Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 May 1902 — INDIANA STATE NEWS [ARTICLE]

INDIANA STATE NEWS

Postmaster C. S. Wilcoxon of Gwynneville is in a dangerous condition from blood poison. The annual meeting of the Municipal League of Indiana has been postponed until the second week of June. The 6-year-old son of Rufus Plumber, a farmer near Windfall while riding on a load of wood, fell off, and one of the wheels ran over the boy’s breast. He was probably fatally hurt. The Logansport banks have completed the organization of a trust company, with SIOO,OOO capital. James D. McNitt is president and F. H. Whipperman secretary and treasurer. M. H. Dunlavy of Monroe township and George W. Stoner of the adjoining township, are both Democratic candidates for the nomination of county recorder. Dunlavy has forty-two relatives who are voters and Stoner has forty-four. The physicians of ex-Senator W. H. Shambough, now city attorney at Fort Wayne, say he has developed double pneumonia, and that his condition is extremely critical ‘ The saloon of Gus Werzner, in the west part of Evansville, was partially destroyed by fire. While the saloon was burning a strange woman appeared, and, kneeling on the ground, prayed that the place be destroyed. She also prayed that every other saloon and den in town be destroyed. When the fire was over the woman disappeared. Henryville is posing as the busiest point in this county. Several telephone lines are being erected, a large force of men is about ready to begin work on new county roads, several buildings have been contracted for, a baseball club has been organized, and there is talk of forming a brass band. The people are also getting ready to hold a county fair this fall. James H. Malear, wife and two children, living west of Libertyville, were poisoned at supper from eating greens, in which a bunch or two of deadly nightshade had found a place, through the carelessness of one that had gathered the greens. Mrs. Malear and one of her children are not expected to survive. The bequest of $40,000 for a home for helpless women at Fairmount, made by E. L. McDonnell, who died at Grand Rapids, Mich., was a surprise to his friends in Indiana. He lived for many years at Fairmount and had wide acquaintance over Grant county. He has a brother there, John McDonnell. Mr. McDonnell left $5,000 to Miss Virginia Platt, a similar amount to his father and sister, and $40,000 specifically and the residue of the estate is given to found the home at Fairmount. James Jenkins, while blasting stumps on his farm, two miles east of Michigantown, was badly injured by an explosion of dynamite. He had placed a charge of dynamite under a stump and was bending over to light the fuse. In his left hand he held sixty caps which he intended to use to explode dynamite under other stumps. The tuse touched off the cap under the stump and the main charge exploded. The match in Jenkins’ hand fired the other caps. The left hand was amputated and the right one will be saved. At Muncie Mrs. Clara Jenkins was prevented from going to the county jail by her baby. She was arrested on a charge and pleaded guilty. Police Judge Moreland fined her, and, being unable to pay the fine, she was ordered to jail. She refused to allow the officers to touch her infant, and none would disgrace it by causing it to be locked in jail. The mother said if she was allowed to take the infant to the home of a friend she would return and go to jail. Her request was granted, but she failed to return. D. W. Stark, sixty-seven years old, one of the wealthiest men in Rockville, is dead. For many years he was an active business man, but retired to manage his estate. Up to the time of his death he was director of the Parke Bank. To ascertain positively if his neck is broken, Thomas De Golyer of Anderson will be taken to Indianapolis and an operation will be performed. Mr. De Golyer fell from his dray last fall, suffering spinal injury and paralysis followed. The Supreme Tribe of Ben-Hur will, in all probability, erect a temple, costing $35,000, at Crawfordsville. The temple will be located on the site of the present building and will be pf stone, two stories high. James McCormick, an oil producer, has been sued by Joseph C. Joliffi of Hartford City for SI,OOO for alleged fraud in a horse sale. Joliff claims he bought a supposed race horse, named Baron Waltz, with a record of 2:32, and promise of greater speed. He paid $450 for the horse and placed the racer in the hands of a trainer, who found that the horse was windbroken and unable to trot fast without becoming exhausted and falling down. An Italian laborer on the Panhandle, whose name is unknown, but who was on the payroll as “No. 22,” was instantly killed in the yards at Richmond by a switch engine. At Advance, high winds of yesterday did considerable damage to the Shiloh Christian Church. The south door blew open and when the house became full of wind the upper timbers gave way. A barn belonging to Charles Widner caught fire at Cambridge and the wind caused it to spread to five homes. The total loss was $2,000..

