OBIT: Unknown Infant, 1880, Altoona, Blair County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by JRB

Copyright 2010.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/blair/
_________________________________________ 

A DEAD INFANT.
The Decomposed Remains of a Child Found in an Ash Heap.

  On Saturday evening quite a little excitement was created in the 
lower end of the Fifth ward by the discovery of the remains of a child 
which had been buried in an ash heap.  Late in the afternoon an old 
lady was scratching around picking up wood off the dirt piles near the 
crossing of the branch railroad and the plank road.  Presently she came 
across a box which she unearthed. Inside wrapped up in a cloth were the 
decomposed remains of a young child.  An alarm was sounded and numbers 
of persons soon collected there.  Two of the city police came along and 
after inspecting the box buried it again, but it was scarcely an hour 
before some of the boys had it unearthed again.  Finally late at night 
Captain Dougherty, under instructions, carried the box containing the 
remains to Dr. Christy's office.  The Doctor and Coroner Humes examined 
them and found hardly enough on which to hold an inquest.  The body had 
the appearance of having been buried about a month.  The child was very 
young at the time of its death.  More notice was taken of the box, 
which was made of poplar boards, and when put together evidently had 
been made for the purpose for which it had been used.  Yesterday the 
body was given in charge of Undertaker Tipton, and unless further 
developments are made it will be taken to the almshouse and buried to-
day.  It is possible that the child may have belonged to some family 
too poor to bear the expense of burial, and who used the above method 
to get rid of it.

Morning Tribune, Altoona, Pa., Monday, July 26, 1880