Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 September 1889 — INDIANA HAPPENINGS. [ARTICLE]

INDIANA HAPPENINGS.

irUTS AND INCIDENTS THAT HAVE LATELY OCCURRED. Am Intaranting Summary of the More I important Doings of Our Neighbors— Weddings and Deaths—Crime, Casualties and General News Note*. Return of a Prodigal. About twenty-five years ago a 10-year-old boy named George Davis, who resided with Isaac Houghland, then a prominent farmer and doctor living in the southern part of Scott County, suddenly dis appeared. The day he left he was severely chastised for some offense, and going to the station at Vienna, fell in company with some soldiers and went with them to Louisville, from there he went to Cincinnati, and thence to Nashville, Tenn. In the course of time he married and engaged in farming. Some time since he and his wife separated, and he resolved to return to Scott County in search of his rela&ves, having never heard from them since his flight. On his arrival he was iaformed that during his absence his widowed mother had married Asa Broady, and, after his death a few years ago, removed to Kansas, where she now resides. Davis started anew on his journey to find his mother, who has mourned him as dead for years.

Family Poisoned. A very strange case of poisoning occurred at Greenburg recently. Mr. Lafayette Shelhorn has resided on a farm in Adams township, but removed to Greenburg the other clay. The family brought with them everything they ate, except bread, which was procured at a bakery. About 10 o’clock at night the entire family was taken violently ill. The physician was sent for and soon pronounced it a case of poisoning. Mr. Shelhorn was least affected; his wife and two daughters, aged 8, 10, and 22 respectively, were all very sick, and Ida Cline, a servant, 15 years old, was worse than any of the others. All are better, though the servant is very ill, and her ease may yet prove fatal. Dr. Falconbury says that the symptoms indicate poison from croton oil, and he can account for it in no other way than that some miscreant threw some of the oil in the well, and it was brought up by use of the chain pump.

Minor State Items. —There are ninety-nine lakes in Steuben County by actual count. —Mooresville has decided to issue $2,000 bonds and have free gas. • —Levi Mercer, of Rochester, proposes to open a park at Lake Manitou. —Wheat on the farm of James W. Blue, near Linden, Montgomery County, yielded forty-one bushels to the acre. —A new military comnany is being formed at Crawfordsville, and will be under the charge of Gen. Lew Wallace. —Henry Wildbacker and his team fell into a hidden cave while plowing, in Harrison County, and were rescued with difficulty. —Receiver A. D. Lynch, of the defunct Richmond Bank, expects to declare another 4 per cent, dividend, making 75 per cent. —John M. Short, time-keeper of the Evansville and Richmond road at Seymour, attempted suicide with morphine, but failed. —John Bowman, aged 75, a pioneer and one of the oldest Masons of Clark County, dropped dead suddenly at jfens home in Bethlehem. —A lamb-killing snake, alleged to be seventeen feet long and eleven inches in diameter is reported to have been killed near Muncie. —A curious freak of nature is owned by William Harris, a farmer near Danville, and consits of a beautiful young drake with four perfectly developed feet.

—The body of a man was found in the river at Jeffersonville. It was very much decomposed, and is believed to be the corpse of one of the Johnstown Victims. —At Rankin, Thomas Gough, a Monon brakeman, went to sleep in the 6hade of his train on a side track. The train started up, crushing one arm and the hand of the other. —Jasper Vanduyne, of Huntington, has received a notice from White Caps, threatening injury unless he left town. He has procured a repeating rifle and shotgun and bids defiance. —Abner Cox, a prominent farmer, jumped from a freight train on the Grand Trunk road, near Union Mills, and was instantly killed. Fox boarded the train at Stillwell, and was on his way home. —J. T. Graden, a prominent young business man, died at his home in Wabash, of cerebral hemorrhage. He leaves a wife and child. Mr. Graden was 39 years old. He was born in Ohio. —Mary Lomax, No. 512 West Twelfth street, Austin, Tex., is anxious to hear from her sister, Susan Gibson, who was raised by Ephraim Kelly, colored, in Southern Indiana twenty-five or thirty years ago. —Mamie, the 7-year-old daughter of Matthew Hootger, a clothing merchant, of Elkhart, was drowned in Simonton lake, four miles from the city. She and another young girl were on the lake in a boat, and when the Hootger girl attempted to turn the boat around, she fell overboard. The body has not been recovered.

