"Drinking and driving don't mix" was a popular admonition when I was growing up (still true). Today, however, it's been edged by, "texting and driving don't mix."
But when the unfortunate George Hamilton, "ground to mincemeat" as Chariton Democrat editor Dan Baker so delicately put it back in November of 1880, was killed at age 31 near the C.B.&Q. depot he proved decisively that drinking, walking and the cowcatchers of locomotives didn't mix well either.
That's George's tombstone, above, in Ragtown Cemetery (thanks again to Doris Christensen and Find a Grave), where his reassembled remains were buried a day or two after death.
Here's how Dan reported George's demise, an event that resulted in a number of stories and considerable moralizing on the local news page of The Democrat of Nov. 22, 1880. Chariton Patriot editor George Ragsdale apparently reported on the event extensively, too, but that back issue is for some reason missing.
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"On Sunday morning early, as Prof. J.W. Perry was passing along the railroad near the depot building, he was horrified at discovering portions of a human body lying scattered on the track. Search was soon instituted to explain the mystery, resulting in the finding of various fragments of a man who had evidently been ground to pieces by a passing train.
"Investigation proved the remains to be those of Mr. Geo. Hamilton, a citizen of town, who has lately been employed at Gilbert, Hedge & Co.'s lumber yard in hauling lumber. It seems that on Saturday night Hamilton was drunk, and at a late hour was seen at the depot fully determined to have a good spree. It is supposed that an engine in passing the depot going east about three o'clock in the morning caught him on the cow catcher, and slowly ground him to pieces, as telegraphic information disclosed the fact that the engine passing at that time had blood on the point of the cow catcher.
"A coroner's jury composed of Messrs. N.B. Gardner, T. Volland and L.F. Maple rendered a verdict that the deceased came to his death accidentally while drunk, and that the railroad company was not to blame. Mr. Hamilton left a wife and one child residing in town. His life was insured we understand for $5,000."
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Mr. Hamilton's unfortunate demise immediately became the focus, in Chariton newspapers at least, of a debate about the morality (or immorality) of demon rum. George Ragsdale of The Patriot was a strict prohibitionist, Dan Baker was not. The Patriot report of George's death apparently focused more extensively than Dan's did on the role alcohol played --- to the extent that Baker felt compelled to chide is brother editor elsewhere in his edition of Nov. 22 in part as follows:
"The Patriot's editorial on the death of Hamilton, who was run over by an engine on Saturday night, though nearly a column long, came very near omitting to mention that Hamilton was killed. It grew so solemn in discussing the liquor question, the saloon question, the city government, the November elections and the presidential outlook, that it is a puzzle to his readers to know what subject George wanted to cuss or discuss the most."
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Among the apparent allegations in Ragsdale's article was a charge that city marshal John O. Coles (in the interests of fair disclosure a distant cousin of mine) had been accused by his deputy of drinking with Hamilton before his death. Dan gave the marshal an opportunity to respond:
"Mr. John O. Coles, the city marshal, having seen the item in the Patriot saying that he had been drinking with Hamilton the night Mr. H. was killed, desires us to say that the statement is wholly, absolutely and unqualified false in every particular, that he was invited by Hamilton to drink but positively declined, and did not during either the day or night drink with him or in his company."
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Editor Baker, unwilling to blame intoxication entirely for Mr. Hamilton's sad fate, looked around for something else to editorialize about --- and found it as follows:
"In view of the sad accident of Saturday night, in which Hamilton was ground to mincemeat with an engine, we wish to suggest to the railroad company that the track yard around the depot, above and below the depot, should be well lighted every dark night. We believe it is the most dangerous place after night we ever saw. Hundreds of cars are coming in and going out all the time, and engines are constantly running backward and forward over the crossings, endangering every man's life who has occasion to travel in that neighborhood in the dark. The crossings near the depot should be well lighted up, and then someone should see that they are kept burning while necessary. We hope the company will use diligence in the matter, and quiet one cause of common complaint."
George Hamilton's widow, Finette (known as Nettie), decided to bury her husband's remains that long ago November at Ragtown Cemetery, near the remains of her mother, Mary (Gookin) Clowser, who had died during 1870. Her father, Henry Clowser, had passed at age 42 during April of 1856, only a year after bringing his family to the Ragtown neighborhood in 1855. There was no Ragtown Cemetery at the time and so his body was brought to Chariton and buried in what we now call Douglass Pioneer Cemetery.
Finette and George Hamilton had married on Christmas Eve, 1872, and by the time of his death she had given birth to two children --- one who died as an infant; the other, a son named William, who was 7 when his father was killed. Nettie's difficulties were compounded during May of 1880 when she gave birth to posthumous twin girls, Stella and Ella, both of whom died young.
Circumstances suggest that George had provided a generous insurance settlement for his wife, however. His tombstone at Ragtown is one indication. The fact that Nettie provided a good education for their son, William, was another --- he went on to become a physician. And Nettie herself seems to have been in no hurry to remarry.
During the mid-1880s, however, she met a widower of roughly her own age, Allen A. Adams, who lived on a fine farm near the Appanoose-Wayne county line, south of the Chariton River in the area of Jones Cemetery and its church. They were married at Chariton on March 1, 1887, and settled down to what seem to have been 20 happy years together on that farm.
Allen died during February of 1907 on that farm and was buried beside his first wife in Jones Cemetery. Nettie's son, William, took her with him a while later to Enderlin in southeast North Dakota, where his practice was located. Very soon, however, they moved together to Montrose County in southwest Colorado where they were living when I decided not to pursue them further.
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