Rides V

(Continued)

Over the years Dad spent countless hours researching historical sites and events. Once he set out to find out about something he was insatiable until he satisfied his curiosity. He spent countless hours in the basement of the public library painstaking going through old records and books. He poured through the microfiche files at newspaper offices in Henry and Jefferson counties. He often visited seniors and talked with them about things from long ago that they remembered.

He collected his notes and documents in three-ring binders, folders and notebooks. We still have over 30 of them. They are chock full of all kinds of stories and information.

So it wasn’t so unusual that he would try to find out whether the gory story of the boy in the mill was true. He started with his living sources. Most had no recollection of any such story. A few had heard it before but knew few details that were new to Dad about it. One of his best sources said it absolutely didn’t happen.

Somewhere in his memory or in one of the conversations the name Zear came up. Dad thought that was the last name of the young man. So where do you go if you think you have a name? The cemetery. We have many relatives buried in Green Mound Cemetery so one day on one of our rides we stopped to visit some of the graves. That is when Dad thought we should try systematically walking through the cemetery looking for the name Zear on one of the stones.

Sound like looking for a needle in a haystack? Well it wasn’t as hard as you might think. In less than an hour I came across a broken stone that had the name David Zear on it. He died May 1, 1867 at 22years, 10 months, and 25 days. That could be him but how could we know for sure.

Dad went to the archives of the newspapers in the area. He found the following account in the Thursday, May 9, 1867 edition of the Fairfield Ledger. (Stop here if you are squimish!)

"Horrible Accident – David Zaher, Zear, or Zeher (names and even words were often spelled different ways before 1900, even sometimes in the same document) a young man about 20 years of age met with a horrible death at the Merrimac Mills on the Skunk River on the evening of May 1st. He had gone to the fourth story of the mill for the purpose of oiling the journals of some large wheels. Not returning as soon as he should have done, his brother went after him. He found him crushed and ground between the cogs of the wheels in a terrible manner, there being scarcely an unbroken bone in his body.

One of his legs was found about eighteen feet from the wheel. It is supposed that the cogs caught his coat and drew him between the wheels causing his instantaneous death. The floor for some distance around the wheels was covered with blood. His remains were buried the Friday following."

The story was true! Dad was elated that his research was successful, but deeply saddened by what had happened to the young man.

(To be Continued)