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.


In the South Carolina sample, which skews antebellum, the most common accident was a failure to learn how to swim.

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.

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.

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

Displaying 101 - 150 of 1096
Name Deceased Description Date Inquest Location Death Methodsort descending Inquest Finding
William H Maharey May 25, 1863 at Haslin Factory on the Procelian Manufacturing Company, Edgefield County, SC

upon there oaths do say that the aforesaid Wm H Mahorey did come to his death . . .by Mischance of Misfortune or accident caused by Fixing of the Machinery of the Meed Mill and was chrushed to By the Cog Wheel of said of Mill

slave slave December 4, 1852 at the plantation known as Stockton's, Kershaw County, SC

upon their oaths do say that he came to his death by his appearance from privation and exposure

John Weston December 31, 1890 on the plantaion of Robt Bailey, Laurens County, SC

upon their oaths do say that the said John Weston came to his death "From the Effects of a gun shot wound accidentally discharged in his own hands, on the 29th day of Decr inst."

Alexander Martin September 8, 1867 at the residence fo B.W. Knight, Spartanburg County, SC

upon their oaths do say that the said Alexander L. Martin came to his death by the falloing of a tree some of the limbs striking dec'd on the back of the head neck and shoulders

James Gage April 12, 1865 at the house of R.T. Yarboroughs house, Fairfield County, SC

upon their oaths do Say. That according to the evidence of witnesses, in above case, James Gage came to his death by the accidental falling upon his head, a large and heavy Well Bucket, filled by him with water and mud, while he was cleaning out Mr. R.T. Yarborough's well-Said accident having occured, by the slipping loose of a knot in the end of the rope, which said James Gage, himself, had tied and affixed to the well Bucket.

Lusindy Gainey November 15, 1893 at Spring Hill, Chesterfield County, SC

upon there oath do say that Lusindy Gainey deceast Come to his deth By Being in Sane and getting lost in the Swamp and getting wet in the cold and come to death

Saul slave January 9, 1833 at Cowpen Furnace, Spartanburg County, SC

do say upon their oaths that the said Saul did unfortunately and accidentally fall from the dam or bridge

Elmira Jackson May 18, 1884 at George Holingsworths House, Edgefield County, SC

upon there oaths do say that Elmira Jackson Come to her death from accidental Burning

Enoch McLean August 27, 1840 at Wm C. Brown's, Union County, SC

upon their oaths do say . . .came to his death by misfortune or accident

Absalom McAbee January 6, 1883 at Almarine Willis, Spartanburg County, SC

upon their oaths do say he came to his death by mischange by being partially paralised and falling into water and strangled or drowned being a man of 80 years or more and very feeble

Bonaparte Bates March 26, 1856 at the Fuller old field, Anderson County, SC

do say that Bonaparte Bates in manner and form aforesaid came to his death by misfortune or accident

Thomas Thompson at Capt. Manus' place, Fairfield County, SC

upon their oaths do say that the said Thomas Thompson came to his death from the affect of a burn caused by falling in the fire[.]

Matilda Tippins March 28, 1879 at Greenville, Greenville County, SC

upon their aoths do say that the said Matilda Tippins came to her death by accidental burnings

Lewis Bradley Laurens County, SC

we the jury find in our opinion that Lewis Bradlet Died in Laurens County on the 29th day of Decr. 1894 from great Exposure in the [extreme?] cold, and that no one is to blame as far as we know, for his death.

Elsie Williams June 28, 1886 at Cheraw, Chesterfield County, SC

upon their oaths do say: That the said Elsie Williams did on this place on the 29th day of June 1886-accidentally receive in her abdomen a pistol shot which caused her death on the 1st day of July 1886

Ned December 12, 1835 at Joel Dendys, Laurens County, SC

do say upon their oaths the deceased came to his death by the Effects of Cold and other causes not Known.

Harvey G. Elliott February 6, 1867 at Laurens CH, Laurens County, SC

upon their oaths do say, that the said Harvey G. Elliott came to his death on this day, by a shot from a pistol in the hands of George F. Young, upon Mr Sullivans Lawn in the Town of Laurens, accidentally discharged on Tuesday 29th January last.

Seware[?] Stuart November 4, 1893 at J.[?] E. Griffiths, Edgefield County, SC

upon their oaths do say that the said Seware Stuart Came to his death by the accidental discharge of a 38 caliber Pistol, in the hands of William Griffith, holding by the brick[?] and seware Stuart carelessly playing with it, and said Pistol fired. . .it was intirely accidental

negro negro February 3, 1838 at Maj. John Whitaker's plantation, Kershaw County, SC

upon their oaths do say we find that the boddy upon examination is a negro man and it is our opinion that he came to his death by drowning & probably was drowned in crossing the Camden Ferry on the night of the 23d of Dec'r last

Louisa Nettles May 5, 1860 at Boykin's Mill, Kershaw County, SC
John Whitlock boy September 8, 1869 at Grainteville, Edgefield County, SC

upon their oaths do say that the deceased came to his death by an act of Providence being subject to fits

George Darby April 20, 1823 at Lores-ford on broad River, Union County, SC

do say upon their oaths that . . .the said George Dary came to his death by drowning while in a state of intoxication & making an effort to cross broad River at Lore's ford to some of the Islands

Mitilda Gilbert September 26, 1876 at Isaac Gilbert's, Spartanburg County, SC

upon their oaths do say that she came to her death . . . being found lying at length in said spring being there drowned by misfortune or accident

