How The President Almost Died In A Carriage Accident
Harvard University LibraryThe overturned presidential carriage following the 1902 collision.
The presidency can be a dangerous business. And almost exactly one year after William McKinley was killed, Teddy Roosevelt nearly lost his life in a carriage accident in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
On Sept. 3, Roosevelt delivered a speech in a city park, then climbed into a carriage with several others, including Secret Service agent William Craig. But as they rode through town, the presidential carriage suddenly crossed the path of an electric trolley.
“Look out! Hold fast,” Craig shouted as he tried to shield the president, according to the New England Historical Society.
New England Historical SocietyRoosevelt and Craig five days before the streetcar accident. Roosevelt is in the center of the frame; Craig is on the far right wearing a hat.
All four passengers were flung into the air. Craig, who tumbled beneath the carriage, was killed instantly, “his entire skull being crushed, and his body terribly mangled,” as The New York Times reported. Roosevelt landed on a pile of soft dirt and was “on his feet in a flash.”
“Who is in charge of this car?” the president demanded, “deeply overcome” by the sight of Craig’s body. When the driver identified himself, Roosevelt cried: “This is the most damnable outrage I ever knew!”
At the time, The New York Times reported that Roosevelt was not badly injured. “The left side of his lip was bleeding from contact with woodwork in the carriage, and the right side of his face was bruised,” the paper wrote. “His glasses were thrown off but not broken. His frock coat was ripped at the elbow, and his silk hat was ruffed by the toss in the sand.”
But the president hadn’t entirely escaped his brush with death unscathed. He’d fallen hard on his shin, and he soon developed a painful abscess “large as a baby’s fist, perhaps a little larger.” A few weeks after the carriage accident, Roosevelt had to undergo emergency surgery and use a wheelchair until his leg had healed.
The next time Theodore Roosevelt faced death, however, he would not be staring down a speeding electric trolley — but an angry African rhinoceros.
