM IN ROOMING HOUSE

MADMAN AT LARGE

THEFT OF DYNAMITE

Our Southern correspondent tells a tale of such strange behaviour that it beggars belief, yet Witnesses to the extraordinary events all verify their truth.
THE DARING ATTACK
At a Rooming House in Blaine, Oregon Country, a Philadelphia man, Felix Huggleston, attacked another man, his travelling Companion known only as Stoker, inflicting a most unusual though not mortal wound, later escaping the scene in a steam-powered wagon in which the pair had travelled more than 1,300 miles, from the port of Duluth on Lake Superior.

Witnesses report that Mr. Huggleston, who had been ill for a period of several months, entered the Rooming House via the kitchen, proceeded into the dining room where the Guests were enjoying breakfast. He then fetched up a fork and assaulted the man Stoker, inflicting several Wounds in the man's neck.

Captain Jonathan McPhee, of the steamer Mollie Ann, on which Stoker had booked passage to the East, said Mr. Huggleston "fought like a madman against the man Stoker, who had done nothing to provoke the attack. The madman carried on screaming about potatoes, for why I cannot say. Clearly the man was deranged."

Mr. Huggleston then bolted from the room. He was heard to shout, "I have killed him, Glory Hallelujia, at last I am free," despite not having killed or even seriously wounding Mr. Stoker. Mr. Huggleston then escaped the scene, steaming north atop a device which defies the imagination.

Captain McPhee described it best: It resembled in many aspects a Locomotive, but ran not upon steel rails but the ground itself, and at such great speed that mounted men could not catch him. Even the forest did not slow his progress, the great Locomotive knocking trees down as if they were tenpins! Never have I seen such a thing, nor do I ever wish to again."

THE DYNAMITE THEFT

While Guests of the Rooming House assisted the wounded Stoker, pressing clean cloths to his wound, the man stood up and exclaimed, "The Dynamite!" and ran bleeding to his first-floor room whereupon he did discover the lock Smashed, and a quantity of Dynamite he had hidden therein, to be Missing. "The poor fool, we must stop him!" cried Mr. Stoker, and he too ran from the Rooming House.

But so great was the speed of Mr. Huggleston's escape that none could hope to catch him.

Mr. Huggleston was last seen speeding to the north, toward our Fair City. Citizens should be warned that the man knows no Reason, and is armed with much Dynamite. Vancouver Police request that any who see the man or his Device should immediately contact them.

Another, from the Times, August 11, 1857:

MAD RAMPAGE ENDS

ENORMOUS EXPLOSION IN THE WOODS

CITIZENS ARE SAFE

Vancouver Police have stopped the madman Felix Huggleston, who escaped after attacking a man in the Oregon Country on August 8, as Huggleston approached the settlement of Surrey.

Police Constable Ulysses Draper reported: "Well, he was easy to find, wasn't he? What with the smoke, and the straight line of flattened trees. When we caught him up he was crossing the mud flats there, churning up a great spray, and none wished to approach. We blew our whistles and shouted for him to stop. Even then I could see the man was in mortal danger, as his machine's boiler was glowing red hot. But it was all over when he shoveled in the Dynamite."

The resulting Explosion could be heard for miles, and fragments of the glowing metal started several small fires.

The mad Mr. Huggleston is presumed dead, and of his Steam Waggon, nothing remains but smoldering wreckage slowly sinking in the mud, still steaming as it cools.

Letter received by Mrs. Anna Huggleston:

11 August, 1857

My dear Mrs Huggleston,

As you know it was my privilege to accompany your husband Felix on his expedition along the 49th Parallel. It is my sad duty to inform you that, although Felix completed the journey, he shall not be returning home. Felix was killed today as the boiler of his Steam Waggon exploded.

I would gladly escort his body home to you, but not a trace of him can be found. We must assume the worst, but know that he did not suffer, as the explosion was very powerful and mercifully quick.

I shall arrive by steamship on 9 September, and shall return to you Felix's journal which will, I feel, explain much.

Yours in service,

Stoker


And a totally unrelated (?) item, from the Vancouver Times Police Blotter, 20 December 1857:

9:00 P.M. Police were called to 19 Armory Lane, where a Citizen did complain of a man shouting "Potato head" but no man could be found.