Infant of Sarah McQueen Infant of Sarah McQueen November 16, 1887 at Chesterfield C. H., Chesterfield County, SC

upon their oaths, do say: that the said infants came to their deaths by being accidentally burned on the 15th day of November A.D. 1887

Charles slave July 31, 1851 at the house of John M. Norris Esqr in Edgefield, Edgefield County, SC

upon their oaths do say that by his head being mashed and and his scull broken at the gin house of John M. Norris . . .by the gin running gear, his head passing between the cogs and trunal[?] head, rounds or Wollower

John Young June 27, 1891 at the residence of John Young, Edgefield County, SC

upon their oaths do say that John Young came to his death from sum Strok

Zechariah Tottey December 4, 1806 at the Mill River, Union County, SC

do say on their oaths that the said Totty Came to his Death we Belive By toxication[?] in [?] and [?] By haggs[?] in a [?]

George Ratcliff May 1, 1874 at C. A. Mores, Chesterfield County, SC

upon their oaths, do say: That the Said George Ratcliff Maggie Ratcliff & Luis Ratcliff came to there deaths by being accidently Burnt

James Jenkins May 30, 1875 at Robert Spence's [?] Mill, Anderson County, SC

It appears that deceased came to his death by mischance or misfortune or accidental drowning in the mill pond at Robert Spences

H. T.[?] Davis at Alston, Fairfield County, SC

upon their oaths do say that the Said H T[?] Davis came to his death by having his back broken in some unknown manner to the Jury[.]

App Chapman July 31, 1883 at the residence of J. D.[?] Chastern[?], Greenville County, SC

upon their oaths do say that the said App Chapman came to his death by misfortune.

Maston Fuller September 21, 1916 [no location given], Chesterfield County, SC

upon their oaths, do say: By a pistol wound accidentially discharge by his own hands

William Johnson January 20, 1871 at William Johnson's residence in Camden, Kershaw County, SC

upon their oaths do say that the said William Johnson came to his death ... from a sudden attack of illness occasioned by his having eaten oysters which were probably tainted

Samuel Harrison February 18, 1881 at [inelligible - faded], Edgefield County, SC

upon there oaths do say they Believe that . . .Samme Harison Came to his death by the Carlesnes of his Mother Milley Worthington

Henry male infant slave November 23, 1860 at Berry Shells House, Union County, SC

uppon their oaths do say that the Decest Came to his death by accidental overlaying of his Mother & smothering to death

Munroe Rabb January 10, 1880 at Spartanburg C.H., Spartanburg County, SC
Infant of Adeline Teague Infant of Adeline Teague August 18, 1894 at Laurens County Court House, Laurens County, SC

upon their oaths do say that it Died in Laurens Co. on the 17th day of Aug. AD. 1894 from accidental suffocation.

Hattie Brown March 30, 1880 on plantation of Mrs. Frances Yongue, Fairfield County, SC

upon their oaths do say that the same Hattie & Mattie Brown in manner and form aforesaid came to their deaths by misfortune, the assistance of fire on March 29th, 1880.

negro man negro man April 10, 1850 near Kilcreases Ferry, Edgefield County, SC

upon their Oaths do say, that the negro here lying dead, was Killed or drowned by some means to the Jurors unknown

John Shockley July 27, 1865 at John Shockley's, Greenville County, SC

upon their oaths do say that the said disseast came to his death by misfortune or accident

Hollan April 29, 1856 at Conwayboro, Horry County, SC

Upon their Oaths do say, tha the said Girl Hollan came to her Death by accidental Drowning

Edward Huntly December 31, 1907 [no location given], Chesterfield County, SC

[No official declaration]

infant infant January 24, 1893 at Clintonwards, Edgefield County, SC

upon their oaths do say that the said Infant of Millie Hamond came to its death by a cause unknown

infant slave infant slave December 30, 1857 at Isaac Gregorys house, Union County, SC

upon there oaths do say that . . . it came to its death by accidental overLaying or strangling by the mothers breast

Thomas Dalton February 8, 1882 at Williamston, Anderson County, SC

do say that in their opinion the said Thos Dalton by abcess on the[?] part of the head which was accidentally[?] effected and caused his death.

Elenora Yongue near Struther[?], Fairfield County, SC

upon their oaths do say: That the said Elenora Yongue came to her death by accidental burning.

Robert McCants January 27, 1817 at the house of Samuel Alston, Fairfield County, SC

do say upon their oaths that the said Robert McCants came to his death at sometime about Half a Mile from his own House by intoxication and exposure to the cold.

Edmond May 5, 1828 on the premises of David Higgins, Laurens County, SC

After hearing the evidence we believe the aforesaid negro Edmond did voluntarily go into the water in a State of intoxication and by accident of mischance did drown.

John slave September 27, 1863 at the residence of Johnson A Bland, Edgefield County, SC

upon there oaths do say that the said slave John came to his by wounds in flicted by the discharge of a shot Gun in the hand of John A Bland accidentally or unintentionally

Bob slave February 18, 1823 near Captain James W. Lang's Mills, Kershaw County, SC

do say upon their oaths that the said Bob a Negro man slave came to his death by being exposed & was frozen to death on the night of the sixteenth Instant which exposure was probably produced by intoxication in the woods near Captain Lang's Mills

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