—At Lakeville Peter Hathaway returned home drunk, and compelled his wife to get up from her sick bed and cook supper for himself and a boon companion. She did so and shortly afterwards fell dead. —At North Webster, Bert Kiser was riding a two-wheeled spring-tooth harrow', when an obstruction was met, and he was jerked forward, his body falling between the frame-work and wheel. The unfortunate man’s neck was broken, and his body was wrapped around the axle when found. —A fine, large barn, belonging to George Tedrow, six miles south of Martinsville, burned with its entire contents of hay, grain, farming implements, etc. His horses happened to be out on pasture. His residence caught fire from tne flames and was, with difficulty, saved from destruction. Loss, $2,000; no insurance. - Mrs. D. L. Bouslog, aged 35 years, was killed at her home, six miles east of Middletown. She had gone to the barnlot, with her two small children, to milk the cows. She had just begun the milking when the cow kicked her, striking her under the chin, with sufficient force to break her neck, and she died in the presence of her two little children before older persons could be summoned.

—Egbert Lee, assistant agent of the Lake Erie road at Frankfort, met with a horrible death. In boarding a west-bound passenger train to ride down in the yards, his hold on the railing loosened, and he was thrown under the tram. The wheels of the hind car passed over his head and shoulders, severing the head from the body. Mr. Lee was a member of the class of ’B9 of Frankfort Highschool, and a model young man. A. C. Staley, president of theSatley woolen-mills, of South Bend, was by a mistake of a druggist, given morphine instead of quinine for a billious complaint, with probably fatal results. Mr. Staley took the dose on retiring at night, but the mistake was not discovered until next morning, when his wife attempted to arouse him. Physicians have constantly w'orked with him since then, but have not been able to arouse him from the stnpor produced by the fatal drug. Mr. Staley has always been identified with public interests, and was a man of advanced years. —County Treasurer-elect Osterman took charge of his office on Wednesday, and required a cash settlement with Treasurer Loftin. When the latter took the office two years ago he accepted about SIOO,OOO in paper from his predecessor, and Loftin has lost heavily, owing to his inability to collect the notes. One of the notes was on John E. Sullivan, the defaulting County Clerk, for $15,000, and this has proven an entire loss. After being in the office two years, and paying out everything he has made to make up the bad paper received from his predecessor, Loftin had to borrow $24,000 in order to settle with Osterman.

—A somewhat novel point of law has been raised by the Coroner of Allen County. Curtis Baldwin, whose homo is in Randolph County, was killed at Fort Wayne. A coroner’s inquest waß held. The body was shipped to Winchester with C. O. D. charges. Ten dollars were Coroner’s fees. Baldwin’s friends were willing to pay all charges but the Coroner’s fees, claiming that they should be paid by the county in which the inquest was held. The Fort 'Wayne Coroner would not hear to this and telegraphed to the express agent at Winchester to collect the full amount or send the body back. Baldwin’s friends, rather than permit a scandal, paid the money.

A special from Brazil says: The corn crop on the former Sprague creek reservoir is an entire failure this year. For some years past thousands of dollars have been expended in the improvement of these lands, all efforts to permanently reclaim them, so far, having proved abortive. The June floods swept away the large acreage and completely discouraged the owners and tillers of these lands. In fact, for the eight or ten years which have now been given to its cultivation, the reservoir has produced but one or two good crops. Several of the large owners express themselves favorable to the refilling and the maintaining of an artificial lake as a fishery. To this end, a stock company is suggested, to own the lands and place attractive improvements for the accomodation of fishing and pleasure parties. —Ollie Test, son of one of the proprietors of Test’s woolen-mills at Richmond, who has been much engrossed by the erection of a patent bridge across Whitewater, near the mill, was walking one of the twisted wire cables over the river, when suddenly it slipped off a pier, by which it was supported, and began rapidly to untwist. This caused it to part so as to let the boy’s leg between two strands of the cable, and, as it unwrapped, it whirled the boy around so rapidly as to make the appearance of a wheel all made of boys. As he went around his head narrowly missed a lower cable, and the wire wound tightly around his imprisoned leg. Finally the untwisting stopped and the screaming boy hung head downwards from the cable. Employes quickly rushed to the rescue, pried the cable’s ap’art with crowbars and took him out. His leg is bruised and slightly torn, but will soon heaL If he had been two inches taller his brains would have been dashed out bv striking the lower cable.