Miami Union

February 25, 1871 

BROOKS, DAUGHTER OF MARTIN - On Tuesday last, a young daughter, aged about 15 years, of Mr. Martin Brooks, residing some four miles south-west of this place, met with a shocking and almost instant death.  The circumstances, as we learn, were about these: Some male members of the family were engaged in sugar-making on the farm a short distance from the house--the daughter being also out with them.  Near where the boiling apparatus was located stood the dead stump of a tree twenty-five or thirty feet in height.  A brother of the girl had split off a lot of kindlings from the side of the stump, and had taken an armful to the furnace near by.  The girl went to it for the same purpose, when, strangely, the stump broke off several feet from the ground, and commenced falling.  Some of the party saw her danger and called to her to run, but unfortunately she ran the wrong way, and was struck by the falling portion on the back of the head and neck with such force as to cause death in a few minutes.  The occurrence is one of the most painful and shocking ones that has ever happened in this vicinity, and Mr. Brooks and his family have the sympathies of the whole community.

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