Submitted by
Loyd Bishop

TWO FATAL ACCIDENTS

There has been an unusual number of accidents this fall and winter from careless handling of guns, and this county and community have not escaped. Until this week we were not called upon to chronicle any fatalities from accidents, but the worst has happened, and instead of one, we are furnished with two fatal accidents. Last Thursday evening Clyde Wade was fatally shot with a 32 rifle in the hands of a playmate, death resulting, early Monday morning. The Wade boy and a Hamblett boy, were playing with some 22 rifles when the rifle held by the Hamblett boy was discharged, the bullet penetrated the brain of the Wade boy. He never regained consciousness, and the doctors offered no hope from the first. There are several versions of the circumstances leading up to the accident, and the manner of it, but they are of minor consequence. The tragic fact is that the boy is dead, the family heartbroken, and all concerned deeply deplore the accident. The Wade boy was buried Tuesday morning. Another accident fatal in character is reported from near Nardin, and the Daily News has the following version of it.
A fatal shooting accident happened Sunday at 2 o’clock, about three miles south and one mile west of Nardin. The victim was a youth about sixteen years old named Charley Paul, and the boy who did the shooting was named Stratton, and is about twelve or thirteen years old. The boys had started to go hunting and stopped at the house of a man named Engelhart, who was the brother-in-law of the boy who was shot. The two were standing in Engelharts yard, the smaller one holding the gun when it was discharged, no one knows exactly how, the contents entering young Paul’s body, just under the heart, making a hole as large as a hen’s egg. The fatally wounded boy started to walk home, but he had proceeded only about twenty rods, when he fell exhausted from loss of blood. He was placed on a door and carried back to the Engelhart house. It is reported that he said to the boy who shot him, “you couldn’t help it.” Dr. Buellesfeld and Huntington were called, but the youth was injured beyond the aid of surgical skill, and died about 10 o’clock Sunday night. The father is in Iowa, where the family came from, on a visit to old friends. He was telegraphed, and the body was embalmed to await the father’s arrival.