Douglas Dillon, 7, the youngest of a family of 10 kids, dashed from his home on Dorchester near Papineau to grab hay from a passing wagon at 11:20 a.m. on a Monday morning 5 January 1925.Landsdowne School had started classes that day but the Dillon kids were staying home because one of them had recently recovered from German measles and the family didn't want to infect others.
Duggie, as he was known, was fond of his neighbours' billy goat and was running after the wagon in hopes of snagging a little hay to feed the beast.
He managed to grab some hay but the carriage pulled him forward over a an open manhole.
Workers had opened the manhole four hours earlier to push snow down.
The hole was covered by two bars 11 inches apart to prevent people from falling in, but it wasn't wide enough to prevent the boy from hitting the bottom of the shaft where he huddled terrified and screaming.
A city worker was lowered down the rope in an effort to rescue the child but it was too late as Douglas had fallen into the 10-mph current and had been washed away to the river at Pie IX, a 20-minute float, where his lifeless body was recovered later that day.
"He is the first of 10 to go," mourned father George Dillon.
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| Delphine Gervais, in center with beret, is shown at the accident scene |
Just weeks earlier the Dillon family home had been hit by fire when a neighbouring carriage factory on Papineau went up in flames.
Duggie Dillon wasn't the first to die by falling down a Montreal manhole. Little Lily Manning, 5, of Versailles Street, was swept to the St. Lawrence River in March 1922 after falling into an open manhole crossing St. James near the St. Antoine market with her mother and little brother.