William Parsons: A Family Hero

By Thomas M. Parsons

February is usually cold and wintry in the Ontario peninsula where William Parsons was born in 1872 in the city of Chatham the day before Valentine's Day. His father, Henry Parsons, was a descendent of a family that had emigrated to Canada from England, and his mother, Alice Dolson Parsons, had a family line that can be traced back to Holland.

At the time of his birth, Chatham was a small farming community, but William was not interested in running a farm. Instead he had learned the machinist's trade. After all, the industrial revolution which had made such dramatic changes to the way people lived in Great Britain was now spreading across the United States and Canada.

She was of rugged Scottish ancestry; her paternal grandparents, James and Ann McGregor, had come to Canada in the mid 19th century and established a farm they named Bannockburn, near Chatham. Her maternal family line is traced back to New England. Annie Mae McGregor caught William's eye. They were married in Chatham on July 18, 1903. He was 31; she was just 22.

William and Annie made a decision that would effect their family immediately and their descendents for generations to come. They decided to move to Detroit, Michigan. The automobile industry was growing steadily in the city which is just 75 miles west of Chatham. Certainly William's machinist skills would be useful in the new industry.

William found work with the Detroit Forging Company which made parts used in the building of automobiles. The couple found a house at 293 Beaufait Street, on Detroit's east side a few blocks south of the bridge to Belle Isle.

Soon their family began to grow. Their first child, a boy, was born on May 17, 1904, less than a year after their move to Detroit and just ten months after their marriage. Reflecting Annie's Scottish ancestry, they named the boy Whelan LaVerne.

Grace was born in 1905, and Everett in 1908. The couple's final child was Helen, born in 1909. Life was good for William and his family. His job brought a steady and adequate income to support them, and they continued to live in the house on Beaufait.

But then things changed. In May of 1911, William became ill, possibly with some kind of influenza. He had severe stomach pain, and, in fact, thought he was going to die. He missed several days of work and became concerned about what would happen to his family if he did die, or if he lost his job from missing work.

But by Friday, June 2, William was recoverning and planning to return to work the following Monday. That Friday was a special day, and three of William's four children were well aware of why it was special.

The Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus was coming to Detroit, and typically, circus parades were used to draw attention to the circus and to draw a crowd to the performances. On that Friday, June 2, the circus parade was scheduled to travel along Jefferson Avenue, the cross street that was at the end of the block on Beaufait where the Parsons lived.

Whelan, Grace and Everett knew the parade meant clowns, horses, camels, and a variety of circus performers all parading down the street, and they wanted their father to take them to the corner to watch the parade. William, since he was feeling better, decided to take them. Annie chose to stay home with Helen who was only 18 months old. The three children were delighted with all they saw and heard as they stood at the corner in a crowd that grew to about 100 people.

Elza Ireland did not have circus parades on his mind that June morning. He had a job to do. A heavy boat launch had come in on the train and he had to deliver it to the company that had ordered it. The launch was already loaded on the wagon, and the team of horses attached to it were standing on Beaufait with their backs to Jefferson and the parade and the crowd watching it. Ireland was inside the railway depot signing the paperwork. He was new on this job, and he did not want anything to go wrong. He wanted to keep this job as long as he could.

The parade was coming to an end; only a few wagons remained. William was getting tired; this was, after all, his first venture out after several days on his sick bed. He told the children it was time to go home. They were relunctant, but obedient, and the four broke away from the crowd and headed west along Beaufait, past the team of horses standing along the curb waiting for their driver, and toward their home about half a block away. William was glad the house was close; his strength was quickly waning.

Others had started to walk away as well. A small group of adults and children and automobiles filled the street and surrounded the team of horses still standing quietly at the curb. On Jefferson, the final wagon was about to cross the intersection. This wagon carried the calliope, an organ capable of huge sound because of its steam-driven pipes.

The calliope had been silent for several minutes as it approached the intersection, but the player, seeing that people were beginning to disperse, decided to get their attention. A long, loud blast of sound came from the instrument as it crossed the intersection, a few feet from where Elza Ireland's team of horses still stood waiting for him to come out of the depot.

The sound was too sudden and too loud for the horses. They bolted, heading down Beaufait pulling the heavy wagon. Ireland saw the team from the window of the depot and ran out of the building and started running behind the wagon hoping to catch up and bring them to a stop. But William, who was now in front of his home, heard the commotion behind him and turned to look at the team picking up speed as it headed in the direction of a small group of people, including his three children.

Without thinking, William reached up to grab the reins of the nearest horse as the team raced by him. However, the horse knocked him to the street. He was unable to move out of the way. The team dragged the heavy wagon first over William's ankles, and then over his chest. Bones were broken and organs seriously damaged.

Just them, Ireland was able to catch up and bring the horses to a stop. The police arrived and took William, alive but unconscious, to St. Mary's Hospital.

The doctors examined William's body and found extensive damage to his organs. They could set the broken bones, but there was nothing they could do about the internal injuries.

Later that afternoon, without regaining consciousness, William Parsons died. He was 39 years old.

No one else was injured that day. The newspaper accounts do not state that any charges were filed against Ireland or his employer, or against the circus.

This experience was devastating to Annie. She was only 30 with four children ages seven to 18 months to raise. How could she do it without a husband?

Annie decided to move back to Chatham where her parents, Joseph and Georgianna McGregor still lived. With their help, she raised her two sons and two daughters to adulthood.

Everett became a victim of muscular dystrophy and died in his sixties from the disease. Grace married Fred Birkby, a farmer and together they ran a farm near Chatham. She, too died, in her fifties. One day as she and her husband were each operating a tractor in their fields, her tractor tipped over on top of her, killing her instantly.

The Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus suffered the loss of nearly forty animals in a severe flood in Indiana in 1913. Just five years later, in 1918, a train engineer fell asleep at the controls of an empty troop train and plowed into the back of the circus train standing on the tracks near Hammond, Indiana. Nearly 130 circus people were injured and 80 lost their lives in the wreck. Equipment and animals were also destroyed in the ensuing fire that burned out of control for several hours.

Annie lived to be 78. Her daughter, Helen, also lived a long life dying at the age of 89. Whelan, her firstborn, lived for 74 years, dying in 1978. Whelan was the father of the author of this history, who conceivably would not have been born if William Parsons had not defended his children from a team of runaway horses.

William was buried in Detroit's Woodlawn Cemetery, but whatever grave marker might have been placed there has sunk into the ground leaving no trace of the man who was a hero. It would cost about $1,000 to put a new marker on William's grave, but the money is not available for such a project. William is buried underneath a spreading tree in the land he adopted as his home where his children were born and where he died defending them heroically.

Photos: [1] Inset in the Detroit News report of the accident. [2] Poster for the Hagenbeck-Wallace circus. [3] Parade of camels in a Hagenbeck-Wallace parade. [4] Circus calliope wagon of the type used in the Detroit parade. [5] Illustration accompanying the report of the accident in the Detroit News. [6] The wreck of the the Hagenbeck-Wallace circus train in Hammond, Indiana. [7] The scene of William Parsons' grave, the exact location is unknown, but is thought to be a little way to the right of this photograph.