Jorgen Iversen

IVERSON

Posted By: Sharon Elijah (email)
Date: 5/23/2021 at 17:43:30

18 January 1915 - The Clinton Advertiser page 1

JORGEN IVERSEN TAKES OWN LIFE; MOTIVE MYSTERY
Man Who Lived in Clinton Eighteen Years Had No Intimate Friends
ONCE LIVED IN CALIFORNIA
Never Worked and Source of Income Was Unknown--Commits Suicide by Hanging
Jorgen Iversen was uncommunicative all his life. He never spoke unless some one asked him a question. So it was not surprising that before hanging himself in his room in the Farmers' Hotel last night--a little apartment wherein he had spent at least one-half of his time during the past eighteen years--he did not take his few friends into his confidence by writing a note telling why he wished to die.

The coroner, Dr. C. F. Kellogg, spent two hours going through the dead man's trunks and grips. But he found little to enlighten him regarding the victim of his own hand--and very little money. Three or four dollars in a small pocket book in his trousers pocket was all the money to be found. For the rest there was an endless variety of personal effects, and an abundance of clothing, from a very handsome dress suit, which evidently had not been worn for decades--down to the rough garb of a laborer. There were books galore--for Jorgen had been a great student and reader--mostly in the German and Danish languages. Then there were tools which are convenient for a bachelor to own, sewing outfits, shaving utensils, several cheap watches and half a score of pipes. Also an extremely antiquated pistol, weighing about fifteen pounds, with powder and balls.

Although Jorgen made use of the fire escape rope, usually coiled on the floor near the window of his room on the second floor of the Farmers' Home, he had several other ropes among his effects. One, a rather slender cord, was found in his coat pocket. Another, a little thicker than clothes-line, had been deposited in the bottom of the trunk.

Jurgen Iversen was somewhat of a mystery. During his eighteen years in Clinton he occupied that same room in the Front street hostelry. He kept much to himself, rarely joining the fireside group on winter evenings. When he did speak it was usually of foreign places, or of California--his old home. He never drank, his few acquaintances say--at least no one ever saw him drink except at Christmas time, when he celebrated by taking a "slug of hot whisky" a stable man at the hotel said today. In his trunks were found two or three empty bottles, which might have contained whisky or medicine--there was indeed quite a variety of medicines among his belongings. At any rate Jorgen was not much of a "drinking man." Neither did he gamble or ever play at cards. Apparently he had no bad habits.

But he always had money--at least until lately. Martin Petersen, host a the Farmers' Home, says he paid him with a scrupulous regularity until last October. Since then he had not remitted for his room and board.

The source of his income--for he never worked--was something of a mystery about the hotel. Two or three years ago he received a check for $1,500 from California, and asked the landlord's daughter to add her signature for purposes of identification. Iversen spent little, and the people at the hotel were surprised that money was not found in his trunks or hand satchels. They do not think he spent all of the $1,500 since then.

Jorgen Iversen usually spent his mornings in his room, and his afternoons in the hotel office reading the newspapers. He rarely was ill, and Sunday was in his usual health, apparently. He went to his room at 7 o'clock Sunday evening.

The landlord's wife heard him moving the bed shortly afterwards. This morning an investigation was made when he did not come down to breakfast. The door was locked, the key on the inside. With a knife a young fellow who works in the hostelry succeeded in shoving the key out of the lock, and the door was opened.

The occupant of the room was suspended from a rope tied in the vent into the attic. His feet were a yard from the floor. He had stood on the end of the bed, affixed a slip-knot around his neck, and stepped off. This evidently was done last night, as the bed had been untouched and the body was quite cold. Strange to say, however, the face was not discolored, and there was no evidence of death agony. Iversen was a tall, heavy man and his strangulation must have been almost instantaneous.

Coroner Kellogg said today he will not hold an inquest but will simply make a thorough investigation, in the hope of finding relatives of the deceased.

Iversen's citizenship papers were found. They were granted in the Clinton district court on March 8, 1883, when A. L. Schuyler was clerk. The papers bear Mr. Schuyler's signature. His age is not given. Iversen had renounced allegiance to the emperor of Germany, his former home. No other information was available from this document, found in an old tattered vest on the wall.

Other papers showed he had lived for a short time in 1888 and 1889 in Humboldt county, California. In a trunk was found a photograph of himself, taken evidently 20 or 30 years ago, and with it a picture of a woman.

"His wife probably" said the wife of the landlord. "I think he was married at one time, and have heard him speak about a little girl--his daughter, I believe". No one knows anything definite about these affairs, however--or about any of the affairs of the dead man, who kept his own company so exclusively as to forbid the hotel employes to enter his room to clean it. He always swept, scrubbed and dusted the room. And his personal effects were arranged with perfect exactitude and neatness.

The funeral arrangements were not announced today.