Accident
Accidents were the leading cause of death in the CSI:D sample, and drowning was the leading cause of death among mortal accidents. There are myriad reasons why. Broad swaths of the American public did not know how to swim. Primary modes of transportation, especially early in the century, involved river routes. Mill ponds were prevalent. Children played outside—generally a good thing but occasionally a sad one. Perhaps the saddest of these incidents involved a mass May Day drowning at Boykin Mill Pond in 1860. Twenty-eight teenagers set off on a raft that hit a snag and more than twenty-five drowned, including all five children from one family. Sadder still may be the case of Noah Wesley Dawkins. In mid-June 1888, Dawkins and his friends, all African Americans, set off for a local watering hole where they ran into three white boys, one of whom offered Dawkins fifty cents if he would walk into a particular area in the creek, assuring him it wasn’t deep. It was deep, and Dawkins drowned. It is tempting to classify this as a homicide, but it is clear from testimony that the white children thought they were playing a cruel trick, not a deadly one.
Alcohol was such a critical indirect cause in so many of the accidental drownings, shootings, fires, and falls in CSI:D that it really ought to be regarded the deadliest force in nineteenth century South Carolina. In addition to these indirect roles, alcohol was the direct cause of accidental death in more than sixty cases. It was probably also a direct cause in many of the ‘exposure’ cases—bodies that were discovered outside and were thought to have died from exposure to the elements.
Nineteenth century law enforcement had no recourse to blood-alcohol tests. Even today, determining precise BACs postmortem, and working back from those to levels of inebriation at time of death, is fraught with difficulty. This meant that nineteenth-century coroners had to rely exclusively on witness testimony and the known habits of the deceased to determine alcohol’s role in producing death. Standing around a dead man, jurors found themselves passing judgment on just how drunk he had been the night before. According to witnesses, John Goodlett “seemed to be drunk.” John Agner was “sorry he was drunk.” Abe Waganan was “very funny & lively”—very drunk as [was] his custom.” Is ‘very drunk’ drop-dead drunk? It is hard to know. On the night of January 15, 1816, Angus McQueen drank more than half a gallon of spirits. “The dec’d was very much intoxicated,” noted one witness, “and fell down four times during which time he vomited upon the carpet.” Because McQueen kept getting up and falling down, the jurors determined that the falls (and the winter cold) contributed to his demise, though it is equally possible that McQueen died of alcohol poisoning. Juries were more likely to fix upon ‘intemperance’ as a clear cause of death if the deceased was a notorious addict. In December 1842, H. P. Church was discovered by his land-lady sprawled half on and half off of his bed. A “habitual drunkard” who had been continuously drinking for two weeks, she did not even bother to try and shake him awake. The inquest did not hesitate in finding that Church had died of intoxication.
The third leading cause of accidental deaths were ‘vehicular’ accidents, a catch-all category that includes drunken falls from a train and sober buckings from a horse. Further complicating this picture is the fact that many of the drownings probably belong in this category. There is little difference between falling unwitnessed off of a train and off of a boat, except that in one case you land on tracks and are quickly found where in the other you wash downstream, far from the site of the accident.
Bartholomew Darby was thrown from the saddle and hit his head on a stump, his wagon then “running over his head ... & breaking his neck & deeply cutting him under the right ear.” Steve Yeldell fell out of his cart and broke his neck.
All such accidents pale in comparison to the staggering mortality brought to South Carolina by train. Richard Springs was “run over by a train.” Fannie Ford was “run over by a train.”A slave named Sam was “Run over by [a] train.” Almost as soon as trains arrived in these counties, there were sots to fall off of them, laborers to be crushed by them, and depressives to jump in front of them. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a technological innovation responsible for a sharper uptick in the per capita death rate. It is also clear that coroners and inquest juries were unprepared for the level of bodily violence meted out by train. The body of a slave named Berry was “very much mashed and limbs and bones severed.” William Abbott’s body was “mangled, bruised, cut and crushed.” Even so coroners and their juries were often at pains to absolve the railroad itself of any wrong-doing. Hosea Jackson “came to his death by his own carelessness and from no carelessness whatever on the part of the engineer.” The crushing of William Roberts was likewise “not caused by any dereliction of duty on the part of the rail-road employees.” With train accidents we see for the first time the question of corporate responsibility, and potential corporate liability, creeping into the inquest process.
