Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 December 1897 — Fatal Hunting Accident. [ARTICLE]

Fatal Hunting Accident.

A Young Boy Killed In Gillam Township. A very lamentable affair occurred in Gillam Tp., Sunday afternoon. Three young boys, William and Logan Wayne and John Swisher, were out hunting rabbits. They had got a rabbit in a brush pile and in some manner, while trying to drive but the rabbit, one of the guns was discharged, and the full charge entered the lower part of the older Wayne boy, William’s abdomen, when he was not more than a foot or two from the muzzle of the gun. He was terribly mangled, of course, and died within ten minutes after the accident occurred. The unfortunate boy was 17 years old and son of George W. Wayne, who lives just over the line in Pulaski county. The boy was a good boy and belonged to an excellent family. An inquest was held Monday, by Squire Joel Spriggs, of Walker Tp., who found that the boy’s death was accidental. The Swisher boy and the younger Wayne boy did not quite agree as to the manner of the accident, in their statements at the inquest. It seems that the boys had laid their guns down, while trying to dislodge the rabbit and the Sftdsher boy says that no one had hold of the gun when it went off; while the younger Wayne boy asserts that young Swisher had hold of the weapon. The point is not important, as the death was clearly an accident, in any case, and no blame can be attached to the other boys. The boy’s funeral was held Tuesday at Medaryville, by Rev. Sebring.