Detlef Stoltenberg d. 1873

STOLTENBERG ECKMANN BEHRESER TOMSON KRUSE ARRIS BERGERT HAHNEMANN

Posted By: Obituary Fairy (email)
Date: 10/29/2014 at 18:52:23

The Davenport Daily Gazette; 21 May 1873; p.4, col. 3:
Self-Destruction
An Old Man Ends His Life with a Charge of Shot
A Boy Finds the Corpse
Shocking Condition of the Body
Coroner’s Inquest
The most shocking case of suicide that has been recorded here in several years, occurred on Mitchell’s bluff, in the northwestern part of the city, yesterday afternoon.
About half-past three o’clock William Eckmann, a young son of Claus Eckmann, the dairyman, enterted a pasture north of the Washington Gardens for the purpose of herding his father’s cows, and his attention was attracted by smoke which was arising some distance from the bars. He hurried to the place, and came upon a spectacle which filled him with horror. Under a tree was a man prone upon his face in a pool of blood, his back and sides raw from fire, his clothes burning, and a gun protruding from one side. The boy stood a moment, chilled with the sight. Then he spoke to the man, but he received no reply. Then he ran to the Washington Gardens and told Peter Behreser of what he had seen, and Behreser hastened with him to the place where the man lay - and the two extinguished the fire with water they had carried with them. They felt of the extremities of the body - it was a corpse. In a few moments several men were on the spot, one of whom hurried down town and summoned Coroner Tomson.
The Coroner held an inquest
Messrs. Christopher Kruse, Rachariah Arris and Fritz Bergert being Jurors. The body was turned upon its back, when a wound large enough to almost admit a hand was exhibited just over the heart - and this had let out blood till the body was drained of the fluid.
It appeared from the testimony that the deceased was one Detlef Stoltenberg, who lived with his son, near the corner of 8th and Brown streets. His age was about sixty years. He came to this country from Germany last fall, at the invitation of his two sons and a daughter, the latter the wife of Christ. Hahnemann, of Rockingham. It also appeared that he lived unhappily because of his appetite for liquor. In the forenoon of yesterday he was seen in the pasture, firing his gun as if hunting. At noon he took dinner in a restaurant at the corner of Third and Harrison streets - and that was the last his acquaintances saw of him until his corpse was found.
There was every evidence of deliberate preparation for suicide where the body lay. Gun shot at the base of the tree, showed that he had loaded his gun there; and a stiff switch some four feet long, trimmed with a notch at one end, made it evident that he sat down, sprung the hammer, extended the gun so that its muzzle should be pressed against his breast above his heart, and that he pushed the trigger with the stick, when the whole charge was poured into his breast. Then he fell over upon his face, and soon bled to death. The discharge fired his clothing, and when the body was discovered the clothing was burned away from the shoulders to the hips, the corpse presenting a revolting spectacle.
The jury returned a verdict of death by suicide. The body was borne to the house of the son of the deceased, near the corner of Eighth and Brown streets, from which place it will be buried today. The wife of the deceased is living with her daughter, Mrs. Hahnemann, in Rockingham township.