Butts County GaArchives News.....And a Whole Family Narrowly Escapes November 1 1891
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Don Bankston http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00024.html#0005864 March 31, 2004, 11:24 am

Middle Ga. Argus – Week of November 1, 1891
And a Whole Family Narrowly Escapes

On Monday morning Mrs. D. J. Spencer and her cook, an old colored woman named 
Mary Bledsoe were poisoned by drinking coffee.

Coffee was prepared for breakfast in the ordinary way and set on the table.  
Mr. Spencer and Mr. Ben Dillard, who was boarding with the family, not being 
accustomed to drinking coffee did not take any, but Mrs. Spencer took a cup and 
drank a few spoon full and on account of it burning her throat set it away, not 
dreaming that it contained a deadly poison.  The woman who prepared the meal 
then sat down and ate a hearty breakfast drinking two cups of coffee.  Shortly 
after the meal was finished Mrs. Spencer complained of being sick and began to 
vomit.  The Bledsoe woman also turned sick and began to vomit.  Drs. Ellis and 
Bryan were quickly called.  They pronounced it poison and began their best 
efforts to relieve the sufferers.  They succeeded in relieving Mrs. Spencer, 
who had only tasted the deadly draft but the cook continued to grow worse and 
died at 2 o’clock.

Dr. Bryans is making an analysis of the coffee but it is not yet complete and 
he is not prepared to say what the poison was.  

How it got into the coffee is a mystery.  No one can think that it was an 
attempt to kill the family for not one of them had an enemy in the world.




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