Passionate Abolitionist and
Witness to the American Civil War
Passionate Abolitionist and
Witness to the American Civil War
Here is the first report of a sad incident in which the sewage tank at the old Hicks Home had become too full, and a simple plan was devised to dig out a second large hole immediately beside the first one and allow the excess material from the first cesspool to flow into the second one.
But things did not work out like that!
This Morning’s Terrible Calamity
Two men suffocated to death by gas from a privy-well – third man nearly killed- his rescue- full particulars of the affair.
About 6 o’clock this morning great excitement was caused on Wood street ? By an alarm that three men were suffocating in a privy vault. They were speedily taken out- two dead and the other still living.
It appears that on Saturday last a well some ? Or 10 feet deep was dug close to the cesspool on the premises of T.B. Curry, No 132 South Fifth street into which the contents of the of the old cesspool were to be drawn. The well is directly in front of the house of Thomas Elliott, who resides in a house in Mr. Curry’s yard, immediately back of No. 1331 Wood street. Mr. Elliott, who is a carpenter, employed by Fink & Eisenhower, went into the new well this morning on a team, and cut a hole through the earth and the wall into the old com-pool some three feet from the ground. A few inches of the contents gushed through, accompanies by a large quantity of noxious gas, and Elliott, overcome, fell to the bottom of the new well with his face in the horrid mass. The alarm was given, and John Edwards, confectioner, brother-in-law of Mr. Curry, and in his employ, jumped down the well to the aid of Elliott. He was also overcome by the gas, and fell on top of Elliott. George Dorsey, colored, residing at No. 132 Wood street, coachman for Captaincies. P.R. Stetson, No. 124 South Fifth, jumped down the hole, but also fell senseless with the other two. Ropes were quickly brought, a ladder was put down the well, and Harry S. Jennings, John Fink, Wm. Fink, and Augustus Holt reached the well and soon drew the men out. Mr. Jennings who also went into the well, in the face of death itself, was also very sick, and was near sharing the fate of the others. The wife of Elliott, whose door is within a few feet of the well, and who is in delicate health, rent the air with her screams, and there was wild excitement. Dorsey was taken home.
Coroner Lyon was promptly on the spot, though quite unwell, and suffering from an attack of vertigo. He impaneled the following jury: John Fink, Wm. Fink, H.W. Rhoads, H.S. Jennings, Joseph Shirey and W.S. Monyer. After viewing the bodies, the inquest adjourned to meet at the City Hall at 8 o’clock.
Mr. Elliott was born in Williamsport, Lycoming county, and removed to this city nine years ago. He was a house carpenter by trade, and an industrious upright man. He was given constant employ by the firm, and to-day would have been at work had no the above calamity overtaken him. He got up about five o’clock and told his wife he would tab that well, as Mr. Curry had asked him to do it as a favor. Said he would do it before breakfast and told his wife to prepare the meal. They have one son aged nine years, and a little adopted daughter resides with the family. He was about 38 years of age. His wife is a well known clairvoyant.
John Edwards, the second victim, would have been 40 years of age next Sunday. He was unmarried and had been in Reading with Mr. Curry ever since his last voyage to sea. Edwards had an adventurous life, as he followed the sea many years. He was shipwrecked several times, and was a cast away in a life boat six days on the ocean, so that when the party were picked up they were sunburnt, blistered and nearly starved to death. He was sunstruck twice, and several times narrowly escaped death in other ways. He got up this morning about half-past four o’clock, and froze a can of ice cream. When he heard the cry for assistance he went bravely to work to save the life of a fellow-man, which he had frequently done before. He jumped towards Elliott in the well, grappled him firmly, but the foul gas overpowered and suffocated him. Mr. Jennings says that Edwards had a firm hold on Elliott when both were taken out of the well dead. Edwards was esteemed and highly regarded by those who knew him.
Eagle reporters found Mr. Dorsey lying on a lounge at his house, attended by his faithful family. He says that in a few minutes more, if Messrs. Fink and Jennings had not arrived, he too would have been suffocated to death. His system was at half-past seven, nearly entirely renovated, and the efforts of the gas had perceptibly disappeared. Mr. and Mr.s Stetson left nothing undone to make the condition of the coachman easy and comfortable, and he is out again.
In the height of the excitement and when the terrible news was told Mr. Curry he was taken with a fainting spell and dropped to the floor. He was picked up and placed on a lounge in the rear dining room.
