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 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Clarrisa Boyd | May 18, 1892 | at Beaverdam, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that she came to her death from the Effects fire being in a house that was burnt over her all by Accident or misfortune. |
||
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. |
||
William Hampton | July 3, 1877 | at T. J. [?], Greenville County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the said Wm A Hampton came to his death by the accidental discharge of his gun in his own hands |
||
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. |
||
Mary Hinson | May 5, 1860 | at Boykin's Mill, Kershaw County, SC | |||
Major Crawford | July 21, 1880 | at Anderson Court House, Anderson County, SC |
do say that Major Crawford came to his death by accidentally falling from the trestle at Rocky River while in a state of intoxication |
||
William Bradley | December 29, 1841 | at Elizabeth Eubank's, Union County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that. . . drink & ardent spirits to an excess so as to intoxicate him so much as to render him incapible of helping himself to where he could have the benefit of fire, and only reached the edge of the field where in his residence was ... and there fell down and perished with Coald. |
||
Elizabeth Belk | April 20, 1828 | near the Door house, Kershaw County, SC |
do say upon their oaths that in traveling to a neighboring house she fell down and being old & infirm was unable to rise & so perished |
||
Sallie Holmes | December 20, 1893 | at D. P. Bodies[?], Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that. . .the said Sallie Holmes aforesaid came to her death from accidental burning |
||
Lodrick Dobson | February 18, 1836 | at the dwelling house of John Sarratt, Spartanburg County, SC |
do say upon their oaths that [he] came to his death by misfortune being intoxicated his clothes caught fire & was burned |
||
A. J. Means | March 1, 1875 | at Sam'l Means, Spartanburg County, SC |
upon their oaths . . .do say that the aforesaid Means came to his death by the accidental discharge fo a gun in the hands of Pinkney Brewton [?] |
||
Edward Norris | December 26, 1882 | at the residence of Aaron Wells, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths do say That on Friday the 22nd day of December 1882 Bil Norris went to Greenwood, and returned home late in the night, very drunk, and that on Saturday morning the 23rd day of Dec about 9 o'clock am the boy Edward decd. Was kicked by Bill Norris in his right-side the decd. lingered til the 26th day of December and died... |
||
Sally | slave | December 15, 1850 | at Gerrymiah Gregorys, Union County, SC |
upon their oaths doo say . . .that the aforesaid sally . . .came to her death by misfortune or accident |
|
Aaron Rogers | May 14, 1872 | at Isham Johnson's Plantation, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths, do say: That Aaron Rogers (the deceased) came to his death by accidental drowning in Thompson's Creek, below Purvis' Bridge, on Sunday the 12th May AD 1872 |
||
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[.] |
|||
Sam Malloy | May 30, 1899 | at Chesterfield County, South Carolina, Chesterfield County, SC |
From the evidence I got from the party's there the deceased was accidentaly drowned |
||
John Dean | December 29, 1848 | on the publick [sic] road leading from William McMurry's, Esq to J. L. Kenedy's, Anderson County, SC |
do say from the evidence produced and all other circumstances he came to his death by intoxication together with the wet and coldness of the night having been seen late on the eavening [sic] before in a state of intoxication within a half a mile of the place where he was found also having a bottle with him--with whiskey in it which was found by him nearly empty. |
||
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 |
|
Maggie Brown | September 8, 1885 | at Mr. Louis Johnson's, Spartanburg County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that Miss Jaggie Brown came to her death by accidentally drowning herself in a spring |
||
Samuel H. Young | May 5, 1860 | at Boykin's Mill, Kershaw County, SC | |||
Allagood Suggs | April 4, 1860 | at the house of Alfred Jernigan, Horry County, SC |
upon there oaths do say that the said Allagood Suggs came to his death by misfortune or accident |
||
Henry Gibson | November 4, 1834 | at Abner Benson dweling, Union County, SC |
do say upon their oaths thay thot the said Henry Gibson . . .died by the visitation of god by getting drownd in the Spring of Abner Bensons |
||
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. |
||
