Person:Emma Macknet (2)

1880 US Census: Upper Salford, Montgomery Co., PA

 Family History Library Film - 1255159
 NA Film Number - T9-1159
 Page Number - 209C

MACKNET Charles H - Self - M - Male - W - 50 - PA - PA - PA - Cigar Maker

       Mary Ann - Wife - M - Female - W - 44 - PA - PA - PA - Keeping House
       Emma - Dau - S - Female - W - 20 - PA - PA - PA - Tailoress
       Kate - Dau - S - Female - W - 18 - PA - PA - PA - Tailoress
       Eugene - Son - S - Male - W - 6 - PA - PA - PA

1900 census report states that Emma had 6 children, 4 living. Wisham, Emma: head, W, F, July, 1861, 39, Wd, 17, 6, 4, PA, PA, PA, Keeps House,

              Ella: dau, W, F, July, 1887, 12, S, PA, PA, PA, at School,
              Elmer: son, W, M, Nov, 1889, 13, S, PA, PA, PA, at School,
              Willis: son, W, M, Jan, 1892, 8, S, PA, PA, PA, at School,
              Harris: son, W, M, April, 1894, 6, S, PA, PA, PA, at School,

Smith, Lyman: servant, W, M, April, 1859, 41, S, PA, PA, PA, Cigar Maker, Weikel, Katie: servant, W, F, April, 1862, 38, Wd, PA, PA, PA, Cigar Maker,

1930 US Census: 22 Ward, Phildelphia, PA April 12 E Horton St 208 - 240 - 242 Wisham Emma - head - F - W - 69 - Wd - no - yes - PA - PA - PA - none Stucke Ella - dau - F - W - 42 - M - 21 - no - yes - PA - PA - PA - Instrument Operator - Electric

           Paul - gr son - M - W - 18 - S - no - yes - PA - PA - PA - Truck Helper - Radio Co

 Emma unveiled the statue of Daniel Francis Pastorius in Germantown, Pa as the oldest living relative.

Bucks County Intelligencer, Doylestown, PA June 10, 1930

THREE GENERATIONS OF A FAMILY AMONG SEVEN WHO DIED IN PLUNGE __________________

When Philadelphia Motorists Backed Into Deep Quarry Excavation and Drowned Between Telford and Souderton Sunday Night - Last of the Bodies Taken Out About 10.30 This Morning __________________

NAVY DIVERS RECOVERED ALL OF THE BODIES TODAY

All Bodies Recovered

 Souderton, June 10 - At 10.45 this morning divers had recovered all of the five bodies that remained in the Souderton Quarry.
 After a four-hour rest, the divers went to work in earnest at 9.15 this morning and one at a time, near the wrecked automobile they found the… four bodies… One… other.. was brought to the surface shortly after midnight last night.
 Thelma Nabors, three, was brought to the surface first this morning. Next the divers found Ralph Cupitt, forty-four, driver of the car.  The third victim was Mrs. Helen Wisham, forty, and the last to brought from the watery grave was Elmer Wisham, forty-three, husband of Helen.
 The dead were removed.. to .. the Moyer mortuary in Souderton, where surviving relatives established identification and claimed the bodies.
 Thousands of people lined the quarry hole during the gruesome task of the divers.  Many congratulated Lieutenant Craig and his Navy Yard crew for their excellent work.
 It was decided at the last minute this morning to pull the car to the surface and this was being done at 11.30 after divers had fastened the cable to the car.

(By a Staff Correspondent)

 SOUDERTON, June 10 - From the watery grave where seven persons, six of whom comprised four generations of one family, plunged to death Sunday evening in a seven-passenger sedan that broke down a cable post and fell twenty feet into the Souderton quarry, two United States Navy divers at 12.38 this morning recovered the body of a 14-year-old boy.
 Three thousand morbid curiosity seekers in a drenching rain surrounded the top of the quarry as the two divers emerged from the water with the body of the lifeless boy.
 For two more hours the rescue detail from League Island under the command of Lieutenant E. C. Craig, salvage officer, worked unceasingly in an effnffoteotr akik ek;o2s ?p1m kx an effort to discover the other bodies until 3 o'clock this morning they quit exhausted to take a four-hour rest before resuming the rescue work.
 Charles R Kuster and Wilson Keith are the two divers secured by County Detective, John B Stevenson, of Lansdale.  With Lieutenant Craig and B R Fisher, master rigger, and a detail of helpers, the Montgomery county authorities were assigned that no effort would be spared in bringing to the surface the other four bodies still in the bottom of the quarry.
 Two women recovered and identified yesterday are Mrs. Emma Wisham, sixty-nine, of 206 East Hortter street, Phila., and Mrs. Ella Wisham, forty-five, her daughter-in-law, same address.
 The boy who was brought to the surface early this morning by the divers is Harold Wisham, fourteen, son of Mr. and Mrs. Elmer Wisham, of Glenside, whose bodies are still in the quarry.
 The only survivor of the Wisham family of Glenside is a sixteen-year-old daughter, sister of Harold.  She is a senior at Abington High School.  This morning she identified the body of her brother at a Souderton undertaking establishment and, heartbroken, is awaiting the word that her father and mother have been pulled out of the quarry.
 Thelma Nabors, three, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George Nabors, 22 East Springer street, Phila., is still in the quarry.  The child's mother is a daughter of Mrs. Emma Wisham, who was taken out yesterday.
 Ralph Cupitt, 6326 North 21st street, driver of the car and a friend of the family, who was the father of five children, is also in the quarry.
 One hour after the report had been made yesterday that two women were found in the quarry by a Souderton youth who went there to dump some garbage, the news spread like wildfire.  Thousands of persons from three counties and newspapermen from as far as New York City were there by 3 o'clock in the afternoon.  At 7 o'clock last night a solid line of automobiles between Souderton and Hatfield, a distance of several miles, lined the highway, while a thousand more cars were parked in fields and byroads near the quarry.  Forty-to police officers controlled the traffic and kept the crowd of morbid curiosity seekers back from the inside of the cable line around the quarry.
 About 8 o'clock the Navy Yard detail, with divers, arrived in a truck that carried the diving equipment for two men, the necessary air-pump machines, cables and ropes.  The Souderton Fire Company assisted by bringing ladders.  The first ladder, twenty feet long, was dropped into the quarry but was found to be too short.  A forty-foot ladder was then secured.  Heavy anchor irons were placed on the ladder and it was dropped to the bottom of the quarry, a depth close to forty feet.

