139. Randolph County Misc.

***** SATURDAY,   JULY 27, 2019    4-10 PM  -  "SARATOGA PARTY IN THE PARK" & "GRAND OPENING OF THE SARATOGA TOWN HALL MUSEUM." *****



1968. Brady Murders.

  A Randolph county grand jury will convene at 9 a.m. Friday to consider evidence in the shooting deaths of a Winchester couple last Friday night.
  Circuit Judge Zane E. Stohler has set Friday morning as the date on which the jury will convene. Prosecutor George Daly requested that the grand jury be called.
  Two youths, Allen Brady, 16, and John Hawley, 17, of Winchester are being held in the Randolph county jail on preliminary charges of first-degree murder in the deaths of Brady's parents, James G. Brady, 47, and Reva Brady, 45. The couple were found by an older son and his wife at the Brady home at the south edge of Winchester, early Saturday morning, dead of gunshot wounds from a .22 caliber rifle.   Winchester Journal-Herald, April 23, 1968.



1905.  Farmland College?

  Public-spirited citizens of Farmland are making a strong effort, with hopes of success, of locating the Union Christian College at Merom, Sullivan county, Ind. At a recent gathering of the business men of the town, resolutions were adopted which make a flattering offer to the college trustees to move the school to their town.
  The citizens offer to plat a tract of land in twenty town lots, which they will sell with which to erect a handsome building for the school. They also promise to give the school outright a campus of twenty-eight acres. They guarantee to have the building ready to be occupied by Sept. 1.
  Communication has been opened with the Merom trustees who will visit Farmland in the near future to look over the proposition.   Union City Times, March 31, 1905.



1968. Morton Kindergarten Student Killed.

  At 3:34 Monday, April 8, six-year-old Teresa Lynn Cochran, doffer to plat a tractaughter of Mr. and Mrs. Wendell Cochran of Winchester, route 4, was fatally injured when she was struck by a car on Ind. 32 at the east edge of Winchester.
  The little girl, a kindergarten student at Morton school, Winchester, was standing on the south side of Ind. 32 just east of the U.S. 27 overpass, according to the sheriff's department, when she pulled away from an older sister and darted north onto the highway and into the path of an eastbound car driven by Henry L. Ingle, 62, Union City, route 3. The child was knocked to the ground, and died a few minutes later at the Randolph County hospital of head injuries.   Winchester Journal-Herald, April 9, 1968.



 Hardscrabble, Brightsville  And Shacklingsburg.

  "Hardscrabble" was located one mile north of Harrisville on the Union City pike. The town consisted of one grocery store and shoe shop combined, a toll gate, a set of scales and a hog chute.
  "Shacklingsburg" was a little village one and one-half miles south of Maxville on the right bank of Cabin Creek, just above the water gap.
  "Brightsville" was a small village situated on the Huntsville and Mount Pleasant road near the headwaters of Bear Creek.



