Friday, November 04, 2022

By the stroke of a horse's hoof ....

Farm equipment always has been hazardous to a farmer's health, no less so when the horsepower was provided by actual horses.

This is the tombstone at Newbern Cemetery (thanks, Find a Grave) of young Darius Bell, just 19, recently married and about to become a father when he was kicked in the head on the 27th of November, 1872. His death was reported briefly as follows in The Chariton Patriot of Dec. 4:

A sad accident happened on Monday last in English township. Darius Bell, a man about 22 years old and but recently married, was kicked by his horse and killed. He was seen entering the stable with an arm full of corn and the supposition is that he dropped an ear, and was kicked while in the act of picking it up. His father had occasion to go into the stable a few moments later and found him dying, his neck having been broken by the stroke of the horse's hoof.

Darius, a son of Elkanah and Talitha (Terrel) Bell, had married Margaret Belle Williams a year earlier, on Nov. 1, 1871, Their son, Melville Darius Bell, was born three weeks after his father's --- on Dec. 21, 1872.

Margaret eventually married as her second husband Joshua B. May and had additional children. Melville married and raised his family nearby, thus carrying his father's name forward.

No comments: