Obituaries (August 29)

Capt. Edwin O. Gibson

Utica Saturday Globe, June 1902

Capt. Edwin O. Gibson

1840 - 1902

 

Norwich [Chenango Co., NY]:  On Thursday evening of last week Capt. Edwin O. Gibson died at his home on Mitchell street.  About three weeks ago he was prostrated by a paralytic shock, from which he rallied somewhat only to suffer a second and fatal stroke on the evening previous to his death.  Edwin O. Gibson was the son of Dr. Stanford C. Gibson and his wife, Martha R.  Hall, who was a sister of Dudley S. Hall, of this village, and was born at Pitcher Springs [Chenango Co., NY] August 22, 1840.  Soon after his birth his father removed to South New Berlin, where he located for the practice of his profession and where the youth of Capt. Gibson was spent.  While yet a boy he developed a great fondness for mathematics and remarkable proficiency in the study, and won a State prize for original mathematical work.  In the schools of New Berlin and afterwards in Norwich Academy he pursued his favorite study in a course preparatory to college under the inspiration of prof. David G. Barber, whose great success as a teacher is fondly recalled by many pupils in this and adjacent counties.  He had passed the entrance examinations and had been admitted to Union College when the call for troops by President Lincoln changed the young student's plans.  He gave up his scholastic career and engaged enthusiastically in recruiting for Company B, of the One Hundred and Fourteenth Regiment, New York Volunteers, then organizing in this village.  September 2, 1862, he was mustered into the United States service and commissioned second lieutenant.  he went with the regiment to the front and in November, 1863, was promoted to first lieutenant.  In the battle of Sabine Cross Roads, Louisiana, in April 1864, he was seriously wounded and a month later, in May, in an attack by guerillas upon the steamboat John Warner on the Red river he was wounded in both legs and taken prisoner.  After remaining a prisoner for two months he was sent to Camp Parole, at Annapolis, Md., and subsequently exchanged.  Being unable from his wounds to rejoin his regiment he was put on detached duty at Hart's Island, New York, where he remained until his discharge from duty at the end of the war.  Having a decided preference for military life he decided to follow it as a profession and in February, 1866, accepted a commission of second lieutenant in the regular army and was assigned to the Seventeenth Infantry.  In May, 1869, he was transferred to the Tenth Infantry, was promoted to first lieutenant and appointed adjutant of his regiment and served in that capacity for 10 years.  For a long time he was stationed at Fort McKarett, Texas, and was appointed by Gen. E.O.C. Ord to the highly responsible position of judge advocate of the department of Texas.  While in the discharge of the duties of judge advocate and when returning to Fort McKarett from a court martial at Fort Clark, the stage in which he was making the journey was upset.  In the accident his right leg was broken and amputation became necessary.  In 1883 he was promoted to a captaincy and two years later was retired.  Since 1895 he had been a resident of Norwich.  He is survived by four brothers:  Dwight T. Gibson of Waverly, Ia.; Dr. Kasson C. Gibson, of New York; Supt. S.J. Gibson, of this village, and Principal Charles S. Gibson, of Utica; and by two sisters, Mrs. Nettie Eccleston of Smyrna, and Mrs. Mattie B. Thompson, with whom he made his home at the time of his death.  He was a member of the military order of the Loyal Legion, Commandery of New York, and of W.W. Jackson Post, no. 489, G.A.R., of South New Berlin.  The funeral obsequies were largely attended Sunday afternoon from his late residence  Rev. W.D. Benton, rector of Emmanuel Church, and Rev. S.J. Ford, pastor of Calvary Baptist church, officiated. There was a profusion of choice flowers.  The casket was draped with the American flag.  A delegation from Smith Post, G.A.R., were in attendance. The pall bearers were members of the One Hundred and Fourteenth Regiment, most of them from Company B, which the deceased was instrumental in organizing. The remains were conveyed to Arlington, Va., where they were laid at rest Monday afternoon in the National Cemetery in a plot selected by Capt. Gibson about 10 years ago.  Two brothers, Dr. Kasson Gibson and Prof. Stanford G. Gibson, accompanied the remains.

Son of Laverne Smith

1890

A little son of Laverne Smith, aged 5 years, of the town of Oxford [Chenango Co., NY], was killed Monday by a hay rigging falling upon him.  He and other children were playing in the barn when the rigging fell over crushing his skull.

Birdsall Yale

1886

Last Sunday afternoon, Nov. 28, 1886, about four o'clock, Birdsall Yale, of Yaleville, town of Guilford [Chenango Co., NY], departed this life at the age 75 years.  The funeral was held on Tuesday at 11 o'clock a.m. at his late residence, the Rev. Mr. Wilbur, of Guilford, officiating.  The remains were interred in the Yaleville cemetery, at Yaleville, N.Y.  In the death of Mr. Yale, the community loses an active upright man, one who has borne life's toils manfully and honorably.

Charlotte Dunlap

Troy Daily Times, February 6, 1890

Miss Charlotte Dunlap, a highly-respected young woman of Susquehanna, Penn., who was connected with one of the best families of the place, committed suicide yesterday by taking strychnine.  It is said that her act resulted from a love affair.