Gertrude | infant child | December 1, 1891 | at Edgfield Court house, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say. . .that the infant received burns which caused death |
|
infant | September 20, 1857 | at Jared[?] Arnold's, Spartanburg County, SC |
upon our oaths do say . . .that the child's death came by bleeding at the navel or umbilicus but we think if the child had received proper attention it would have survived |
||
Miles Pryor | July 6, 1878 | at Hobby's Mill, Spartanburg County, SC |
upon their oaths do say he caused his death by accident, the accidental discharging of a gun, emptying its contents in the head |
||
female Infant Slave | female Infant Slave | December 25, 1846 | at the plantation of J. C. Ison, Union County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that . . .the child was . . .smothered in bed by its mother throuch[?] or by accident without having any intention to do so |
|
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. |
||
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 |
||
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. |
||
Elenora Yongue | near Struther[?], Fairfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say: That the said Elenora Yongue came to her death by accidental burning. |
|||
Thomas Yongue | near Strother, Fairfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say: That the said Tomas Yongue came to his death from accidental burning |
|||
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. |
||
Charles | negro man | February 27, 1850 | at Scotts Shoals on Savannah River, Edgefield County, SC |
Upon their Oaths do say, that he was drowned by accident, and that the body was too much decayed to admit of examination. |
|
James Adis | June 13, 1818 | Union County, SC |
do say u[?] thr oaths that the desceased [?] come to his by being drowned |
||
Angus McQueen | January 17, 1816 | at home of Kelly McDermit, Kershaw County, SC |
do say upon their oaths that the deceased came to his Death by the combined effects of Cold, Intoxication, and the falls he had therefrom. |
||
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 |
||
Sally Shedd | February 19, 1867 | at the plantation of James Coleman, Fairfield County, SC |
the Jury after hearing the evidence in the cause of the death of Sally Shed and examined the dead Body. Come to the conclusion that the Said Sally came to her death by the discharge of a gun in the hands of the Girl Rachel, by accident. |
||
John H Webb | January 22, 1882 | at James Webb Residence, Edgefield County, SC |
upon there oaths do Say . . .that said John H Webb Came to his Death from Drowning in Sleepy Creek |
||
Booker | negro | March 30, 1823 | at the plantation called Flint Hill[?], Spartanburg County, SC |
do say upon their oaths that. . .the sd. negro. . .was axacery [sic] to his own death by drinking to [sic] much spirits and being exposed to the inclemency of the weather |
|
Allen Bauknight | freedman | June 11, 1866 | at William Bauknights, Edgefield County, SC |
upon there oaths do say that the said Allen Bauknight came to his death by a discharge of a Gun in the hands of Suson Bauknight freeman his wife by the Gun going of axcidentally |
|
Koon | female child | April 23, 1836 | at the house of Davin M[?] [?], Union County, SC |
do say upon their oaths that the said child . . .died by the visitation of God by accidentally Getting Droud in the Spring |
|
Jack Thomas | at Mickles Ferry, Fairfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say, that the said, Jack Thomas, came to his death by accidental drownding |
|||
Hannah Lee | March 7, 1893 | at Moor Church, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths, do say: that the deceased came to her death from natural causes |
||
Esther Jeter | April 17, 1893 | at Huiets x Roads, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the aforesaid Esther Jeter came to her death by accident. . .burned to death |
||
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. . . |
|
Willie Sizemore | August 7, 1882 | Spartanburg County, SC |
upon their oaths aforesaid do say that the said Willie Sizemore ... came to his death by misfortune or accident |
||
Emma Hunter | May 18, 1892 | at Beaverdam Church, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths Do say from the Testimony given that Emma Hunter Died from the Effects of fire; That she died on Tesday the 17th inst having been burnt in a house, that was burnt down on the plantation of M.B. Pool on the night of the 16th inst. All Accidental... |
||
Austin Putnam | July 14, 1867 | at Spencer Mills, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the said Austin Putnam came to his death by drowning, by mischance or accident, on said Spencer's Mill - pond about 4 oclock P.M. |
||
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 |