Between seven and eight o’clock hundreds of people flocked to the scene and the premises were over-run. The sad intelligence spread rapidly. Undertaker Miller took charge of the bodies.
Chas. Broschkowsky, 134 South Fifth street, testified as to being called early this morning; he ran down to the yard, followed by Mr. Curry. Mr. Curry got a step ladder. Witness ran for a rope. When he got back he saw Elliott, Edwards and Dorsey in the hole. The men were then got out of the hole. Mr. Curry commenced digging the hole last Thursday and got down four feet; afterwards got two laborers to finish it. The got down about ten feet and struck water. J.H. Burkholder tried to tap the well on Saturday with a crowbar but did not succeed. Mr. Elliott tried to tap it this morning with an auger. Witness stated that Mr. Curry did not ask Mr. Elliott to tap it. Mr. Curry walled the new well with brick, and left a place to tap about four feet below the surface. “I could not swear that Mr. Curry did or did not tell Elliott to tap the hole.”
The augur was a 21 inch bore, that Mr. Elliott procured from the refrigerator manufactory, of the firm employing him, in which department he was employed.
Mamie Elliott, the adopted daughter of the deceased, aged about ten years, was the next witless. She swore that she was up this morning and saw her father, Mr. Elliott, standing on the ground near the hole. He told her to help get the breakfast ready and smiled as he spoke. I saw the water running from the old well into the new one. When I saw my father again I heard him snore and only saw his feet.
Josephine Williams, 133 Wood street, this morning at 5:45 saw Mr. and Mrs. Curry, Mr. Edwars and Mrs. Elliott standing n the yard. I also went in. No one else was there. All was commotion. Elliott was at the bottom of the well. He was down ten minutes when Edwards went down. Edwards was down ten or fifteen minutes before Dorsey came.
Dr. George S. Goodhart testified as to examining the bodies, found no bruises, and gave his opinion that both men died of inhalation of noxious carbonic acid gas. It is not combustible.
Health Commissioner Miller testified as to his duties as Commissioner of the Board of Health. “I received no notice from T.B. Curry to examine his premises; knew nothing of the new well being dug; it is against the law to remove the contents of the cess-pool without license; Mr. Curry had no license; no person is allowed to clean a cess-pool without license of permit; Mr. Curry had no license nor a permit, neither had anybody else acting for him; the law requires all privy wells to be 20 feet deep, unless obstructed by water; if water or any other obstruction is met with, the same must be reported; Mr. Curry’s new well was not ten feet deep, and if water or other obstruction was met, it was not reported at the Health office. There is about six inches of water in the new well. Neighboring wells are from 17 to 21 feet deep. It was evidently Mr. Curry’s idea, to tap the old well and use it again as before.
The jury, the Coroner and reporter then went to the house of George Dorsey. He swore that he was cleaning the horses at 4:45. He was called to help Elliott by Susie, an adopted daughter of Mr. Curry. She stated that Edwards was also in the hole. Dorsey at once responded. “I went down on the cross beams, reached for Edwards by the shirt and the shirt tore. Edwards was on top of Elliott. Elliott was dead. They looked as if they were grasping each other. All of a sudden I became dizzy like a drunken man. Felt that I was fainting. Made a second grab for Edwards, then I knew nothing. When I came to my senses the men were leading me out. The gas has the same effect as if a man was going to sleep. I saw no step ladder, and no men when I came there. The gas turned my silver watch in my pocket very dark. Levi Moyer was the next sworn: Live at the corner of Wood and Chestnut streets; was called about 5.45 by Mrs. Elliott; I went to assist; ran into the yard; saw three men in the well; Mr. Dorsey was leaning on the cross beam with his breast; Edwards was still alive at the bottom when I got there, but must have died soon afterwards; William Fink, John Fink, and H. Jennings had a rope and got out Mr. Dorsey; the step ladder was in the well; Dorsey was apparently dead.