Robert Mencer, employed at the Sheridan brick works, was killed by falling slate. Two daughters of Charles Hamilton of Bedford drank some concentrated lye and were badly, but not fatally burned. Byron McCrory, a grader on the Pennsylvania railroad, was killed at Plymouth by the premature explosion of dynamite. The school patrons of Pleasant township have voted against combining the schools and the use of wagons to gather up the pupils. The Rev. M. E. Dutt of the Central Christian Church of Seymour has accepted a call to Girard, 111. He has been with the Seymour church a year. At Cloverdale, because of a love affair, Lee Fowler, twenty-one years old. shot himself in the head with a large rifle. Charles P. Cochrane, an Indianapolis carpenter employed in a new Purdue building, fell sixteen feet from a scaffold and was seriously hurt. Mrs. George Straight of Laurel, wife of a quarryman, while riding to a quarry on a flatcar, was thrown off and the wheels crushed her head. An attempt was made to wreck a Panhandle train two miles south of Kokomo by placing iron bars on the track. The wheels pushed the bars off. The Rev. W. S. Howard, dean of the Episcopal cathedral at Michigan City, will resign early next month, to become rector of St. Thomas’ Church at Plymouth. The Kosciusko County Bank has been organized at Warsaw with a capital of $75,000 and will begin operations May 15. A. T. Bowen, together with Delphi and Logansport men, expect to open their new bank at Delphi May 1. It is Mr. Bowen’s intention to open a number of banks in Indiana this year. Wilbur S. Sherell, a former patrolman of Evansville, charged with killing three women, has had his trial fixed for June 3 in the Circuit Court. He has pleaded not guilty to the three indictments. At Greensburg, while John Gerhard was “pinching up” a car of coal on the Big Four with a crowbar, the car pressed the bar into his left thigh and the car had to be moved before he could be released. Richmond barbers have begun a movement to close theif shops on Sunday and for shorter hours during the summer months. The boss barbers and their employes are trying to form an agreement to this end. J. W. McFadden, a Linton miner, l seventy years old, was seriously injured by falling coal in No. 2 mine of the Island Coal Company. He has mined coal for sixty years, and never before had a mishap. David M. Sutton of Dillsboro, eightysix years old, went to the woods and cut a cord of wood. He never tasted liquor in his life, never used tobacco and for more than half a century has not tasted tea or coffee. The Rev. William Oeschger of the Christian Church of Vincennes has declined an offer of the presidency of the University of Tokio, Japan. Voting machines will be used in the city election at Richmond, May 6. There are indications that the meeting of the Municipal League of Indiana, which is scheduled to meet at Vincennes in May, will be postponed at least one month in order not to conflict with the dedication of the soldiers’ monument at Indianapolis. While *Mary Morris, thirteen years old, was cooking dinner at Muncie, there was an explosion of gas in the stove. Her clothing caught fire and was soon a mass of flames. Her body was charred and there is no hope for her recovery. Chicago men have offered the McGrath heirs SIO,OOO for their nine-acre tract of land in New Castle. The object of the Chicago men is to erect large greenhouses. At Fort Wayne Edwin Nuff shot policeman Richard Kelley in the neck, but the wound is not dangerous. Kelley was chasing a burglar from Nuff’s house and Nuff mistook the policeman for a thief. Thirty-five families along the rural mail route out of Danville have had their mail cut off because they have not followed the rule requiring the use of regulation boxes. All these families are now obliged to go to town for their mail. 0 The activity in the oil field near Geneva has caused a scarcity of houses lor employes of the oil companies. Every house in town that is large enough is occupied by two families, and in a number of them three families are sheltered. Mrs. Howell, mother of Trustee Howell of Gregg township, fell and dislocated her hip. She is past eighty years of age and lives with her son, John Howell, at Wilbur. Miss Ellen M. McLewain, nipety-three years old, is dead at Petersburg. She was the oldest woman in Pike County. When eighteen years old she was jilted by her lover, when she vowed that she would never\ marry. At Morristown, Allen P. Wartman is dead of neuralgia. He was eighty years old, coming to this state from North Carolina forty years ago. He leaves a wife by a second inarriage and three children. John M. Jaques, an old resident of Thorntown is dead at the age of eighty-two. He was born in Ohio. Sept. 15, 1819.

