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From the Otsego Herald for Saturday, July 7, 1810 Compiled, with comments
BY HUGH C. MACDOUGALL
LAMENTABLE CATASTROPHE
On Wednesday last, as Joseph Faulkner, esq. of Middlefield, was returning home from Cherry-Valley, a gust of wind arose up suddenly, a large Elm was blown across the road, directly on Mr. Faulkner, who, together with his horse was instantly killed.
Mr. James M’Namee was so near behind Mr. Faulkner as to feel the wind and small brush of the tree, but escaped without injury.
Joseph Faulkner, Esq. has left us, suddenly -- His bereaved consort and numbers of children, will most poignantly suffer, being by this severe stroke bereft of their head counsellor, director, a kind husband and parent; and the public will feel the loss of an acting magistrate, a good neighbor and an honest man.
COMMENT: According to a Worcester, MA, newspaper: ``Near Cherry-Valley, July 4, as Joseph Faulkner, Esq., of Middlefield, was riding along the Turnpike road, a tree fell and killed both him and his horse.’’ But oddly enough, I haven’t been able to find any further information about him.
SHOCKING ACCIDENT
On the 6th (June) Mr. Henry B. Stanton, of Brookfield (Madison county)...started for Albany, in company with his brother-in-law, Abel Gates, loaded with pork. Towards the close of the second day, not far from Mr. Parkerson’s inn, east of Cherry-Valley, they passed a number of waggons; Mr. Stanton accidentally locked wheels with the hind wagon and broke the tongue of his almost off, by the hammer. He fastened it in such a manner that he concluded it would answer to drive to the next Inn, which was not far distant.
On going down a moderate descent, on a slow trot, the tongue broke quite off, which separated the horses from the waggon. He reined them to the right and spoke to them.
Mr. Gates was about two rods ahead, and on hearing him cry out to his horses turned his head about to see what was the matter.
At the same instant Mr. Stanton sprung from the waggon; whether his feet slipped or entangled in the lines Mr. Gates could not tell, but, shocking to relate, he fell backwards, which brought his head directly between the nigh wheels, at the same instant the hind wheel passed across the centre of his head, which put an end to his earthly existence instantaneously.
He was decently buried by the neighboring inhabitants the next day, without charge, except for the linen, and that but moderate, which is a great consolation to the mourning family.
He has left an aged father and mother destitute of a son, and an affectionate partner, with an infant at the breast, to mourn the irreparable loss.... COMMENT: Henry Bliss Stanton was born in Preston (now Griswold) CT. in 1765.
MERINO SHEEP
Boston. We learn that Messrs. Cornelius Coolidge and Co. have received advices of the shipment of several vessels bound to different ports in this state, of the residue of their stock of Merino Sheep. Nine have already arrived at Newburyport in the ship Mark and Abigail; and six remarkably fine ones arrived at this port on Friday last in the brig Hamlet; and on Saturday nine per the Three Brothers.
Thirteen are daily expected in the ship Herschell, bound to Portland; twelve in the brig Patriot, for this place &c. We are also informed that Mr. Coolidge and Co. are determined to sell these sheep upon very liberal terms, that the farmers of this and neighboring states may be benefited by an opportunity which may never again occur, with as little inconvenience to themselves as possible. -- Boston paper.
COMMENT: The great boom in Merino Sheep was beginning, and they were selling for fantastic prices. In 1810 the Massachusetts Society for the Promotion of Agriculture awarded a prize of $250 to Cornelius Coolidge for importing the first ten Merino ewes from Spain. He was doing very well! For a time he had a virtual monopoly on Merino imports in Massachusetts, and sold a number of Merino rams for over $1000 each, and ``rented’’ others for $400. But he also had vigorously to deny repeated accusations that the sheep he was importing were not pure-bred Merinos.
MORE MERINO SHEEP
Chambersburg, (Penn) June 12. Two hundred and three Merino sheep belonging to col. Humphrey’s of Connecticut, passed through this borough on Saturday last on their way to Kentucky. They were all males and none less than half blooded. We understand that Mr. John Renfrew, of Guilford township, and Mr. John Hetich, of this borough, each bought one of these valuable animals, which had become lame with travelling, the only one the agent of col. Humphrey’s was authorised to dispose of.
COMMENT: Col. David Humphreys (1752-1818) of Connecticut was Coolidge’s main competitor in the Merino sheep import business. From 1791-1801 he was American Minister to Portugal, and then to Spain, and in a position to bring the first Merino sheep to America in 1802.
AMERICAN ARRESTED
On the 9th (June) Allan Hart, an American seaman was committed to Glasgow jail by the magistrates, charged with attempting to seduce several recruits of the 95th regiment from his majesty’s service, into a merchant ship belonging to the United States.
The prisoner says that his real name is Thomas Walker, that he was born in Leith, and belongs to the Count Wellington, an American ship, but with Spanish papers, now at Greenock.
He is a lad a little above 20, middle sized, dark complexion, and his face marked with gunpowder.
Columns
Otsego Herald: Shocking accident, American arrested
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Passing along advice of seeing the humor
