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.