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 Datesort ascending Inquest Location Death Method Inquest Finding
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.

W. B. Bladen December 4, 1929 at Middendorf, Chesterfield County, SC automobile

upon their oaths, do say: He came to his death by being struck by a car being driven by Toby P Brown - accidentally

Leonard E. Hurst August 22, 1929 at Chesterfield, Chesterfield County, SC automobile

upon their oaths, do say: that he came to his death by reckless driving by himself

Fred Walker February 10, 1929 at Cheraw, Chesterfield County, SC train

the Said Fred Walker came to his death by being run over by a Seaboard train

Burton A. Root November 16, 1928 at McBee, Chesterfield County, SC motorcycle

upon their oaths, do say: that Burton A. Root came to his death as a result of striking a car with the motor cycle he rode, said car being driven by one R. E. Randall. We do here by exonerate the said R.E. Randall of all responsibility for said accident.

E. F. Robertson August 9, 1928 [no location given], Chesterfield County, SC automobile

upon their oaths, do say: that he came to his death by unavoidable automobile accident, Driven H. F. Baker

Crafford Brantley November 4, 1927 at House in Chesterfield County, South Carolina, Chesterfield County, SC

upon there oathes do Say that Crafford Brantley came to His Death By accidental gun shot wound on Nov 4th at about 11 am 1927

Emma Ellerbe April 6, 1925 at McBee, Chesterfield County, SC automobile

the verdict was brought out. . .That one Emma Ellerbe in manner and form aforsaid came to her death by misfortune and Accident. By being struck by auto accidently.

Lizzie Clyburn October 10, 1924 at Pageland, Chesterfield County, SC

Upon taking the testimony of the three witnesses herein enclosed I concluded that the empaneling of a jury was unnecessary, as it was clearly shown by the witnesses that deceased dies of natural causes.

Wade Harper September 3, 1924 at Cheraw, Chesterfield County, SC

Wade Harper, about 17 years old, son of J. F. Harper, of Cheraw S.C. came to his death at Anderson's Mill, Cheraw, by mischance, without blame on the part of another person

Daniel Sams Jr. April 8, 1924 at Black Creek, Chesterfield County, SC automobile

the Verdict of the Jury and Medical examination that the said Danial Sams came to his Death by Misfortune and Accident, by Ford Car, The Said Daniel Sams jr Resides in Hoffman N.C.

Unknown Unknown February 16, 1923 at Cheraw, Chesterfield County, SC

upon their oaths do say, that he came to his death from cold & exposure

Jeff Jackson January 30, 1923 [no location given], Chesterfield County, SC

I do not find it necessary to hold a formal inquest in my Judgment Jeff Jackson come to his death by mischance with out blame of on the part of any being person

Unknown Unknown March 29, 1922 at McBee, Chesterfield County, SC

(We find that the deceased come to his death by being burned in the guard house at McBee, S.C. supposed to have been trying to burn his way to free on the morning March 29th 1922)

Mrs. Gus Lynch December 20, 1921 at Cheraw, Chesterfield County, SC train

We find that Mrs. Gus Lynch came to her death from collision between Seaboard Air Line train No. 4 and the automobile occupied by her and Mr. Ernest King at block house crossing, about 8:30 A.M., Dec. 20th, 1921

[illegible] [illegible] November 17, 1920 at Chesterfield County, South Carolina, Chesterfield County, SC

We the Jurors find that the Cause to her death by Coming in Cantack with live wire [???] Light & [???] [???]

John Taylor March 22, 1918 at Cheraw, Chesterfield County, SC train

we the Juror find that John Taylor came to his death by a freight train on Atlantic Cost Line Rail Road having his Head Cut entirley from his body also right Arm broken and right hand badly mashed allso left Leg & foot mashed in the Town limits of Cheraw S.C

Tom W. Walters January 21, 1917 at Pageland, Chesterfield County, SC

upon their oaths, do say: That the said Tom W. Walters came to his death by an accidental fall from theloft of Mungo Bros. Feed stables

C. B. Griggs December 24, 1916 at Chesterfield County, South Carolina, Chesterfield County, SC train

[No official declaration]

Enoch Adams November 23, 1916 at Cheraw, Chesterfield County, SC

upon their oaths, do say: that he came to his death by caving in of Cotton Seed upon him at the Cheraw oil mill being smothered.

