Unknown (Irish?) man (ca. 1862-1884)

UNKNOWN

Posted By: Dorian Myhre (email)
Date: 1/9/2011 at 10:53:08

From Story County Watchman May 30, 1884

DROWNED:--On the evening of May 24, some parties while picking flowers on the banks of Skunk River near Ames, discovered a man floating on the surface of the water. Coroner Hostetter was notified and an inquest held. The coroners jury found that the said unknown person came to his death by drowning, and that there were no suspicious circumstances attending.

The deceased was a young man about 22 years of age, with dark complexion, stout built and 5 feet 8 inches, high, had some defect in his right eye and was suppored to have been a foreigner of Irish decent. He wore a cap, cotton shirt, well-worn sack coat, heavy boots and overalls, he was clean shaved; appeared to have been an intelligent man. He was seen a week or ten days ago, and looking for work and apprarently worried or distressed. He told Marshall Shockley that he intended going to Belle Plaine to work on the new road from that place to What Cheer. He disappeared shortly afterward and was not seen until found in the manner described.

There was nothing on the person of the drowned man to give any clue to his identity, the only things found in his pockets being a 25 cent piece and two pennies tied in the corner of a handkerchief. Everything indicates that the poor fellow was driven to desparation by a strange land, unable to get work and without money, he determined to end his unhappiness by a suicide's death. The body was placed in a plain wooden box and shipped to Lewis Schooler, Des Moines, with the following inscription on the cover of the box.

May 24th, 1884.--This is to certify that deceased, whose name is unknown, came to his death by drowning, there being nothing contageous about him.
JOHN I. HOSTETTER, Coroner
G. A. MEREDITH, Health Officer for Ames.
PARLEY SHELDON, Mayor.

The body is supposed to have been purchased by one of the medical colleges there.