Book dossier

Murder At The Carousel

by Linda Bartash-Dawley

Can carousels be deadly? This non-fiction book answers just that... The book centers on the tragic death of a 17-year-old carousel engineer killed by a rider. On Friday, June 17, 1892, a William R. Weaver was working as an engineer at a carousel in Niagara Falls, when the evening turned deadly. He was shot and killed. The killer was at large. William's father joined in on the search as a newly appointed deputy. The search goes across several states and involves several suspects over the following year. The book additionally tells the story of other fatal accidents where a carousel was involved. A father watching a carousel in Greensboro, NC was killed by a stray bullet in 1914. A carousel pole fell down and gravely injured a Rochester NY man in 1900. A carousel rider was flung to her death in 1905. A four-year-old jumping from horse to horse is severed by a merry-go-round cable in 1892 in Camden, NY. While this may be considered "the darker side of carousels", it's an interesting look at an earlier time. While very few murders were committed near or on carousels, deaths still happened among the circle of wooden horses. Many deaths were attributed to steam operated carousels with long cable belts. These belts, which often stretched about 200 feet, could easily pull an unattended child into the cogs of its machinery. Also, carousels ran at a faster speed in the late 1800s into the early 1900s, which was attributed to injury.