OBIT: Carl VON ECK, 1914, native of Huntingdon County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Sharon Miller
<shabodeho@aol.com> 

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__________________________________________ 

KILLED BY MEXICANS.
Mother of Young Man Well Known in Tyrone.

  The following very sad murder will be of interest to many Tyrone 
people, as the mother of the young man, Mrs. Minnie Hertzler Eck, [is] 
formerly of Huntingdon, Pa.  
  Carl Von Eck, aged 17, a native and former resident of Huntingdon, 
was the victim of an atrocity at the hands of Mexican Redflaggers, 
according to word received from El Paso, Texas, by relatives here.  He, 
with two companions, was captured by the mounted bandits, and all three 
were tortured to death.
  Young Eck, whose father resides in El Paso, had been employed on 
Look's ranch in Northern Chihuahua, as a chauffeur.  He had driven to 
El Paso in an automobile, and with two companions and a colored servant 
boy, had started on the homeward journey.  
  As the party reached a point north of Cases Grandes, at a point known 
as Chocolate Pass, they were suddenly attacked by the mounted band of 
Redflaggers.  They all grasped their guns, dropped behind the 
automobile and prepared for fight.   Shots were exchanged for half an 
hour, but when the last round of ammunition had been fired, the 
Americans were forced to surrender.  
  The automobile was robbed, the prisoners bound, and carried into the 
hills.  A ransom was laid on young Eck's head, but nothing was heard of 
the party until the servant boy, half clothed and starving, reached El 
Paso.  He told of how Eck and the other members of the party had been 
held for several days and then tortured to death.  The colored lad was 
forced to help bury the Americans, he said.
  Simultaneous with the message conveying words of young Eck's death, 
was a letter from Jay L. Harman, of El Paso, addressed to his parents 
at Huntingdon, in which he told of the capture of the Americans.
  He stated in his letter:
  "Carl Eck was kidnapped by Mexican Redflaggers.  He has been taken 
into the hills and held for ransom.  Mr. Eck has gone to Mexico to 
bring back his boy, dead or alive.  Mrs. Caney and Dot are almost 
frantic over the youngster's situation.
  "The state department, through Secretary Bryan, is taking the matter 
up secretly.  They are trying to get Carl without a battle with the 
captors, for a battle might be injury to him.  An expedition of 
searchers is working from Cases Grandes.  General Villa is to be 
notified, and he will send out his rurales, the famous Indian police, 
with smelling instinct equal to a dog's."
  Young Eck was born in Huntingdon seventeen years ago, and was a son 
of Erasmus and Minnie Eck.  He moved with his parents to El Paso ten 
years ago.  Surviving him are his father, a brother and sister.  His 
grandmother, Mrs. Stuart Hertzler of Huntingdon is frantic at the news 
of his fate.

Tyrone Daily Herald, Tyrone, Pa., November 26, 1914