John Erskine

ERSKINE

Posted By: Renee Rimmert (email)
Date: 11/28/2016 at 19:29:26

Appanoose Iowegian
Thursday, July 30, 1891

Fatal Accident - John Erskine, of Douglas township accidentally shot and killed himself on Saturday. He in company with one of the Exline boys aged about seventeen and a smaller boy was out picking blackberries and had taken their guns along. Mr. Erskine was inside of a wire fence and a rabbit jumped up offering a good shot. He reached over the fence quickly for his gun and in pulling it towards him it was discharged, the bullet striking him in the neck and ranging upward coming out just behind the opposite ear. Death was almost instantaneous. The remains were brought home but it was not thought necessary to summon the coroner or hold an inquest. The funeral took place at Oakland cemetery at this place on Sunday. The deceased was twenty-one years of age, the son of Adam Erskine, one of the oldest settlers of the county. He was married and had bought and improved an eighty acre farm on the road between Centerville and Unionville. He leaves a wife but no children, his only child having died a short time since. His parents and several brothers and sisters and a large circle of friends are left to mourn his untimely death. On the evening previous to the accident there had been a kind of family reunion at his father's house, some of the family living near Eddyville being there on a visit and they had a general good time little thinking of what would happen on the morrow. It rained that night and being too wet to work in the harvest field they went out to pick berries and met with the accident which resulted so fatally.