OBIT: Dewitt C. BRUMBAUGH, 1889, Huntingdon, Huntingdon County, PA Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by SW Copyright 2006. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/pafiles.htm __________________________________________________________ DROWNING ACCIDENT. Dewitt C. Brumbaugh Comes to a Violent Death. SPECIAL TO THE TRIBUNE. HUNTINGDON, Pa., February 22. - Dewitt C. Brumbaugh, of this place, is no more. He met a violent and shocking death late last night by drowning in the canal just in back of the Union depot. The circumstances of his death are particularly sad, and furnish a temperance sermon more powerful and eloquent than any human life and utter. Just as Philadelphia express was leaving the depot, at about 10.10 o'clock, Depot Policeman Showalter heard the feeble moaning of a man as coming from the rear of the depot, and after attending to his duties of arranging the baggage deposited from the outgoing train, he went to investigate the cause of the distressing sounds he had heard. After going only a short distance above the depot he discovered, by the aid of his lantern, the feet of a man protruding through the ice near the edge of the canal. An alarm was raised, and when the body was finally brought to the surface, it was found to be that Dewitt C. Brumbaugh, a well-known character about town. Leading from the depot to the canal there is a steep declivity about twenty-feet high and it was over this that the deceased had plunged and struck his head on the ice below. The right side of the head showed two dreadful gashes from which the blood flowed in perfect streams. These gashes were produced by the sharp pieces of broken ice. On the arrival of Coroner Harmon, the body was removed to the late residence of the deceased, where an inquest will be held this evening in order to ascertain whether the question of foul play which has been raised by some has any foundation in fact. A few minutes before the finding of the body Brumbaugh had been seen staggering through the baggage-room. For the last year or more he had been constantly under the influence of alcohol, and though an expert bricklayer, he could be induced to work only long enough to obtain a sufficient amount of money to procure intoxicants. He was the youngest soldier who entered the union army from this place as a private. In early life his prospects for the future were particularly brilliant. He was possessed of an exceptionally well poised and brilliant intellect and, had he abstained from liquor, his mental capabilities would have fitted him for the most exacting of life's labors. He was without a peer as a Shakesperian scholar in this county. One of the saddest features of his death is the fact that his mother, who now resides in Philadelphia, was called here only on Tuesday to attend the funeral of a sister, and being still here, the news of her son's sudden death prostrated her with grief. The deceased leaves a wife and four children. Altoona Tribune, February 28, 1889