Ionia County MI Archives Obituaries.....Harper, W. W. 1877 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/mi/mifiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Marilyn Ransom mlnransom@chartermi.net August 26, 2010, 3:35 pm The Ionia Standard, Thursday, September 6, 1877 A peculiar tragedy occurred in our place on Friday last. Mr. Harper entered a well which he was digging, and had worked in the day before. When within about six feet of the bottom he called out “up,” and man at the windlass immediately began to draw up the bucket, but before it reached the top Mr. Harper fell out. Suspecting something was wrong they lowered a candle which was soon extinguished; they then suspended a chicken in the well, which upon being drawn up in one minute was found to be perfectly dead. They then set fire to a quantity of straw and threw it in the well, after which they tied a rope around the body of one of the men and lowering him the lifeless body of Mr. Harper was recovered. The carbonic acid gas was yet so plentiful that had it not been for the precaution of tying a rope around the man’s body there would have been two lives lost instead of one. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/mi/ionia/obits/h/harper8755nob.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/mifiles/ File size: 1.5 Kb