OBIT: Jacob BRYAN, 1874, Snyder Township, Blair County, PA

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BRYAN - FATAL, SAD AND SICKENING ACCIDENT -  We have seen men with 
their heads shot off, men with their limbs lacerated from their body, 
men wounded or killed by ball or shell in almost every imaginable way, 
but a sight equal to the one witnessed by half the citizens of Tyrone 
on this Thursday morning we have never beheld.  At the Bald Eagle 
Tannery of D. P. Ray, Esq., in two large baskets where the remains, 
shivered to pieces, of Mr. Jacob Bryan, who left his home a mile above 
Tyrone, on the line of the Pennsylvania railroad, after six o'clock 
well and hearty, and was ushered into the presence of his Creator in an 
instant, the same happening before seven-and-a-half o'clock.  Mr. Bryan 
was a bark grinder at the establishment above named, and having 
discovered that the ground substance was not going into the proper 
place as it left the elevator which carries it from the mill, he went 
into the leach-house to right matters, and as he was in the act of 
returning to the grinding room his clothing, which hung loosely on his 
body, were caught by the main shaft which, connected by counter shaft, 
operates the chain drivers.  This shaft is stationed some two feet from 
the joist which bears up the floor on second story of the building, the 
speed of which is about one hundred and fifty revolutions per minute. 
In an instant the clothing of the unfortunate man was twisted tight to 
the shaft and the body whirling at fearful speed, head and feet 
striking the joist in turn as they revolved. One faint cry was heard by 
the men in adjoining rooms, and all was over.  In a few seconds some of 
the employees were on the spot, not to render any relief to the victim 
of the accident, but to witness a most horrible sight.  Over a space of 
a rod square, in and out of leach tubs, were fragments of the body.  
Here lay the head and shoulders, there a leg, another place an arm, and 
still another the heart, beating as if in the body, another the 
intestines, liver, etc.  Mr. Bryan was fifty-six years of age, was the 
father of ten children, all of whom, we understand, with the mother, 
are living to mourn the sudden and appalling death of husband and 
father. - Tyrone Herald

The Register, Hollidaysburg, Pa., Wednesday, August 5, 1874