The larger point, however, is a physical one. Moving the body at a faster speed than the body was designed to go is an enormous convenience that has to be paid for. Today vehicular accidents (car, motorcycle, and all-terrain-vehicle) are the fourth-leading cause of death among Americans after heart disease, cancer, and stroke. The nineteenth century was not particularly different, except that families moved by horse, wagon, and train—and died less often of cancer.
The fourth leading cause of accidental death in the CSI:D sample involved the discharge of firearms. Some were simple cases of men who were cleaning or handling weapons that suddenly went off. The vast majority of cases, however, involve an unfortunate bystander. In 1849, Tilman Attaway was mistaken for a turkey by his hunting buddy. In 1808, James Spradley was leaning in to watch two dogs fight over a dead deer. Fourteen-year old George Nettles sought to break up the dogs by bashing one of them with the butt of his gun. Instead the gun discharged into Spradley’s face. As this case attests, guns and children made as disastrous a pairing then as they do now. In 1820 ten-year old Mancel King accidentally shot and killed his brother. In 1899 ten-year old John McManus shot and killed his friend. “I was fooling with the pistol and it went off,” he told the inquest.
Undoubtedly some of these gun-related ‘accidents’ were not accidents at all. A dead man alone in a room might have been cleaning his gun, or he might have harbored hidden miseries. Similarly some of the accidental misfires on bystanders were probably intentional homicides. Unless new evidence emerges at this late date, however, such cases will have to remain categorized as accidents.
The fifth leading cause of death by accident in the CSI:D sample was death by suffocation—another category that speaks more to what a coroner was called to investigate than to what people actually died from. A majority of the ‘smothering’ deaths were probably SIDS victims. In white households such cases would not have been investigated—infant mortality was relatively high in the period and a white family’s ‘dear pledges’ were often ‘recalled to God.’ But in a society where every enslaved child was as potentially valuable as a Lexus, infant death in the quarter was more rigorously investigated. Coupled with deep prejudices against enslaved mothers, inquests typically found that an unnamed “negro Child” was “negligently Smothered” by its mother, or that the enslaved child Lora was “accidentally smothered” in the family bed, or that the enslaved children Henry and Alcy were crushed in the night, having being “overlaid” by their parents. It is possible that such ‘negligence’ did occur among overworked and overtired slaves, and such findings were far preferable to those cases where enslaved parents were charged with infanticide.
The sixth leading cause of death by accident in the CSI:D sample was death by fire. Most homes in the period were made of wood. Most had fireplaces. None had a fire extinguisher. Fire was light and life, but it was also occasionally death. In 1866 a freedman named Sloan was burnt to death in a gin house. In 1890 a child named Julia Hightower wandered too close to the family fireplace. Her younger sister tried to dowse her with water to no avail.
These six types of accidental death—drowning, alcohol abuse, transportation mishaps, gun miscues, suffocations, and fires—account for 75% of the accidental deaths in the CSI:D sample. Other relatively common accidents involved falling trees and limbs, industrial accidents, and poisonings and overdoses. Rounding out the sample were accidents that were more unique. Home alone, Medora Williams had an epileptic seizure and fell into her own fireplace. Traveling with the Bailey & Company circus, George West was gored by his own elephant. (Some might not consider this an ‘accident’ since the elephant had ‘cause’; and acted with ‘intent.’)
NEXT: Natural Causes
Accident Inquests
Name | Deceased Description | Date | Inquest Location | Death Method | Inquest Finding |
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Infant Child of Caroline Hunter | Infant Child of Caroline Hunter | January 13, 1872 | at Samuel J. Bryson plantion, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths d say We Jurors afforesaid did examine the dead body of the said infant do say that the dead infant came to its death by accidental Smothering. . . |
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Bob | May 31, 1831 | at Rocky Mount, Fairfield County, SC |
do say upon their oaths that he came to his death by being accidentally drowned in the Catawba River at Rocky Mount Ferry |
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Ida Suber | at Lyles Ford, Fairfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that Ida Suber and Sallie Belle Suber came to their deaths by accidently burning to death from[?] carelessness of their mother. |
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colored | colored | May 9, 1872 | at Ja's Turner's, Spartanburg County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the said infant. . .came to its death by misfortunte or accident |
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Unknown | June 26, 1856 | at a spot near the Wateree River and on or near the Road leading to Chesnut's Ferry, Kershaw County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that after such examination as was in their power to make they are clearly of opinion that the decased came to his death by falling into the ditch leading from Bolton's[?] Branch while in a state of intoxication and being unable to help himself was drowned |
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Tom Waldrum | colored man (Free) | January 20, 1857 | in the woods near Mr Avory Franklins, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths aforesaid do say that the aforesaid Tom Waldrum in manner and form aforesaid he was frozen to death in the woods. . .some time during the snow storm |
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George Williams | August 23, 1802 | at Jeremiah Conants, Laurens County, SC |
do say upon their oaths, that said George Williams came to his death by being Dashed against a Tree from his house. |
