A Small Pox Patient Nearly Buried Alive

In Ottawa, the small pox patient who had such a narrow escape from being buried alive on Wednesday is doing well and will recover.  It appears that when the gravediggers threw on the lid of the coffin, after it had been lowered into the grave, three shovelfuls of sand, that the noise aroused the slumbers of the supposed dead man and caused him to kick lustily against his narrow prison.  The coffin was hastily drawn out of the grave and the lid was unscrewed.  The supposed corpse sat up and exclaimed, "My God! Have I had such a narrow escape!"  He was at once lifted out of the coffin and an overcoat thrown over his shoulders. He was then removed to the hospital.

Source:  Lancaster Daily Intelligencer
                January 21, 1880

Death from Grief

From Cincinnati, Ohio, almost immediately on the revival of speculation as to the Baldwin homicide, last March, comes the announcement of the death of Mrs. Hattie Baldwin, wife of Harry Baldwin, the victim of that mysterious tragedy.  She died at an early hour yesterday morning.  They had been married scarcely three months when the husband was shot in the street by some person whose identity has not yet been discovered.  Her grief at the loss of her husband was increased by reports that his killing was the result of liaison with a woman of doubtful character.  This report has been discredited by testimony, but the mystery of his death preyed upon her so that she gradually sank until she fell an easy victim of typhoid pneumonia.  She leaves a posthumous child only three months old.

Source:  Lancaster Daily Intelligencer
               January 31, 1880

Find A Grave Memorials:
   Harriett "Hattie" Wiswell Baldwin (1857 - 1880)
   Harry Whittredge Baldwin (1855 - 1879)