Ionia County MI Archives Obituaries.....Merrill, Rosco W. "Ross" December 21, 1927
************************************************
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:
Nan Wheaton wheaton1624@yahoo.com April 23, 2019, 9:26 pm

Ionia County News - Friday, Dec. 23, 1927

                     SHOT FROM OWN GUN FATAL TO SEBEWA MAN
          Search Party Find Body Near Home; Charge Had Pierced Heart
                         HAD BEEN GONE SINCE WEDNESDAY
       Ross Merrill Death Declared Accidental; Had Tripped Crossing Fence

Search conducted by men from farms for miles around Thursday resulted in the 
finding of the lifeless body of Ross Merrill, 48, well known Sebewa township 
farmer, lying in a swamp a quarter-mile directly in front of his own shot gun.

Mr. Merrill for years has made it a practice to hunt during the winter season 
and Wednesday after dinner he left as usual to take a turn through the 
swamplands which were his favorite hunting grounds. Shortly after midnight Mrs. 
Merrill became alarmed at failure o her husband to return although on previous 
occasions he had remained out in the field overnight. 

Early in the morning she called her sons, who lived in Lowell and told them of 
her worries. They came to the home and organized searching parties to scour the 
surrounding vicinity.

The search continued all morning with nearly a half-hundred friends and 
neighbors tramping over the miles of wilds. One son tracked his father to a 
point where he had shot a rabbit and there lost the trail, only a short ways 
from the point where the body later was found.

The quest ended when Guy Blanchard, one of the searchers, walked down into a 
shallow swale in the swamp. There he found the body of Mr. Merrill lying beside 
a fence, over which he apparently had climbed, his shotgun laid close at hand, 
one barrel having been discharged in some manner, the charge of shot tearing 
its way through the chest in the region of the heart. Coroner Boynton, who was 
called to the scene believes death to have been instantaneous.

Efforts to determine the hour of death brought information from neighbors that 
a shot was heard in that direction late Wednesday afternoon. This is believed 
to have been the one that killed Mr. Merrill.

According to members of the family Mr. Merrill recently broke the stock on the 
gun he was carrying and since replacing it has had trouble with the safety 
catch. It was a hammerless gun and it is thought must have been cocked without 
his knowing it. It was thought by the officials and family that he climbed over 
the fence and then slipped, discharging the gun as he fell.

He was famous for his hunting ability throughout the neighborhood, especially 
for his many valuable bags of coon and skunk, which he usually hunted. He also 
was known as a trainer of coon dogs and those broken by him were in demand 
throughout the district.

The irony of the death he met was shown in the fact that for years Mrs. Merrill 
had felt a premonition that he would come to his death in the very swamp where 
the fatal accident occurred and had often expressed this fear to her husband 
and children.

Another of the ironical parts of the accident was the fact that had it not been 
for a slight knoll the body would have lain in plain view of the house.

He was a prosperous farmer owning about 100 acres of fertile land and good farm 
buildings including two houses and barns. Those who knew him say he had not an 
enemy in the world nor any cause to worry. These things together with the fact 
that $18 in his pockets, his gun and other valuables were untouched led the 
authorities to at once decide the death accidental. No inquest will be held.

He is survived by his wife, two grown sons, Royce and Monroe and a daughter, 
Miss Olive Merrill. 

Additional Comments:
Age: 48
Services: December 1927
East Sebewa cemetery #54-5

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/mi/ionia/obits/m/merrill9320gob.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/mifiles/

File size: 4.2 Kb