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SHOOTS HIMSELF
SAMUEL DOAN COMMITS SUICIDE IN BUFFALO
[Welland Tribune, 29 November 1895]
The Buffalo News gives the following account of the suicide of Samuel Doan, son of the late Alex. Doan of Welland, in that city last Sunday night. The mother of deceased, since late Mr. Doan’s death married Ambrose Ellsworth, and now lives in one of the centennial houses in the town of Welland.
“Samuel Doan (the Buffalo papers have the name Dold, but that is a mistake), a Canadian, 19 years old, shot himself in the neck at the home of his employer, Frank A. Hughson, at 568 Northampton street, inflicting injuries from which he died at 10.25 o’clock last night. The deed was prompted by despondency caused by excessive drinking.
Hughson keeps a news stand at 133 Broadway, and it has been part of the boy’s work to deliver papers each Sunday morning with a horse and wagon. He went out yesterday as usual and when he returned last evening he was drunk. He left the horse standing in front of the house, unblanketed, and when Mrs. Hughson ventured a remonstrance he told her to mind her business, in a surly tone, and made his way up stairs to his room.
In a few minutes the crash of breaking glass was heard and a servant girl, who went to see what the matter was, returned and told Mrs. Hughson that Doan was smashing the mirror and toilet set in his room. Mr. Hughson was away from home and the women decided to await his return and let him handle the drunken boy; but soon they heard the report of a revolver and on going to the room young Doan was found lying on the floor with a bullet hole in his neck and a revolver with one chamber empty on the floor beside him.
A passing policeman was called in and he summoned the Fitch ambulance. An examination at the hospital showed that the wound was necessarily fatal. The bullet had severed some of the small arteries of the throat, grazed the spinal cord and lodged in one of the vertebrae.
Paralysis soon developed and Coroner Kenney had much difficulty in obtaining an ante-mortem statement. The boy said he had shot himself merely because he was tired of living. Doan came to Buffalo two years ago from Welland, Ont., where his parents live. The remains will probably be taken there for burial.”
Died: 23 November 1895
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