AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY, PRINCETON, NJ - 1850-1899

1883 Deaths

Princeton Press, Sat., Apr. 21, 1883:

    Emeline Jackson, a middle-aged colored woman, who had been for some time in the service of Dr. Wikoff's family, left the house on Tuesday evening of last week, saying she would be back soon. She bore a very good character and her disappearance was a complete mystery, until this morning, when a propeller brought her body to the surface of the canal, some two hundred feet east of the bridge by the college boat house. It is believed that she committed suicide. The coroner has been summoned.
  Princeton Press, Sat., Sep. 15, 1883:

    A colored man, named Brady, from the South, but latterly a resident of Princeton, attempted last Saturday evening, to board a train in motion at the Junction, but missed his hold, and falling under the cars was run over, and so injured that he died on Sunday. Some money was found in his trunk, and is now in the hands of Overseer Dey, awaiting claimants.


Princeton Press, Sat., Dec. 1, 1883:

    Nancy Jackson, an aged colored woman, who has been for years a servant in Mrs. Sarah A. Brown's family, died this morning.
Princeton Press, Sat., Dec. 29, 1883:

    Two colored men of Princeton have died this week. Abram Van Trump, some sixty years of age, died on Christmas evening, from heart disease, after an illness of only five minutes. Joseph Valentine, about thirty years old, and head waiter at the Ivy club, died in New York, in convulsions, on Wednesday night. In the afternoon, he said he was taking medicine, and what appeared to be quinine pills were found in his pocket. It is said that Van Trump and Valentine ate a Christmas dinner together on Tuesday.


Princeton Press, Sat., Dec. 29, 1883:

    Rachel Stryker, an aged colored woman, well and favorably known in town, met with a serious and tragic accident, on Friday of last week, which has resulted in her death from mortification of the broken limb, on Sunday morning. She had gone out to Lawrenceville, to the house of Mr. Lewis Hendrickson, to work there for the winter. It appears that in an outer kitchen, there was a well covered over by the floor. While, with two others, by a table, engaged in chopping meat, without the slightest warning, the floor suddenly broke under her, and she fell through in an instant, near forty feet down the well. There was a cucumber pump therein, and she was stayed by its braces from being drowned.


There being no men about at the time, it was nearly an hour before she could be rescued. She had been in the water to the depth of three feet all this time. When taken out it was found that one of her legs was bady [sic] broken near the ankle. She was a woman of nearly 200 lbs. weight. The unusual weight and the jarring motion caused the floor, which was a comparatively new one, but had become, unknown to any one, rotten, to give way. Everything was done to minister to her relief medically; and Dr. Gosman and Rev. Mr. Robeson went to minister otherwise. She was buried in town on Monday afternoon.

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