Colpas, Thomas 1853-1895

COLPAS

Posted By: Wilma J. Vande Berg - volunteer (email)
Date: 5/9/2013 at 14:15:52

Hawarden Independent April 4, 1895

In speaking of the death of T. J. Colpas, formerly of this city, the Hull Index says:
Mr. Colpas has been a great sufferer from entarrahl affections of the head and at times his sufferings have been so great as to be beyond human endurance. He in order to get relief, used freely of cocaine. The continued use of the drug, though slight at first increased the desire to obtain it, and use it is larger quantities. Froe several days preceding the fatal dose he had been suffering more than usual. His calls at the drug stores for the powders became so frequent that the proprietors of each had considered the propriety of selling him any more of the drug, or at least to curtail him in the amount. On Sunday he kept his room at the hotel most of the forenoon, declining the call for dinner. This was not thought much of by the landlady, from the fact that he frequently failed to come to his meals when called.

In the evening he was called for supper but no response came from his room. The door was locked; and no answer came to the repeated calls made. The door was then forced open, and there lying on the bed; he wits discovered unconscious and apparently dying.. Doctors Coad and Werkman were immediately summoned and immediately began the work of counter acting the effects of the deadly poison, with but little hopes of succeeding. It was evident to both that he had passed that stage, when even a possibility might exist of restoring him. He lingered until the following evening, when death came to his relief and without returning to consciousness.

An effort was made to find the where- abouts of this friends if he had any living, but with little effect.

Mr. Welch of Hawarden an old and tried friend, a schoolmate of years ago, was wired and answered by coming to his bedside a few hours before he passed away. From him we learned that Mr. Colpas was born in the state of New York, forty-one years ago; that his aged mother still lives at Ogdensburg of that state; that he has a daughter fifteen years of age living in Chicago, where a divorced wife resides. He also has a uncle living in New York who at one time was connected with the American Consulship at Berlin, Germany.

Mr. Colpas letters were overhauled In order to learn something of his friends but little could be ascertained, further than that his mother although bowed with the weight of declining years, still lived, and followed him in his wanderings, with that sacred mother’s love, which soften arrests the wayward boy in his downward career.

Mr. Colpas life has been a sad one; rendered so by that demon of strong drink which so often gets control of and holds on to many of our brightest and most promising young men. In the issue of the Index of March 15th appears an address by Mr. Colpas, which was read before the Good Templars Lodge of this place and which gives some of his dark experiences. In the address he pays a high tribute to Mr. Welch of Hawarden, who did so much to bring about a reformation to his life, and who, with the writer of this article, stood by his bedside and watched the effing tide of like bear him out on the great sin of eternity.

Mr. Colpas was a stranger within our gates having come to Hull sometime in December
Notwithstanding, he was kindly cared for, and on Monday his remains were borne to their last resting place in Hope cemetery, where it is hoped, that whatever may have been his follies his weaknesses, or his short comings in in this life, they may never be resurrected, only to serve as beacon lights, to guide others from making shipwreck of like. Services were conducted at the grave by Rev. Klepper of the E> E. church.
(1870 census of Ogdensburg NY (mother) Margaret 44, Thomas 17, George 12, Lotta 4, Grace 1.)