1905. Union City Buggy Meets Interurban.

  Saturday evening, as the last car on the Interurban line was at the Wildcat road, just east of Weimer's Mill and going at a speed of fifty miles an hour down grade, Motorman John Everhardt saw a horse backing a carriage at the side of the track and it toppled over the bank about four feet and a half high, square across the tracks. The vehicle upset and the occupants were caught like a lot of rats in a trap. The car struck them and ran about two hundred feet before it could be stopped.
  On examination it was found that the body of Will Doherty, aged 19, was under the hind tracks of the car, mangled beyond recognition, disemboweled, head cut in two and his brains and entrails scattered all along the ties and tracks.
 Lying about ten feet from the track and at the point where the rig was struck, was Fred Hughes, aged 17, whose home was in Parker City, but who was working at the Automobile Works and boarding with Mr. and Mrs. Yaney, Ohio Side. Ten feet further was Bessie Thompson, aged 14, dead drunk and unconscious and about ten feet from her was Jennie Yaney, aged 16, with a lot of bruises.
  About 1 a.m. policeman Reeves called up by phone and he informed the TIMES that a special train was on its way over to take the family and friends to the Turpen undertaking establishment in Greenville.
  We left the city at 2:45 a.m. and on arriving at the scene of the wreck the car slowed and the damaged carriage was still at the side of the track. On every cross-tie and on the rails could be seen the blood where the victim had been rolled by the car and pieces of flesh, bone and entrails scattered over the whole route.
  On arriving at Greenville we found Hughes resting easy, with a bruised knee and leg but otherwise in good shape. He told the following story: "He and Doherty were together Saturday night and went to McKee's stable about 8 p.m. and secured a horse and carriage. They then got their girls and stopped at Constable's saloon on the Ohio Side, where Doherty purchased a pint of whiskey and six quart bottles of beer. The ride to Greenville then began and at 10 o'clock they started back to Union City.
  Hughes and the Yaney girl were on the back seat and dozing, Doherty and the Thompson girl on the front seat, Miss Thompson driving, both drunk, Hughes partly so and Miss Yaney with only three swallows of beer imbibed. The car was seen coming and the horse became bewildered at the glare of the headlight. Miss Thompson pulled on the reins and the horse stopped and commenced backing until it swung the carriage around to the edge of the embankment and horse, carriage and occupants toppled over onto the tracks in front of the car which struck them. Hughs did not know anything until he was picked up."
  The Yaney girl tells identically the same story in every detail. She said she had only taken three swallows of the beer and did not like it as it was bitter. The Thompson girl was dead drunk only occasionally arousing to vomit and then going back to unconsciousness. She had only two slight bruises on her head but may be hurt internally. The Yaney girl was bright and lively and has a barrel of nerve which h she will need, for on examining her it was found she had sustained a compound fracture of the left arm. The bone at the elbow was crushed, muscles, flesh and ligaments torn from the humorus bone and the end of the ulna bone where it intersects broken off. Four physicians decided an amputation was necessary and the arm was removed at the shoulder.
  At six a.m. Bessie Thompson was still unconscious and sleeping heavily. From what the other two survivors say she drank long and often of both the beer and whiskey and made a regular "stone-fence."
  We next visited Turpen's undertaking establishment and such a sight as was here presented we do not care to see again. Doherty's head was chopped in two from the bridge of the nose to the base of the brain and he had no features that could be recognized, in fact over half his head had been ground under the wheels or along the track. His body was disemboweled and his limbs cut and bruised as though chopped with an axe.
  Among the articles picked up at the site of the wreck was .60 cents in money, a side-comb, hat pin, pint flask one-third full of whiskey, 1 full bottle of beer and a spring loaded dirk knife with a blade six inches long and sharp as a razor.
  A strange fatality seems to be pursuing the Doherty family. The father fell from a bridge near Houston, Ohio, and was instantly killed. Later the mother was injured in a railroad wreck and has not yet recovered. About the same time a younger son, apparently in the very best of health, dropped dead. A younger brother of Fred Hughes was also killed several weeks ago in a nitroglycerin explosion at Parker City, Ind.   Union City Times, May, 1905.
May 6.  Last evening we visited Greenville and calling at the Wagner House saw Fred Hughes, who is resting well and will be able to be around in a day or two. Jennie Yaney had not recovered from the anesthetic given her when her arm was removed, but no bad symptoms exist. Bessie Thompson is still in a comatose condition and Dr. Anderson says she is undoubtedly severely injured internally as she is vomiting blood.
  Mr. Yaney brought the amputated arm of his daughter to Union City last evening in a box and it has been buried.



1905.  Rooster Attack.

  Little six year-old Etta Hueber, daughter of Mr. and Mrs.Rod Hueber, living on High street, had an exciting and very unpleasant experience with a big Plymouth Rock rooster yesterday, and her escape from serious injury was a very narrow one.
  The little girl was in the yard and thought it would be fun to throw some water on the rooster and see him jump. She threw the water, and the rooster jumped all right but in a manner altogether unexpected, for in place of turning tail and making himself scarce the chanticleer ruffled his feathers and sprang on the girl. He struck her in the breast and knocked her to the ground at the first assault after which he began to "spur" her viciously about the head and face. The little girls frantic screams only seemed to enrage the rooster to more vicious efforts, but they also brought her mother to the scene, which undoubtedly saved her life as maddened roosters have been known to kill small children before this.
  Just as Mrs. Heuber was about to attack the rooster, her little son ran in front of her and both of them fell to the ground with her daughter and were attacked by the rooster. Not until Mrs. Heuber regained her feet and made a determined onslaught with a clothesline prop was the enraged bird induced to leave his prostrate victims.
  Now would be a good time to introduce the rooster to a large pot of dumplings.   Union City Times, April, 1904.



1886. Saratoga.

  Two stores, two  churches, one blacksmith, one huckster, one livery barn, one graded school, R.R. depot, one barber shop, millinery, saw mill, one M.D., cabinet maker and undertaker, twenty-one story tellers, five practical jokers, three hundred inhabitants and the champion liar of the entire United States. If this don't indicate a boom town, I don't know what does.   Winchester Journal, May, 1886.