John K. Burkholder testified: last Thursday Mr. Curry told me he was going to have the well dug; in the evening he told me he had started it; that Mr. Elliott had helped Curry; Friday, Mr. Isaac Loose, 228 Washington street, continued the job and finished digging on Saturday. Saturday afternoon about 4 o’clock I saw Curry walling up the well; I helped to wall it up and sawed the timber cross beams; I then tried to tap the old well but could not; Mr. Elliott came home from Conahohocken where Messrs. Fink, Eisenhower & Co. had sent him on business; Elliott got home about 5 o-clock; Elliott told me he would tap the well; Curry was not about as he had gone to supper; as far as I know Mr. Curry or no one else except myself knew of Mr. Elliott’s intention to tap the well; Mr. Curry told me that he (Curry) would tap it on Monday; he told me this before Elliott came home; I had no further conversation with any one about tapping it; myself and MR. Edwards, deceased, had mad it out to go to North Carolina as soon as we got our wages. The old well consisted of a hogshead. We thought it was rotten. Do not know what Mr. Curry’s intention was as to using the old and new well.
Isaac K. Loose, 228 Washington street, testified as to having dug the well about 9 feet deep. When I commenced it was about three feet deep, and Mr. Curry told me to dig it about six feet more. WE contracted for the six feet; found no water; might have gone down further; used no windless; we pitched out the clay as we went down; finished at 1 o’clock Saturday; don’t know what Mr. Curry’s intention was.
Mr. Curry stated to an Eagle reporter that he knew nothing of Mr. Elliott’s intentions of tapping the old well; not the slightest of an understanding existed between them; Mr. Curry never thought of Mr. Elliott going down and was so much startled when he heard of it that he dropped senseless to the floor.
Mrs. Curry says she spoke to Mr. Elliott at five o’clock this morning. He was in good health, and said nothing about his intentions of tapping the well.
Mr. Elliott is a member of Mt. Penn Lodge of Odd Fellows.
Pending the verdict of the jury the Eagle’s report closed for the first edition.
[Continued in 2d edition]
This grim incident stays in people’s memory and has even caused a measure of jocularity perhaps because of the sheer oddity and unrivaled embarrassment of envisioning being submerged by a sewage tsunami but also because it happened so long ago that readers have no personal feelings for the participants.
This is the first of several newspaper reports of the incident. Following what are already a sequence of bizarre circumstances associated with the incident, we learn that the first person to die, Mr Thomas Elliott, was a member of the Odd Fellows Lodge, and that his wife was “A well known clairvoyant”. It is not hard for a cynic to feel that she should have seen this coming and might thereafter have had to put a sign up on her business explaining that she was “Closed due to unforeseen circumstances.”
Taken more seriously this newspaper report gives us a reminder of the less sophisticated and more basic domestic installations at the time. Also the early hours that the working days began it notable. Mr Elliott sounds to have been a wonderful man, “industrious and upright,” with a 9 year old son and a 10 year old adopted daughter. He lived in a house in the yard of Mr & Mrs Curry and was clearly doing a favor in trying to tap the old cesspool so that the contents flowed into the newly built one. From the reporting on this first day, we see the likelihood of the Currys being accused of responsibility for the incident.
John Edwards, the second person to die seems to have faced death several times before during the course of an adventurous life but at the time of this incident he was employed by Mr Curry as a confectioner. This suggests that Mr & Mrs Curry continued with the business that Ruth Curry (later Hicks and Jackson) had held for a long time. Furthermore the report makes clear that Mr Edwards was Mr Curry’s brother in law, revealing not only how he got his job but also the maiden name of Mr Curry’s wife.
George Dorsey, “colored” as the report dismissively labels him, did his best to rescue the first two men but he too passed out from the toxic gases. It sounds as if his body was perched on a cross beam down the well, and this maybe the main factor leading to his rescue, unconscious but alive and able to recover.
The report also draws attention to the good will of other men who risked their lives to try and recover the three men in the hole. Of the four listed, Harry Jennings sounds to have very nearly suffered the same fate. All in all, a riveting event that drew “hundreds” to see what had happened. Readers may wonder what this incident has to do with the author of our letters, Thomas Jackson Snr. Well after 1843, when his wife died early in life, he moved in and lived as a border with Mr and Mrs Hicks, an English couple. Many of his letters back to England would have been written from this same property.
Much later after Captain Hicks died, Thomas Jackson and Ruth Hicks married in 1860 and lived together in this house at 132 South Fifth Street until they separated and divorced in April 19, 1869. Mrs Hicks’ maiden name was Curry, and she died on February 25th 1873. This report of the sewage incident in 1876 speaks of the owners of the property as being a Mr & Mrs Curry. We suspect that they were a son and wife of Mrs Curry, later Hicks, later Jackson.