Clipping from San Bernardino, CA paper (1895)

BARTON, NEELY

Posted By: Marilyn Holmes (email)
Date: 4/28/2012 at 14:54:44

The Grinnell (IA) Herald, May 24, 1895

--The following clipping is taken from a San Bernardino, Cal., paper: "An incident occurred here last Saturday which to those who witnessed it seemed more than strange, and saved one man from resting under the imputation that he had not been on speaking terms with truth in telling of an incident. A totally unexpected witness bobbed up and saved the narrator's character for veracity. J.W. Barton, the undertaker, was discussing with a group of friends, in his office, the fatal accident to young Hotson the night before at Kehl's mill, and remarked that accidents to mature men by getting entangled in machinery were very common. He then told of a man in his native town in Iowa, who carelessly allowed the long beard he wore to be caught up by a steam auger which tore the beard out by the roots. "However," concluded Mr. Barton, "it was not much of an accident because his beard grew in again and was as thick and as long as ever before." The listeners frankly expressed their disbelief of the last part of the tale and declared that the whiskers would not grow again. Barton assured them that the story was true in every particular, but was met with derision and went back in the shop. Less than five minutes elapsed when an elderly stranger came in and presenting his card inscribed "A.J. Neely, Grinnell, Iowa," inquired for Mr. Barton, who was summoned into the front office. The sight of the stranger literally took Barton's breath away and for a few seconds he was speechless. Mr. Neely was the very man whose beard was torn out by the roots and about whom Barton had been speaking. He had not seen Mr. Neely for ten years and it seemed as if the proof of his story had dropped from the clouds. The stranger confirmed Barton's tale, even unto the beard itself, which grows luxuriantly."