This post was contributed to the Crawford County Chapter of OGS by Kristina Stearley as part of the Florence Siefert Scrapbook in 2010.
The scrapbook is compiled from undated, unidentified newspaper clippings involving events in the lives of Crawford County citizens living in or having connections to New Washington, Tiro, Shelby, Sulphur Springs, Chatfield, Bucyrus, Ashland, Mansfield, and other areas. Only minimal spelling or punctuation corrections were made. Unreadable areas are shown by underlines, dots &/or question marks. This collection has been scanned, “optical character recognized” (OCR’d), proofed, then coded for HTML by volunteers of the Crawford County Chapter of the Ohio Genealogical Society. Since the copies are not of the best quality errors may have been made. Please contact us if you find corrections needing to be made or can verify any missing dates which could be added.
The remains of B. F. Hutson, died in the Asylum at Logansport, Ind., arrived at this place last Wednesday for interment at Goodwill. Mr. Hutson’s mental derangement was the result of an attack of the “la grippe” two years ago. The following from the Logansport Pharos, gives the particulars of Mr. Hutson’s death:
As heretofore published, last Thursday evening B. F. Hutson, of Elkhart county, was missed from the Hospital at Longcliff of which he was an inmate.
The environs and the buildings, including the cellar, were immediately searched by the attendants, another party came to the city and notified the police, railroad officials and trackmen. The kinsmen were wired at once and announcements were published in various newspapers. Last evening, at a conference of the hospital staff, no news of the missing man having been received, and his disappearance being under discussion, a report of an unusual odor from a certain flue made a short time before by the supervisor to the superintendent, induced the latter to intuitively connect the two circumstances and Dr. McNamee with a party was at once sent to the cellar of A ward to inspect the bottom of the flue. The search led them through the labyrinth of foundation partitions and heating apparatus to a small dark room having no direct opening into the cellar corridor and there they found Mr. Hutson, seated on the floor, but strangled by a rope attached to a pipe above, his body in a state of advanced decomposition. He was at once placed in the Mortuary and the relatives and Coroner notified.
The Superintendent states that Mr. Hutson had been an inmate since last August and that his mental state had so improved as to warrant his assignment to the limited class privileged at certain hours to do light work and take exercise out doors without constant supervision. For several days he had employed an hour or two in the afternoon in clearing the walks of snow and had been so engaged on the evening of his disappearance.
The secluded nature of the spot which he chose may be well illustrated by the fact that the sad circumstances remained undiscovered for three days notwithstanding that it was no more than fifteen feet distant from the elevator and tool room, which is visited at all hours of the day by a large number of men. At the time of the first search this place was inspected by lantern light but the dark corner behind a projection of the foundation wall was evidently overlooked.
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