CHAUNCEY M. COUTANT -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Source: Crawfordsville Sunday Star 23 Jan 1899 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chauncey M. Coutant shot and killed himself at his home on South Water Street on Monday evening at 6 o'clock with a 34-calibre revolver, the bullet entering his temple. He was suffering from an attack of profound melancholia brought on by the grip from which he had been suffering for several days. He came back on Monday morning from a trip on the road for the Dove-Tail Carriage Company, a sick and despondent man. He walked downtown in the afternoon and bought a revolver at the Tinsley Hardware Store saying that he had been greatly annoyed by cats and wanted to kill them. He was laying down on the bed when his wife went into the kitchen to prepare a cup of hot coffee for him when he called out that he was going blind, that remark being followed by a revolver crash. When the wife ran to the bedside there was a gaping hole in his right temple and the poor man was unconscious and though lingering for two hours he never regained consciousness. He had been on the road a week for the company making certain trips that he always looked after and only came back on account of illness. His shocking death was a blow to the whole community. He was a man known and respected by all. He was genial and manly, industrious and honorable in all his dealings. He was one of the inventors of the principle involved in the dove tail manner of fashioning buggy beds and to that enterprise he lent all the energy and ability of which he was master by virtue of being a skilled mechanic, having learned the trade of carriage building in his early youth. He was born in Ulster County, NY in 1836. In 1861 he was married to the wife who survives him. Three of the children that were born to them are living, Mary, Ollie and Helen. They lived in a pretty home of their own where the father died. Mr. Coutant served the people faithfully in the city council one term. He was the manager of the Dovetail Carriage Manufacturing Company as stated above. His son Ollie has a responsible position in the factory. His funeral occurred Wednesday afternoon from the old home and was very large attended. Note: His wife was the former Isabella Groff who passed in July 1916. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- File Created: 23 July 2010