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Mary Thompson | June 12, 1878 | Anderson County, SC |
find that the child has been burnt on the spinal [?] a place as large as a [?] also burnt on the [?] and near mostly all over its body as pieces between [?] as to the cause of her death is from constriction of the brain. |
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Oscar Matthews | November 23, 1877 | at C.H.[?] Matthews', Fairfield County, SC |
upon their oaths say that the aforesaid Oscar Mathews came to his death on the 22nd day of November 1877 at the Mill dam by the accidental falling from the pear[?] trial[?] of the grist mill or from drowning after the fall unknown to the jury[.] |
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Dick Keith | January 6, 1877 | at George Lound's, Greenville County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the said Dick Keith came to his death by freezing to his death from exposure to the cold |
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Sylvester Robins | September 20, 1883 | Spartanburg County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that said Sylvester Robbins came to his death ... from the effect of falling behind the bed and being caught by the chin and head between the railing of the bed and the wall of the house |
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Benjamin Freeman | June 24, 1833 | at the home of Isaac Hill, Spartanburg County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that. . .the sd. Benj. Freeman went into Tyger River a swimming or by some cause became drowned |
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Blanchy Wilson | November 30, 1893 | on the plantation of Robert Hastings, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that at woods childs house. . .by a single barrel shot gun lying in the loft of said house and started to fall and Siche Chiles caught the gun and it struck the joist and fired |
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John Madison Winburn | April 21, 1887 | at J. C. Winburn's, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the said John Madison Winburn came to his death by Accidental drowning at J. C. Winburns Still |
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Lucius Walker | October 5, 1869 | at James Doziers plantation, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say: "That Lucius Walker came to his death by having accidentally fallen into the machinery of the Cotton gin of Mr James Dozier. His body passing through a pair of cog wheels in motion and breaking his spine |
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Infant child of Amanda Williams | at the residence of Alex Cockerell, Fairfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say having viewed the dead body of Amanda Williams infant and heard the evidence of witnesses and this our verdict that it came to its death form congestion of the lungs. |
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infant | June 8, 1828 | house of Jessee Husk, Kershaw County, SC |
do say upon their oaths. . . that after carefully examining the dead body of the s'd male child of the s'd Martha Gibson ... are all agreed that the s'd child died by the visitation of God but by the blood being [?]led in large spots to be seen through the skin all on his left side from his face to his foot they thought it was probable s'd child might have eat some poisonous herbs or berries of the woods as s'd Husk had settled in the woods |
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Josephine A. Brookes Thrift | infant child | March 28, 1860 | at Delila Jenkinses, Union County, SC |
upon their oaths do say . . .that the child came to its death by being smothered by its mother by accident |
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John Wilkins | December 7, 1900 | at the Residence of C.F. Morrison, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon theair oaths do say that John Wilkins deceast came to his death By a pistol shot fired from his own hand acdential |
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William Prince | July 9, 1851 | at the house of John W Garrett, Edgefield County, SC |
uppon their oaths do say that the aforesaid William Prince . . .come to his death by accidentally drowning himself |
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Riah Simpson | infant daughter of Jim and Manda Simpson | June 28, 1884 | at the Langly House on White Plains Plantation, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the deceased came to her death in the hoise of Jim Simpson on the 28th of June between the hours of 8 & 9 oclock from the effects of a pistol shot in the hands of William Simpson accidentally through carelessness |
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Sallie Young | December 8, 1890 | at Mr A. F Broadwaters Plantation, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the said Sallie Young came to her death by being burned to death by fire from accident |
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Rosa M. Smith | October 11, 1877 | at Spartanburg C.H., Spartanburg, S.C., Spartanburg County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the said Rosa M. Smith came to her death by means of accidental burning |
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John Oaks | May 5, 1860 | at Boykin's Mill, Kershaw County, SC | |||
Furman Smith | December 16, 1874 | at Snow Hill, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths, do say: That the said William Smith & Furman Smith came to their death by misfortune or accidently being burned |
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Eugenia Richardson | on James McGill's plantation, Fairfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that she was accidently over layed by her mother and smothered to death, and came to her death by misfortune or accident. |
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Harcolas | slave, negro man | November 18, 1842 | at an old house Standing in the plantation of Mrs. Susannah Turners, Union County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that . . .they do believe that from Exposure age and a burn which he had received some days previous was the cause of his death |
