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Introduction The Death of President Theodore Roosevelt
The damaged presidential carriage in Pittsfield, Massachusetts on September 3rd, 1902.
On September 3rd, 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt was visiting Pittsfield, Massachusetts, while on a tour of New England. When traveling through Pittsfield by horse-drawn carriage, Roosevelt and his party crossed a set of trolley tracks. To the occupants’ horror, a speeding interurban car, rushing to beat the President’s arrival downtown, failed to come to a stop and knocked the carriage forty feet down the road.
Most of the President’s entourage survived more or less unharmed. David J. Pratt, the driver of the carriage, was severely injured. George B. Cortelyou, the President’s Secretary, survived with severe bruising. Winthrop Crane, the Governor of Massachusetts, and George P. Lawrence, the Representative for the First Congressional District of Massachusetts, both survived with minor bruising. The Secret Service Agent accompanying Roosevelt, William Craig, was thrown clear of the trolley, escaping with only superficial injuries. President Roosevelt was not so lucky, being thrown out of the carriage and underneath the trolley. The President died instantly, being ground into an unrecognizable mass by the heavy machinery of the car.
At the time of Roosevelt’s death, Secretary of State John Hay, next in the line of Presidential succession due to the vacant Vice Presidency, was at his office in Washington. Hay was informed by an aide of the President’s death several hours after the accident. Though shaken by the news, Hay agreed to be sworn in later that day. At 9pm, on September 3rd, 1902, John Hay was sworn in by Chief Justice Melville Fuller, becoming the 27th President of the United States, the third person to hold the office within the previous year.
Teddy Roosevelt nearly did die due to the trolley accident on September 3rd, however in OTL Roosevelt's Secret Service Agent, William Craig was thrown under the car. Here Roosevelt is sitting in Craig's seat and is killed by the interurban car as a result.