 

Binghamton Republican, February 1890

The Troy Press in commenting editorially upon the suicide of Miss Charlotte Dunlap, of Susquehanna says:  "The motive which caused Miss Charlotte Dunlap of Susquehanna Pa., to commit suicide one day last week ought to be a serious subject for contemplation on the part of every parent blessed with a daughter.  She was twenty years of age, and took a fatal dose of poison rather than wed a young man strongly favored by her parents, but unloved by herself.  In fact her affection had been bestowed upon another who encountered paternal hostility.  She left a note requesting to be buried in her wedding dress, and she preferred death to marriage with a man she did not love. The marriage was to have taken place on Wednesday next.  If the parents look upon the tragedy as absolutely a suicide, free from every element of murder, it may not be amiss to add that their views are at least debatable.  Miss Dunlap was a heroine and a martyr. With the alternative of death and dishonor confronting her, she had the moral courage to die a woman true to herself, true to her lover.  A compulsory marriage of the character contemplated is prostitution.  It is idle to treat it as the law does in any other light.  It involves dishonor as well as sacrifice of happiness.  The legal quibbler may disagree with us, but in a moral sense prostitution is no less awful and abominable because it does not transgress law and custom. When Miss Dunlap placed the poison to her lips she demonstrated the integrity of her character and gave the highest proof of virtuous womanhood.  In a case of this kind the parents are not alone guilty.  There is a no more despizable wretch unhanged than he who will insist upon or permit himself to be married to a woman against her will.  Parentage does not imply slave ownership. This is a truth that has not been universally grasped. There are many daughters who are as much driven to the marriage altar as a slave was ever driven to the auction block.  Pains are taken to disguise the shameful compulsion, and the fair victims are not infrequently influenced to assume the veneering of smiles and satisfaction.  But they are slaves driven to the mart, none the less.  There are faded and unhappy wives who will read these liens, whose own experience is eloquent in proof of the statement.  It is unsafe to always assume that a girl marries of her own free will because violent hands are not laid upon her person, and she is not dragged to the altar by the hair of her head.  There is the very refinement of cruelty in the barbarism which finds covert expression in modern society."

 

Elmira Telegram, February 16, 1890

Susquehanna Pa.:  Much indignation was created in this community Wednesday by the appearance in the Binghamton Republican of an editorial article copied from the Troy Times, in which Miss Charlotte Dunlap, the unfortunate young lady who, while suffering from temporary aberration of mind, took her young life, is called a "heroine and martyr," while her respected parents and the worthy young man to whom she was betrothed, are treated to the coarsest billingsgate.  The article in  question is an outrageous one.  Since the unfortunate and deplorable event, which cast a shadow over the town, certain writers, whose pens should have been used for a nobler purpose, with an amazing and reckless disregard of the truth, and relying upon their fertile imaginations for their facts, have sent broadcast over the land the most slanderous, misleading, mischievous versions of this distressing affair imaginable.  The Troy Times editorial writer has undoubtedly come across one of these, else why does he sit in solemn judgment upon a case, which personally, he knows naught of?  The editorial does not fit the case in the least.  It is a foul libel, both upon the living and upon the dead.  To those who reside in Susquehanna, these lines are unnecessary, but there are hundreds of thousands of people scattered all over the land, who have ere their read the fool Troy calumny, and the majority of them, not knowing the facts, will accept this version, for the simple reason that it looks plausible, and because they do not know the facts.  From the outset we have known that there were some sensational features connected with the affair.  This was patent to all.  We did not thrust them before the public for the simple and very good reason that we respected the departed and mourned with the living.  We had no heart and no desire to give all the little bits of sensation in the case merely to satisfy the morbid taste of people whose hearts are in the wrong place, and who rejoice when others mourn.  Let us add right here that in all this there was not one thing discreditable either to the living or to the dead.  Today in all Susquehanna there cannot be found one person whose opinion is worth having and whose mind is not diseased, who has one word of censure or of reproach, either for Mr and Mrs. Dunlap or for Mr. LeBar. We know whereof we speak. If the Troy writer could spend a day in this borough and learn the facts in the case he would curse the day when he was caused to write his damning screed.  Of the pure girl who has gone to an untimely grave, we need not write one line in defense.  She needed none while living.  Her character was beyond reproach, and she went so to her grave mourned by all who knew her. Why she snapped the vital cord is known only to her and to her God.  It is not for the living to judge of her motives.  Her case will be judged by a more just judge.  With her life's fitful struggle is over.  All that was is not. She sleeps the sleep that knows no waking. Her peaceful slumbers in the bosom of mother earth will not be disturbed by the misjudgments of the living. She is at rest!  Our people since the last tributes of respect have been paid the dead, have in every way tried to forget the unfortunate affair, and to make the grief to the mourning ones less terrible, by deeds of loving kindness in every possible way. They have respected the sanctity of their grief.  The newspapers of the place have made little or no allusion to the affair.  Now come the human jackals and vultures upon the quiet scene, and rake up again the dreadful affair with unrighteous judgment, born of ignorance of the subject, and renew the heartaches and add to the crushing grief by calumny and shameful insinuations.  Out upon such detractors!  Such as spread these sentiments are but one grade better than those who originate them.  Happily, however, here at home the mourning ones will now receive more sympathy than ever.  They are of us and with us.  We know them. We honor them. Their grief is ours. They will be respected and remembered in kindness when censorious detractors are forgotten.

The Funeral

Susquehanna Pa:  Susquehanna was greatly saddened on Sunday afternoon, when Miss Charlotte Dunlap was placed beneath the sods of the hillside.  Long before the hour appointed for the funeral the house and grounds adjacent were thronged with sympathizing friends, who had come to pay the last tribute of respect. The body rested in a beautiful white casket, emblematical of the purity of the character of the deceased.  There were several very fine floral tributes.  Rev. B.H. Abbott, of Carbondale, pastor of the Episcopal church in this place, officiated, and a quartette, consisting of Messrs. Cook and Howe and Misses Tingley and Cook, rendered several selections.  The following young gentleman acted as pall bearers:  John McDonald,  Hugo Spearls, Charles Ottinger, William H. French, Jr., Harry Dougherty, and David Mason.  The funeral cortege wended its way to the Evergreen cemetery, where the burial service for the dead was read, and all that remained of a bright, pure, lovable girl was shut out from earthly view.  Green be her memory forever.