A Terrible Tragedy

DAVIS

Posted By: Ken Wright (email)
Date: 2/19/2008 at 17:00:48

Maquoketa Excelsior, July 10, 1873.

A Terrible Tragedy.
From the Jackson Leader.

On the evening of Wednesday, July 2, 1873, Miss Mary Jane Davis, daughter of our respected citizen, T. H. Davis, Esq., shot herself through the heart with a pistol. The fatal occurrence took place shortly before 9 o’clock p.m., at Bellevue. But five minutes before she had been conversing with some friends at the gate whom she left. Going upstairs to her room she threw herself on the bed, where she was found by her family, who were attracted by the report, in the last agony of death. The popular opinion declares the act to be suicide, but the evidence is by no means conclusive. We suspend all opinion until the result of further inquiry is made known. We hope-nay, firmly trust, that the life, whose sun thus set in darkness and gloom, has melted into an eternal brightness beyond earth’s cloudy horizon.