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William Foster | December 20, 1845 | at Bishop's old field, Spartanburg County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that he came to his death by freezing to death from being intoxicated |
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Jack | February 12, 1830 | at John McClintock's, Laurens County, SC |
do say upon their oaths they believe he came to his death by burning and not otherwise. |
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Joseph Powel | August 18, 1879 | at [??], Edgefield County, SC |
do say that the said Jos Powel came to his death by accidental drouding on Sunday evening crossing Logg creek |
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George Craig | January 19, 1825 | at the house of Mathew Richmond, Fairfield County, SC |
do say upon their oaths that, according evidence and their own belief a tree which he assisted to cutdown, by misfortune fell on him and broke his scull on the evening of the 18th. |
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Thomas Yongue | near Strother, Fairfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say: That the said Tomas Yongue came to his death from accidental burning |
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James C. Wise | May 13, 1847 | at Camden, Kershaw County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that he came to his death by accidental drowning |
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Kate | slave | December 5, 1847 | at the house of Mrs. Jane Love, Kershaw County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that they believe from the testimony of Jas. Love son that she came to her death by the falling of a tree accidentally upon her body |
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infant | infant | December 13, 1851 | at A. J. Gregorys, Union County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that it was accidently smoothered by its mother |
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Basil Vick | March 12, 1941 | at Pageland, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that Basil Vick received in Chesterfield County a mortal wound by Suffocation by smoke from fire in adjoining cell, occupied by Joe Church. |
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Calhoun Templeton | February 3, 1892 | at Laurens CH, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the said Calhoun Templeton came to his death on the 3rd day of Feb. A.D. 1892 at Laurens CH. By Accident, being burnt in a burning house on the plantation of JD Watts. |
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infant | infant | December 15, 1892 | at Mr. Pleasant Grave Yard, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that said child. . .came to his death by accidental Suffocation |
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William McCode | January 20, 1870 | at Luke McCoy's [?], Anderson County, SC |
do say that he came to his death . . . from exposure in the rain & cold on the roadside . . . and came to his death by accident. |
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Green Kerley | December 31, 1869 | at Winnsboro, Fairfield County, SC |
We find that the said Green Kerley came to his death by a fall from a third story window in the Hotel to the pavemen, while laboring under a fit of delerum [?]. |
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Mary Ann | July 2, 1855 | at the plantation of Henry Pitts on Walnut Creek, Laurens County, SC |
upon their Oaths do say that the said nego Girl, Mary Ann, her lying dead came to her death by drowning in Walnut Creeke on the night of the first of July |
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William C. Goff | May 7, 1865 | at Bethany Church, Edgefield County, SC |
upon there Oaths do say that W.C. Goff came to his death by Mischance or accidentally falling in big saluda when fishing |
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Margret Ann Kinncade | at W.B. Murry's Place, Fairfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the deceased came to her death from a burn by accidently catching on fire, Sept the 3d, 1886[.] |
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Alfred Sowell | December 1, 1816 | Kershaw County, SC |
do say upon their oaths that the said Alfred Sowell came to his death by misfortune, that is to say, but accidental firing of a smooth bored gun, being at the same time charged, which drove her charge of shot into the breast of the said Alfred Sowell |
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Jonathan McCulloch | January 7, 1840 | at the house of Thomas Jefferson[?], Union County, SC |
do say upon their oaths that they believe the Said Jonathan McCulloch came to his death by being accidentally drund in a fit of Derangement |
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Walden C. Sullivan | September 12, 1893 | at the house of Mr. John A. Sullivan, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the said Walden C. Sullivan came to his death by accidental smothering at the Residence of John A. Sullivan |
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John Williams | freed person infant | June 23, 1867 | at John Meadows, Union County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that . . .it came to its death by being smuthered by him in her sleep |
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W. W. Miller | January 13, 1930 | at Jefferson, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths, do say: By Being Bound drowned in an open well on Main St. of Jefferson by unknown means. |
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Andrew Dawkins | June 25, 1895 | at Laurens CH, Laurens County, SC |
From testimony produced, I find he died from a fracture of the skull received from a fall while engaged in unloading a Lumber car, at the Factory at Laurens County. I also find that there was no one to blame for same. |
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James Edward Settle | boy | March 9, 1884 | on Henry Hill Plantation, Edgefield County, SC |
do say upon there [?] that said James Edward Settle Came to his death from Epellepcy and Starvation |