ROWLAND, Annie

ROWLAND, HEARN

Posted By: Volunteer: Sherri
Date: 9/27/2016 at 21:04:38

Fatal Accident.

On Friday morning last, about 9 o'clock, our citizens, in the neighborhood of the residence of Mr. Wm. Hearn were alarmed by the sudden report of a gun followed by screams and appeals for assistance. Not a minute had elapsed before the alarm had been given that "Annie Rowland, Mr. Hearn's little step-daughter, had been accidentally shot." The confusion following such an announcement can better be imagined than described. Some of the neighbors were so much shocked that for a while their strength to run to the assistance of the unfortunate little victim utterly failed them. Others conceiving the importance of medical aid, ran in search of a Doctor, and in less time than it takes to describe the deteils(sp) of the sad affair, hundreds of people had flocked to the residence of Mr. Hearn, there to find the report too true. Laying in the yard, with her body naked from the waist up; her right side perforated with some thirty or forty shot-holes and unconscious from the loss of blood was little Annie. Friendly hands had soon conveyed the little wounded and bleeding body back to the house and rested it on as comfortable a bed as possible. Dr. Craig arrived; an examination was made, during which the assembled multitude waited with almost breathless, silence, anxious to hear the result and yet dreading the announcement. It was finally made, and the word "fatal" struck upon the ear as an electric shock to all who were present. At 12 o'clock the life-tide ceased to flow, and little Annie Rowland whose buoyant spirit had sparkled with bright anticipation in the morning took its flight at noon for the home beyond the river of time, leaving her little play-mate sisters and brothers desolate and lonely in her absence.

The description of the affair, as near as we have able to get it, appears to be as follows: Since the death of their mother, Daisey and Annie - respectively aged 14 and 11 years - with the aid of their father, have discharged all the household duties, and on Friday morning last, in the absence of Mr. Hearn, they were carrying the contents of the front room out into the yard. The beds had been taken down; the carpets taken up, and the furniture partly taken out. At the time the fatal shot was fired, Annie had taken the waist off of her dress and was seated on the floor engaged in taking out the lining and mending the same, while Daisey was carrying out the remaining contents of the room. Going to the door, she took the shot-gun from behind the same and was carrying it out into the yard, with the muzzle back of her, when from some cause, not known, the gun was discharged, burying its contents in the body of Annie, who was sitting on the floor as above described, and must have been in the act of taking a stitch in her dress, with her arm raised, as the shot entered her right side some two inches from the arm-pit. Judging from the circle made by the shot in her body, Daisey must have been eight or ten feet from Annie when the gun went off, as the marks of the shot exhibited a circle nearly the size of an ordinary saucer. It is supposed by some that the hammer of the gun struck the door-case as it passed out. After being shot, Annie raised from the floor, ran out of the back door and around the house into the front as before stated. She died in about three hours afterward, suffering a great deal of pain, but conscious most of the time.

This is another sad lesson occasioned by the carelessness of persons allowing loaded guns in their houses. Will the time ever come when such experience will educate our people to use that caution so necessary to the preservation of life.

Source: Van Buren Co. Genealogical Society Obituary Book G, Page 217, Keosauqua Public Library, Keosauqua, IA