E. Z. Taylor, On Telephone With City Clerk Donnelly, Describes Awful Scene
Third Member of His Party, Fletcher Williams, Lost
Did Not Hear of Mrs. Potter and Mrs. Earnshaw.
Atlantic City was in direct personal telephonic connection with one of the survivors of the itanic [sic] disaster within two hours after the Carpathia docked at the 14th Street pier in the Hudson River. Elmer Z. Taylor, a cousin of City Clerk Donnelly, was reached by the latter by long distance telephone just before midnight and a brief story of the disaster came here by direct telephone.
Mr. Taylor and his wife were both saved from the wreck, but the third member of their party, Fletcher Williams, was lost, according to the best information which Mr. Taylor could obtain during his three days of weary and slow travel to New York on the rescuing steamer.
Mr. Taylor is the inventor of the paper cups manufactured by the American Mono-Service Company, which is furnishing the drinking vessels to local hotels and business places and hotels and railroads all over the Eastern states, while Mr. Williams was the managing director of the Mono-Service Company of England, of which the American company is a branch, so to speak.
Both Mr. Taylor and Mr. Williams sailed on the Titanic for the purpose of spending several months in this country with the purpose of developing the business.
Mr. Taylor could give no information as to the accuracy of the reports that Mrs. Thomas Potter, widow of the late Col. Potter, and her daughter, Mrs. Boulton Earnshaw, were saved, inasmuch as Mr. Taylor was not acquainted with them and did not hear of their presence on the rescue ship Carpathia. The latest newspaper dispatches last night, however, confirmed the earlier news that both Mrs. Potter and Mrs. Earnshaw were among the saved.
Mr. Taylor stated that the Carpathia docked in New York at about 9 o'clock and that all of the passengers who were then able to leave the vessel were at once permitted to go ashore, the custom house regulations having been set aside by special order from Washington. Many of the passengers, who were seriously ill as the result of their exposure, were unable to leave the ship last night and many were conveyed to hospitals or were placed in the care of relatives, who fairly jammed the pier of the White Star Line.
"We are in fine shape, my wife and myself," stated Mr. Taylor over the long-distance 'phone, "but we are sorry to report that Mr. Williams, who traveled with us, was lost. We feel almost positively certain he was not among those who were saved."
Mr. Williams was one of the wealthiest men connected with the paper cup industry. None of the members of his immediate family accompanied him on the voyage on the Titanic.
Mr. Taylor described the night of Sunday as one of great horror and could scarcely give many coherent details. He and Mrs. Taylor were among the first who were placed in the lifeboats that were sent off from the ill-fated Titanic. When their boat, which contained about thirty people, started from the side of the ship they found the sea was filled with cakes of floating ice. A short time after their small boat had pulled from the side of the ship the lights of the vessel went out and then the only illumination from the sinking ship were [sic] from torches and rockets, which were sent up until a short time before the ship took her final plunge into the icy ocean.
Mr. Taylor stated that both he and his wife suffered much from the exposure of floating on the ocean until after daylight, when they were picked up by the Carpathia, but that their sufferings were almost nothing as to that of many of the other passengers and sailors who were saved from the Titanic.
Mr. Taylor went to the home of his brother, G. S. Taylor, at 324 West 103rd street, New York, where he will spend several days before coming to
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