Got Boy From Car

 A home-made raft was put into use when the divers arrived but it was found to be too frail to hold the heavy diving equipment.  This necessitated the rescue crew going to Souderton to secure heavy timbers to rebuild the raft.  It was completed shortly after midnight and a short time later, Charles R. Kuster, one of the divers was lowered to the bottom.  He remained down some time and signaled that he was coming up. Kuster informed his fellow-diver, Wilson Keith, that the door of the wrecked car at the bottom of the quarry could not be opened without assistance so both divers were lowered.  Between them they forced open the door and found the fourteen-year-old boy in the front seat.  The rest of the car was empty.  He was brought to the surface and turned over to undertaker and later identified by his sister.
 For two hours more, below the water, the divers searched in vain for the other bodies.  They believe that bodies may be underneath the wrecked car or may have broken free from the wreckage and when an unsuccessful attempt was made 6 o'clock  last night to hook the car and pull it across to the opposite side of the quarry where the cliff is not so high.  The car, it is believed, was moved about ten feet when the hook broke its hold.
 The abandoned quarry is on the Souderton-Hatfield road.  Cupitt, in a blinding rain storm, drove off the main highway, down a side lane and through a fence into the quarry pit.
 According to Willis Wisham, of Neshaminy Falls, Bucks county, a son of Mrs. Emma Wisham, who visited the scene of the tragedy last night with Coroner George Haff, of Lansdale, Cupitt had very poor vision.

Believed He Backed In

 Athough the exact cause of the accident will probably remain a mystery, it is the belief of investigators the Cupitt backed his car into the quarry while in the act of turning around on the small lane after he discovered he was not on the main highway.
 The party left the Hortter street home in Philadelphia last Sunday afternoon to visit Mrs. Leidy Cressman, sister of Mrs. Emma Wisham, in Telford but they never reached there.
 The tragedy was discovered by Lester Alderfer, 17, son of Edward H Alderfer, about 9 o'clock yesterday morning, when he drove to the quarry in a truck and saw two straw hats and a baby's milk bottle floating on the pond.  He summoned the Souderton police chief who went to the quarry, and with Alderfer, descended the steep walls of the pit to the water's edge, where they groped with sticks, recovering the bodies of two women.
 Harold Wisham made the trip with his parents against his will, Mrs. Anna Chambers, his aunt, said last night.
 "He protested to the best of his ability," Mrs. Chambers said, "but his mother thought that he would be safer than if he were allowed to stay at home and perhaps run around in the streets.
 Helen, the sixteen-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Elmer Wisham, and sister of Harold, was unaware of the death of her parents and brother until late in the afternoon when a newspaper reporter informed her of the tragedy.
 Early Sunday night she telephoned the home of Mrs. Cresson and learned her parents had not arrived in Telford.  She then started out in an automobile to hunt for them, spending most of Sunday night and nearly all day yesterday on the road between Telford and Philadelphia.  Yesterday noon she went to the Edison sub-station of State Highway Patrol and asked Corporal William Engle whether he had heard of any automobile accident. The officer informed her that he had not and she immediately left.  A short time later Corporal Engle heard of the tragedy and left with a detail of patrolmen for the Souderton quarry.
 George Nabors, father of the little girl, was at the Wisham home on Hortter street Sunday and placed his little girl in the automobile.  He left ahead of the machine in which the Wishams were riding and was awaiting their arrival in Telford.  Mrs. Nabors remained at home.
 Mrs. Jennie Cupitt, wife of the driver of the death car, was notified of the accident at her home at 1017 Abington Road, Wyndmoor, where she has been living with her children for the last five years.    She said that, although she was separated from Cupitt, their relations were friendly, and Cupitt had visited  her Sunday a short time  before setting out on the trip to Telford.  Cupitt was a carpenter employed at the State Hospital in Norristown.  He was a brother of Dr. Howard Cupitt, a well known dentist, of Green and Harvey streets, Germantown.
 Many motor mishaps have occurred at the quarry in recent years.  A number of drivers narrowly escaped plunges like the last one and eight years ago George Birch, a farmer, committed suicide by driving his car over the cliff.  Two years ago seven stolen automobiles were pulled from the quarry.
 The quarry hole is in a secluded spot.  If the women and children screamed as their car crashed through a rail and sped into space below to drop in the death trap, there was none to hear, not even a passerby, for traffic had dwindled on the Hatfield-Souderton road in a Sunday rain storm.  It is likely the entire affair happened quickly and there was no time even for an outburst of hysterical terror.  No time, even to fling open a door and emerge from the car.
 It is believed the two women found yesterday were killed in the fall off the cliff for their bodies were some-what disfigured with bruises. Coroner Huff says that is why he believes the women were dead before they struck the water.