Rensselaer Union, Volume 3, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 February 1871 — Buried Hire and Resurrected. [ARTICLE]

Buried Hire and Resurrected.

A letter in the Plattsburg IteyUUr gives an account of a tragical |if&r which recently occurred at poplar Grove, Grundy County, Mo. _ v A Mr. John Andrews, a popular and well-to-do farmer in the neighborhood, had dug a well some forty feet deep, and had walled it up about fifteen feet, when it was discovered that the wall was about to cave in. ..Mr. Andrews gathered up an armful of short boards, and went down a pole ladder fastened to the side of the well, to lay them across the wall, so as to prevent the dirt, as itjell, from fillmg uo that part of the well walled up. He had not more than reached the bottom, as it was thought, before the well caved in, filling up to a few feet of the top. The alarm was given and the neighbors gathered, but all believing him dead, they returned to their homes, to make arrangements to come the next day and dig ium out. Mrs. Andrew* ana two grown daughters, and several smaller children,

refused to leave the spot, but sat on a log near the well, crying, until late in the evening, when, all at once, they saw Mr. Andrews emerging from the well, covered with clay, and coming toward them! The children all ran, screaming into the house, bolted the doors and fastened the windows, believing it to be their father’s ghost. But Mrs. Andrews ran to meet him, screaming at the top of her voice, “ Oh, John I Oh, John! is that you! is that you!” When she reached him she fell fainting at his feet. It seems that when he got to the bottom of the well he looked up and raw the top giving way, and lielieving he had not time to make his escape, he slipped under the boards, which he had laid across the well, when the wliolo tiling fell in upon him. All hope, at first, gave way, and he was about to let himself drop into the water below, and end at once his miserable feelings. But, feeling above, he found the clay easily crumbled, and hope revived. The pole ladder, it seems, was still standing, and. getting hold of it with one hand, he with the other scratched away for life, the dirt falling into the water below, as ha dragged Bis body slowly upward. It seems he did not suffer much in breathing, as fresh air came down the pole, around which the dirt was loosely packed. In the incredibly short time of seven hours he scratched a hole some forty feet long, through which he made his escape.