Ionia County MI Archives Obituaries.....Hill, Nathan A. August 1915
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Marilyn Ransom mlnransom@chartermi.net July 11, 2010, 2:44 pm

The Ionia Standard, Friday, August 20, 1915
Nathan A. Hill of Belding died at 1:00 o’clock Sunday morning at the Ionia 
City hospital, about eight and a half hours after being thrown from his 
motorcycle on the Belding road near the Fred Pitt farm in Orleans township.  
He never recovered consciousness after being taken from the place of the 
accident.  Coroner Boynton and a jury examined the body after death, and 
Sheriff Lowrey and the coroner visited the scene of the accident on Sunday, 
but all circumstances seem to point simply to the fact that he was driving too 
rapidly and ran into a tree at a turn in the road.  His skull was fractured.  
There were no witnesses.

Mr. Hill was about 55 years old, and had owned his motorcycle since July 3.  
It is probable that inexperience is partly responsible for the accident which 
occurred at about half-past four Saturday afternoon.  Alva Hill, a neighboring 
farmer, afterward traced the course of the wheel and says that it led straight 
from the turn of the road to the tree without a deviation.  The road turns 
abruptly east at the foot of the hill south of the Pitt farm.  Marks on the 
bark of the tree show where the handlebars of the machine struck it and also 
where Mr. Hill’s head struck.  He was thrown eight or ten feet, and was found 
lying on his back.  The machine was thrown about fifteen feet against a barb-
wire fence.

Some machines passed after the accident but the occupants probably supposed 
that the man had simply laid down to rest.  Mrs. Perry Van Giesen was the one 
finally responsible for his being cared for.  She was driving past with her 
visiting guest, Miss Mabel Wetterling of this city, about an hour after the 
accident, and it struck them that the position in which the man lay was 
unnatural.  They went to the Pitt farm, and told Mr. Pitt that a man either 
asleep or hurt was lying on the road.  Mr. Pitt went down with his machine, 
found the man badly injured, and telephoned to the hospital here.  Dr. V. H. 
Kitson hurried but the man was removed to the Van Giesen farm and was 
afterward brought to Ionia, arriving at the hospital at about half past 
seven.  His son came from Belding as soon as he was notified, but the rest of 
the family were too distant to arrive in time.  Mrs. Hill and the youngest 
daughter are in Detroit and could not be located at first.  Another daughter 
was in Saginaw, and the second son was out of town, and had expected to come 
to Belding the next day to visit his father.  The son who arrived left the 
hospital shortly after midnight to make another effort to locate the rest of 
the family, and Mr. Hill died during his absence.

The jury called by the coroner consisted of Frank Biehler, Stanley Nead, 
Ernest Millard, Archie McKinley, Ray Monks, and Fred Basom.  It is not likely 
that they will be required to do more service, though they are retained for an 
inquest if one is held.


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