Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1878-09-12
DROPPED DEAD BY A COFFIN.

Stricken Viii. Heart Disease When HIS
York Was Almost Done--4n Old Mans
Hand Raised for Blo,c, Nail Hnlf
Drivem, and a Life Put Suddenly Out.
New York Sun.
On Thursday afternoon Matthias Wilhelm
was at work, as he had been on any afternoon
for thirty years, making coffin. He was
an old man of "a, with long hair and long
mustache, both as white as snow. He was
Dane by birth, but in middle age he came to
this country, and finding the demand for
such work constant and fairly profitable, he
has been cof6n-maker ever since,
and out of the necessities of the
dead has made for himself decent
living. His companions say that
he was kind old man, that he nailed the
parts of coffin together justly, and that he
never did harm to anybody. The sound of
his hammer in his old age was slow but con-
slant, and arose in tho morning among the
earliest and ceased at night with the latest
He said little but worked hard, everybody
liked him, and the collins that he put to-
gether were almost innumerable.
The shop in which the old Dane was at
work on Thursday afternoon was that of Mr..
OIOlIs, Ill uuo DOWcly' NoG Gue 1IOuG part,
with plate-glass windows. where the
velvet-colored and silver handled, are at
tractively displayed; but the little shop back,
two flights up, where the collins get their
first outlines, and where they appear in I'M
dress. He had bench in one corner, the
best corner in the room. next to an open
window overlooking a broad expanse of
tarred roof and forest of chimneys through
which the breeze could come blowing upon
him in the warm season.
AS Wilhelm stood at his bench on Thurs
day afternoon, all the tools necessary to his
work we're scattered about him, convenient
to his hand. The saw. the plane, the draw
knife. the glue-pot, and hammer and nails
| we're the implements which he
principally employed, and these were all
lying upon his bench or hanging in easy
reach just above it. The shavings that he
had planed during the day made thick car
pet under his feet. He had been fitting and
mailing sides on to caskets, and a pile of
these, made of white pine wood, rose in a
semicircle around him, like fort, almost to
the rafters of the low-studded room.
| Half dozen of the Danes fellow-work-
men were busy in other parts of the shop.
Hammers were striking, chips were flying,
and there was a strong smell of glue.
1t was few minutes before 4
o'clock. The sky without was clouded, and
| the room was gloomy; nevertheless, one of
the coffin makers was whistling quick air,
another was singing, and the sounds arising
from the brisk instruments made the place
| rather cheerful than otherwise. Wilhelm
| with his long white hair and moustache, was
bending over half opened coffin. A board
| which formed the base of the same was held
fast in the wise attached to the side of his
work bench, and he was fitting and mailing q
side to it. Nail after nail sank into the
soft wood under the blows of the old man IS
hammer. He bent the plant side of the
coffin little by little, and long row of close
| ly-driven nails held it firmly to the edge of
| the base. There was but one more nail to be
driven. The old coffin maker passed his hand
| along his almost completed work, changed
his hammer from his right hand to his left
and poked with his fingers among
! his stock of nails in order to pick out a
good one for the last. He found one to suit
him, turned it over in his palm once or twice
as if twere pleasing thing to contemplate,
set it to the wood, and with slight tap OF
his hammer drove it partially in. He raised
his hammer for another blow, but the blow
| was not given. For an instant the hammer
| hung suspended, then the fingers which held
it loosened themselves and the instru-
ment dropped to the floor. The old coffin
maker fell with it. He had been smitten
with heart disease, and the last nail but hall
driven, his head sank back, his eyes closed
and without word he fell dead aong the
shavings at the foot of his work bench.