Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 October 1879 — FATAL ACCIDENT. [ARTICLE]

FATAL ACCIDENT.

A Young Man Killed During a Horse Race at the Fair Grounds Hear this Place. Last Saturday afternoon two young men from the country thought they would have a little fun to themselves by engaging in a running horse race at the fair grounds. The preliminaries of the race we are unable to give, but the second heat resulted fatally to John *C. McCoy, aged about 21 years, son of Mr. and Mrs. B. C. McCoy, who reside some five miles west of this place. If we are correctly informed the horse which young McCoy rode attempted to fly the track at the entrance to the racecourse, and in so doing threw the rider ofi", striking his head against a fence post, which fractured the skull in one or more places. When he was taken up the blood spurted from his ear,and other injuries lead his assistants to believe that he was fatally injured. The unfortunate young man was carefully removed to the Hopkins House, where every attention was given him, but he was too far beyond the reach of medical skill to entertain any hopes of saving his lite, and as soon as this announcement was made by Dr. Loughridge, the attending physician, all possible haste was made to summon the dying man’s aged parents, to his bed-side. The messenger conveyed to them the first intelligence of the teirible accident that had occurred, and they could not realize that, their son could be bo near death’s door.

The parents arrived at the hotel about ten o’clock at night, only to find their son unconscious and unable to recognize them. An hour later he passed quietly away and his spirit took its flight to the unknown world. The parents and other relatives were overcome with grief at the loss of one whose life was so full of promise and so suddenly destroyed. Sabbath morning the remains w r ere removed to the family residence, and on Monday the funeral was attenderl by a large number of relatives and friends. The religious services were conducted by Rev. A. W. Wood, of this place.