FARMINGTON TIMES, Farmington, St. Francois County, Missouri, Friday, May 19, 1905 TWENTY YEARS AGO THIS WEEK IN ST. FRANCOIS COUNTY [1885] Owen Murray was thrown from his buggy while on his way home from town and received a very severe scalp wound. There was a surplus of over $16,000 in the county treasury and the county court had reduced the taxes for county revenue purposes from forty cents to twenty cents on the $100 valuation. This money was subsequently used to build the present court house. Sheriff Seabaugh of Bollinger county brought a man named Thos. Killian here under charge of murder for safe keeping in the Farmington jail. A four-legged chicken was hatched on George Harris' farm near Hazel Run. A. Keelan and Henry Shafer were in town with a young wolf which they captured in a den on Stono. J. C. Alexander sent his famous race horses, Fanchette, Fred Rice and Bob Wesley to St. Louis to compete in the June races. Two little sons of Alex Nance near Big River Mills were thrown from a wagon by the team running away, and one had one of his legs broken in two places and the other had an arm broken. W. T. Smith of Libertyville died in a peculiar way. He made a fire in a new cistern to dry it out. The day following he descended into the cistern to make an examination and shortly after came out and complained of feeling ill. The fresh air reviving him he descended again and while coming out the second time fell back from the top, and when taken out was dead. It is supposed death was caused by carbonic acid generated in the cistern by fire. There was a social gathering at Squire H. C. Rudy's among whom were Misses Champ, Emma Eisenberg, Mollie Dalton, Iva Quick, Lucy Perkins, Etta Quick, Kate Morgan, Hattie Montag, Mamie Eisenberg, Becca Jacobson, Etta Mitchell, Mamie Leathers, Jennie and Nettie Rudy, and Messrs. I. M. Perkins, John Clay, Peers Taylor, Lee Cunningham, Harry Jacobson, Robert Young, C. J. Adams, J. K. Locke, Lon Davis, John Koen [As I came to the end of this article, I discovered the last line was cut off from the photo-copy. :( Decided to post it anyway, as the previous items are complete and interesting. Will re-copy this article and a complete version of the article will appear on the St. Francois Co. Web site. MR]