Year: 1867




Never iS our experience as Journalists
has it been our duty to chronicle an oc-
currence more horrid in its details than
the one we are about to relate.


The sad affair that left widowed
mother childless, and for the time be-
ing almost bereft of reason, happened
about the 10Th ult., in the adjoining
county TO Allen, short distance from
the Warren county line, in the vicinity
of Anthony's Mill. The heartrending
details, as related to us by persons of
unquestiosable veracity, are about
these


Some two months since Mrs. Blanken-
ship, lady Of respectability, lost her
husband from disease, and was left with
three children, two interesting boys and
little infant girl, just large enough to
walk alone aud beguile the lonely hours
of the mother with its innocent prattle.
On the 10th ult., the mother, Mrs. Blank
enship, for the purpose of washing
clothes, repaired to the spring branch
near the house in the locality referred
to, taking her three children with her,
the house dog following behind. She
had been engaged i'll washing but a
short time when the dog was heard
barking necessarily on the hill near by.
Thinking that the dog had possibly
treed raccoon or had a rabbit ut bay,
the two little boys proposed going at
once to secure the game. With the
mothers consent the little fellows start
ed off in high glee. Alas! better had
they never been born. On reaching the
spot where the dog was barking they
saw a short distance from the dog q
large object coiled at the foot of a stump,
in a hostile attitude, keeping the dog
at bay. They looked for n moment.
Eager only to capture the supposed
game, and not thinking of danger, nor
knowing the nature of the prey, they
approached the hideous monster that in
fatality of attack "outvenoms all the
worms ofNile." The oldest of the two
boys approached first, with his little
hands out-stre ched and bis face aglow
at the prospect of his prize, he said,
"I'll get him, brother" One step more
and he rushed to death more terrible
and speedy than were the tortures of
fabled LAGOON. With one dart OF his
forked tongue, with one death-rattle of
his tail, the huge rattlesnake-for it was
nothing less-drew back his scaly folds
and with one dart forward planted his
envenomed fangs in the flesh of the boy,
and left the deadly poison coursing hot
through his young veins. Again and
again was the boy bitten by the fatal
reptile till he fell exhausted in the coils
of the monster.


The other little fellow rushed forward
to the relief of his little brother, and he
also received the deadly fangs of the
serpent in several places. The screams
of the boys alarmed the mother, who
was still washing at the branch, and
leaving her baby girl she ran frantical-
ly to the spot. What sight there met
her gaze! Putrid with poison, swollen
and black, and bitten in many places,
one of her boys was already dead, and
the other dying from the same cause.
The lake had crawled away, and the
living BOY lived just long enough to tell
the circumstances of their death. Ov-
erwhelmed with an intensity of agony
which mothers alone can feel, she re
mained at the fatal spot short time,
when she bethought her of her little
girl at the branch and hurried back.


On reaching the spot, horrible as it
may seem, she found that the little girl
had walked toithe wash-tub, into which
she had fallen head foremost, and was
drowned, "and it too was gone" The
mothers cup of misery was full; not
another drop could be added. Bereft
of children, and almost of reason, she
sank under the accumulated horrors OF
the hour. Assistance was procured, the
heart-crushed woman and the remains
of her nestlings were taken charge OF
and cared for. A short time after
a large rattlesnake, with thirteen rat
ties, was killed near the spot where the
boys were bitten.


The event created profound sensa-
tion in the community, and has scarce
ly parallel even in the exciting annals
of our early and hardy pioneers.