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

Charlie Woodard November 15, 1915 at H. L. Woodards, Chesterfield County, SC

upon their oaths, do say: By accidental gunshot from his own hands

Sue Simmons February 18, 1914 [no location given], Chesterfield County, SC

[No official declaration]

Joe Alexander Ryan October 24, 1912 at Cheraw, Chesterfield County, SC

upon their oaths, do say: that he came to his death in an accidental fall in the arms of his mother

Tom Purvis February 5, 1912 at T. A. Hendricks Res, Chesterfield County, SC

upon their oaths, do say: Tom Purvis came to his death By Accidental Gun Shot wound in the Hands of Ray Hendrick

Martha Hubbard January 1, 1912 at McBee, Chesterfield County, SC

[No official declaration]

James Hillian November 21, 1911 [no location given], Chesterfield County, SC

[No official declaration]

Earl Rivers October 14, 1909 [no location given], Chesterfield County, SC

Upon hearing the above evidence I decided that it was accidental and it was not necessary to have a formal inquiry Saul H. Reid

Archie Oliver May 9, 1909 at the home of J. P. Thurman, Chesterfield County, SC

upon their oaths, so say: That the said Archie Oliver came to his death by a gun shot wound in the head= said gun being at the time in the hands of Willis Thurman said sun being discharged accidentally = without any effort of the said Willis Thurman = he at the time not knowing that the gun was loaded

Mrs. M. C. Williams October 13, 1908 [at] Mrs. Williams, Chesterfield County, SC

Upon their oaths, do say: that the aforesaid Mrs. M.C. Williams did some to her death by a gun shot wound by George Williams . . .

Younger son of Joe Cunningham Younger son of Joe Cunningham March 26, 1908 [no location given], Chesterfield County, SC

[No official declaration]

Older son of Joe Cunningham Older son of Joe Cunningham March 26, 1908 [no location given], Chesterfield County, SC

[No official declaration]

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

[No official declaration]

Will Williams July 8, 1907 at H. M. Spencers, Chesterfield County, SC boat

upon their oaths, do say: Wil Williams came to his Death By strangltion

Jessie Pitomac May 9, 1907 at Bleeraw S.C., Chesterfield County, SC train

upon their oaths do say that he came to his death by accident

M. D. Smith December 24, 1906 at W. K. Sellars, Chesterfield County, SC

upon their oaths, do say: That the said M.D. Smith Came to his death by burns by fire.

Walter Manningall November 21, 1906 at Clearview in Chesterfield County, Chesterfield County, SC

Upon their oath do say Walter Manningall came to his death by accidental burning

Charles Flowers June 13, 1906 [no location given], Chesterfield County, SC

I find that the deceased came to his death by accidental drowning

Infant of George and Ann Crawford Infant of George and Ann Crawford May 8, 1906 At G A S[??]cers, Chesterfield County, SC

Upon their oaths, do say: By strangulation the cause of which is unknown to Jury

Eliga Clark April 18, 1906 at Purvis Brige in Cheraw Town ship, Chesterfield County, SC

upon their oaths, do say: that Eliga Clark came to his death by causes unknown to the jury

Jackson Boan January 12, 1906 [no location given], Chesterfield County, SC

[No official declaration]

James Brigsman October 11, 1905 at Cleeraw Street Street, Chesterfield County, South Carolina, Chesterfield County, SC train

before this oath do say We find that James Brigsman cause to his death by being run over by the South Bound train on the Sea Board Air Line Rail Road between 10 30 and 11 oclock [.]

Willie Dunlap September 6, 1904 [in] Chesterfield County, South Carolina, Chesterfield County, SC

We the undersigned jurious find from the evidence given that Willie Dunlap came to his death by poison administered by an unknown person to us.

John Dawkins July 14, 1904 [in] Chesterfield County, South Carolina, Chesterfield County, SC

before their oaths do say that the said John Dawkins caused to his death by his own negligence

Lester Caute Woodward March 15, 1904 at the residence of A. L. Steen, Chesterfield County, SC

[No official declaration]

Della Jenkins February 13, 1904 [no location given], Chesterfield County, SC

[No official declaration]

James A. Hugans November 20, 1903 at J. A. Hugans, Chesterfield County, SC

AND so the said Jurors aforesaid, upon their oaths aforesaid, do say that the aforesaid James A. Hoagan Came to his death By Accidential Burning.

John Bogan May 15, 1903 at Crusal branch trestle near Ruby, Chesterfield County, SC train

We find that the said John Boggon and Elliott Pegues came to their death by a loose box car running into a lever car which they were operating.

Elliott Pegues May 15, 1903 at Crusal branch trestle near Ruby, Chesterfield County, SC train

We find that the said John Boggon and Elliott Pegues came to their death by a loose box car running into a lever car which they were operating.

B. R. Fry October 29, 1902 at Middendorf, SC in Chesterfield County, Chesterfield County, SC train

by their oaths do say that B R Fry deceast came to his death By a South bound train on the Fla. & West Ind. R R or SAL RY between the hours of 730 on the night of Oct 28th 1902 and 840 of the morning of Oct 29th 1902

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