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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Viola Goings | at S.R. Rutland's, Fairfield County, SC |
upon their Oaths do say that aforsaid children came to their deaths by accidental burning of the house in which they were fastined up on the morning of the 16th of March 1893. We also add our condemnation to the general practice of Colored Parents locking up helpless children in houses where there is fire. |
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Enoch Douglass | August 11, 1879 | near Wesly Barrs on the rail road, Edgefield County, SC |
upon there oaths do say that the said Enoch Douglass came to his death by accident |
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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 |
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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. |
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Sarah Farmer | July 14, 1878 | at Williams Goodwin Place, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say That the Said Sarah Farmer came to her death from a pistol shot taken affect just above the right Eye and that the pistol was supposed to be in the hands of the deceased and that it was accidental |
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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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Lousay | November 25, 1860 | at Doct John E. Padgett, Edgefield County, SC |
upon there oaths do say that the said Loosey came to here death by accidnetal Burning |
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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 |
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Thomas Anderson | March 24, 1835 | at Laurens Court House, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that Thomas Anderson being highly intoxicated, walked into a deep pool of water inadvertently and was drowned. |
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Hampton Reynolds | July 30, 1892 | at J.W. Reynolds Plantation, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say Hampton Reynolds Came to his death from burns received by Explostion from Engine |
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Mary McDaniel | January 13, 1891 | at Burnside, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the aforesaid Mary McDaniel came to her death by accidental drowning |
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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 |
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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. |
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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) |
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Angus Jefferson Smith | June 4, 1874 | at Spartanburg, Spartanburg County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the said Angus Jefferson Smith came to his death by accidental drowning in a water course known as Lawson's Fork 1 /12 miles distant from Spartangburg C.H. |
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Henry Oglesby | near Shelton, Fairfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that in their opinion from the Evidence brought before them that he came to his Death by an accident of Fire Near Shelton Depot in said County on the first day of March A.D. 1882. |
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William LeGrand | May 5, 1860 | at Boykin's Mill, Kershaw County, SC | |||
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 |
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William Harlin | February 19, 1856 | at a new place sitting by Mr James Swearingem(Jr) on the Akien Road, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say the deceased William Harlin, came to his death by the cavin in and filling up with dirt the well in which he was engaged digging on the Siken Road |
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George Hammond | June 24, 1871 | at Provosts Mill Pond, Anderson County, SC |
do say that the said . . .by accidental drowning |
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Infant Boy Child | Infant Boy Child | June 18, 1883 | at Marsh Grobe Yard, Edgefield County, SC |
upon there oaths do say . . .the Child come to its death accidentally or by being smutherd |
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M. N. Chapman | February 20, 1840 | at or near Mt. Zion, Spartanburg County, SC |
do say upon their oaths that he was drowned by accidentally falling into the waters of Wilson's Creek while in the act of fishing |
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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. |
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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 |
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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. |
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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 |
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Dobydick Golding | May 12, 1875 | at Office Trial Justice Bird, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths do say That the Deceased Dobydick Golding came to his death in the County & State aforesaid on Saturday May 8th AD 1875 by a Gun Shot wound with a Shot Gun in the hands of one Duck Miller alias Fuller and so the Jurors aforesaid upon their oaths aforesaid. Do say that the aforesaid Doby Dick Golding came to his death by mischance by accidental discharge of a double barrel shot gun very carelessly handled by one Duck Miller alias Fuller. |
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John C. Arnold | September 7, 1875 | at Mary A. Taylors, Laurens County, SC | |||
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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Delila Tucker | July 31, 1835 | at the house of Isaac M Caffertys, Union County, SC |
do say upon their oaths that the said Delila Tucker came to her death by [?] from the wounds probably caused by a fall from a fence |
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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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Benjamin Cockroft | March 18, 1847 | in the woods near the house of Beryman[?] Bledsoe, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oats do say that the said Benjamin Cockroft came to his death from the effects of being dissipation and lying on the cold ground |
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Male Infant | Male Infant | March 20, 1884 | at the Jeff Sumerel place, Laurens County, SC |
upon their Oaths do say; that the deceased male infant came to his death by suffocation or mischance. . . |
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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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Addora Wallace | Fairfield County, SC |
we the undersigned Jurymen do hereby find the following verdict That Addora Wallace came to her death by drowning not Known to the Jury. |
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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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Joseph B. Hughes | August 6, 1869 | at the late residence of Joseph B. Hughes in Flat Rock Township, Flat Rock, S.C., Kershaw County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the said Joseph B. Hughes came to his death ... from a wound in the back of the right shoulder ... by a falling tree |
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Benjamin Anderson | December 22, 1873 | at Cheraw, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths, do say: That the said Benjamin Anderson came to his death from excessive use of Liquor & exposure to cold |
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Wesley Holiday | September 14, 1883 | at Joseph P. Nabor's, Greenville County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the deceased came to its death by its mother turning over on it in bed, which was as we believe an accident |
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Joseph Shaw | July 26, 1858 | at the residence of John H Shaw near Edgefield C.H., Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that Joseph Shaw bathing in the Mill pond of Col H. H. Pickens. . .came to his death by accidental drowing |
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John Maddox | June 15, 1881 | at Williamston, Anderson County, SC |
do say that the aforesaid John Madox came to his death by his own act of going into the Saluda in said county^ River and getting drowned. |
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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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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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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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Thomas Henry | October 20, 1817 | at the Dweling Hous of Samuel, Union County, SC |
do Say on their oaths tha Said Thomas Came to his Death By a [?] fall that Nathan[?] Howard [?] him By throwing him [?] his hous[?] in a [????] |
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James Hillian | November 21, 1911 | [no location given], Chesterfield County, SC |
[No official declaration] |
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Edward F. Lyles | June 12, 1879 | at Wm J. Martin's, Fairfield County, SC |
upon their oaths, do say the deceased came to his death by a gunshot wound accidentally discharged in his own hands. |
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William Vaugh | August 28, 1842 | at the dweling house of Patrick Williams, Union County, SC |
adduced that William Vaughn came to his death by the fawling of a certain oak tree a part of which was found [?] his mangled limbs which had [?] shattered his Skull |
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William Johnson | July 31, 1866 | at David Gunter's, Greenville County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that he came to his death . . . in John L. Southern's mill pond by being drowned accidentally while bathing |
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Mary | female Slave | January 13, 1853 | at Isaac Bowles[?], Edgefield County, SC |
The jury find that the decased Mary came to her death by falling into the Said Mountain Creek and drowned |