Josiah P. Wilder drops dead
1873 Newsclipping
1873 News - A death and broken leg
NEW IPSWICH. - Our New Ipswich correspondent sends us the following, under date of Jan. 27th: "Mr. Josiah P. Wilder, while driving from his home to the centre village, on Thursday last, his horse commenced to run and threw him from the sleigh. He picked up his robe, and walked nearly half a mile, and while saying he was not hurt, but thought he could take care of himself, instantly dropped dead. He was 71 years old--a worthy man and formerly well known as a manufacturer of chairs." "Boys will be boys!!" In a friendly wrestle between George Sherwin and Sam Chaberno, on Saturday last, in Greenville, in the first round, Sherwin won the first fall; in the second, a broken leg.
Chair Factory
I wanted to include a photo of a Wilder chair but couldn’t locate any. This is a chair factory, but I suspect it might be the one that Charles Taylor owned. If you can help with any information, please leave a comment.
James Roger diary entry
September 15th 1908 (Tuesday)
Fair and cold frosty morning, wind E. to SW. David and Henry fixing Webber lot till noon. David raked together and brought in scatterings from the top field behind Jim Davis. (Somebody has tried to spoil the grass on Weston lot in Cemetery). I noticed it about 10 days ago. I turned clover in little field in forenoon and cleared the shingles off Gordon’s grass in the afternoon. Got letter from May last night.
Wonderful report of an untimely death and would like to have heard more from the correspondent about the unfortunate wrestling match. Yet another nice old photo. And why would someone need to cause problems in the cemetery? Isn’t there already enough trouble in this life?
There were 3 generations of J P Wilders, all of them made chairs. They were beautiful, delicate looking chairs and rockers, long spindly backs, some with artwork painted on them. My uncle Ollie repaired a number of them. On falling and dying, I sympathize with Josiah, although I avoided dying. Chances are he tore a blood vessel. I tore my renal artery. My wife, a former ER nurse, drove me to the ER while I kept saying it was unnecessary. I almost was dead wrong.