19 May 2014

Fatal Accident While Hunting Pigeons in Tamarack Swamp

Just after midnight on Friday night, Mr. Madison Shoemaker, of Colebrook, accompanied by a young man named Finley, were hunting in the great pigeon roost in the Tamarack Swamp in Bloomfield in this County; while Finley was carrying the gun on his shoulder, and Shoemaker was walking behind, the charge in the gun exploded, the load entering the body of Shoemaker just above the breast bone, killing him instantly. The place where the accident happened, was near the west side of the swamp, and it required the utmost exertions of six men, for six hours, to convey the body through the swamp, to the eastern side.

Mr. Shoemaker was about fifty years of age, and leaves a wife and several children.

March 7, 1860. Fatal accident. Western Reserve Chronicle 44(30): 3.