JASPERS, Harm 1840-1886

JASPERS

Posted By: Tammy (email)
Date: 4/29/2014 at 20:29:15

Harm Jasper, of Shiloh township, committed suicide last Friday by hanging himself. It seems he had been on a spree for several days and had been in a row at Wellsburg, and on Friday morning he went to the barn with a pail in his hand, his little boy following him. He told the boy to go back to the house and stay about a half hour and then he could come out and it might be he could help him. The boy went to the house and after being there for a short time the boy told his mother what his father had said to him. She told him he had better go out and see what he wanted, and on entering the barn he found his father strung up to a rafter. The boy returned to the house and told his mother that his father was standing on a rafter. She went out and found Jasper hanging by the neck. She then sent the boy back for a butcher knife to cut him down. She said he opened his eyes twice but when the boy came with the knife and she had cut him down he was dead. The rope was fastened to the rafter and it is supposed he stood on the pail and kicked it from under him when he was ready to swing.

--Grundy County Republican (Grundy Center, Iowa), 24 March 1886, pg 4