Work on the $22,51)0 system ot roads in Henryville and Union township has begun. The B. W. Bennett brick factory, the largest in eastern Indiana, burned at Muncie. The loss was $15,000. Ground has been broken for the buildings of the cup abd metal works. It will be one of the important industries at Montpelier. Loeb and Foust, proprietors of the largest dry goods store in Carroll County, will quit business in Delphi and remove to Mansfield, Ohio. Health Officer Becker used his revolver to coax John Fitts, a carpenter, to crawl down from a roof, when he was arrested for violating the health laws at Vincennes. The Rey. A. C. Wilmore, a presiding elder of the United Brethren church, has appointed the Rev. C. J, Robinson of Dayton, Ohio, to take charge of the church at Noblesville. The city of Alexandria has bsen refused a new trial in the suit of Valentine Leibler, who obtained Judgment for $4,000 for injuries, due to a defective street. Leibler once offered to compromise for $1,200, which was rejected by the city attorney. The Union City Commercial Club la endeavoring to have the Creamery Package Manufacturing Company, whose plant at Portland was partially burned, locate at Union City. A site and other inducements are offered. It is said the higher officers of the company rather favor locating at Union City. Civil Engineer William Howard and Smith Casterline have completed one of the largest surveys made in Blackford County in recent years. It was the 930 acres of the old Godfrey Indian reserve and was made for Samuel Taite and Dr. L. E. Maddox and others of Montpelier. The ground is to be divided in farms. Taite, a wealthy oil man, will devote his land to the raising of sheep and Angora goats.

Nearly all the leading merchants oi Marion have signed aii agreement to employ only union clerks. A mass-meeting has been held at Plainfield in the interest of the Central Academy, with the view to placing the institution on a better financial basis and an effort will be made by citizens to have an endowment fund raised. The people of Ireland are excited over the prospects of finding oil, and perhaps gas, in paying quantities. A few years ago an earthquake caused the waters on a farm near that town to become so heavily charged with crude oil that the cattle would not it- The oil finally disappeared. While Ulysses Shirling and Frank Bishop were at work in the woods of Ripley County, they heard a bell ringing, and spent some time trying to locate it. They finally saw a large buzzard in the top of a tree, and its foot was fastened to a cow bell. It is supposed that the buzzard became entangled with the strap to the bell while it was on a foraging expedition. The men tried to catch the bird, but it soared away to the merry tinkle of the bell. Muncie delegates are now endeavoring to land next year’s national convention of the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Tin and Steel Workers for Muncie. Several houses from near the American window glass factory at Alexandria have been carted to another part of town and others will be. During recess at one of the public schools at Evansville, Miss Anna Voldereur, a teacher, went into her classroom and swallowed a quantity of carbolic acid. She told one of the teachers what she had done. She was taken to a hospital, where she died. James Henry Jones of Muncie is dead at the age of eighty-four. He insisted on inflicting corporal punishment upon his sons for their misdoings until they were thirty years ot age. Much of the time he refused to allow his children to be seated at the dinner table, saying that if they stood they would become taller. Chicago men have joined with local capitalists in organizing the Royal Center Development Company, capital SIOO,OOO, to develop the oil territory in that vicinity. Seven wells were drilled in Royal Center some years ago and five of them yielded a fair return of high-grade lubricating oil. Six additional wells will be drilled. The oil commands $5 a barrel at the well. Muncie policemen, acting under orders from the board of police commissioners, have begun a crusade against the use of profane language in public places, and have made four arrests on profanity charges. Special orders have been given to officers to make arrests wherever cruelty to animals is being practiced. A driver of a delivery wagon, who was cursing and beating a horse was fined for cruelty to animals and for profanity. Washington S. McCloy of the McCloy lamp chimney works at Elwood, has invented a glass finishing machine which may revolutionize the manufacture of lamp chimneys. It will groove glassware and chimneys while in a plastic state and materially lessen the loss, which often follows the pieces cooling too quickly after being blown. Burrell Drake, John Woodruff and Francis Wiley, employed in a coal mine near Sullivan, have been arrested on the charge of murdering a deputy sheriff in Kentucky during a strike last fall.