Miller, Charles - 1891
Source, Wednesday, 13 May 1891
Monday evening a terrible catastrophe occurred near Round Hill, a few miles north of this city, in which Charley Miller, aged five years, lost his life. The boy is the son of James Miller and wife, and on Monday evening went out to the barn to hunt hen’s nests. The granary is an elevated one and the door is a sliding one which runs up and down in grooves. The door happened to be raised a couple of feet and the little fellow pushing up a box reached up to the door and sticking his head through the crack under the door reached in after a sheaf of wheat. In some way the door fell striking him on the neck and pinned down to the floor of the bin. In his struggles to free himself, he kicked the box out from under him and swung dangling in the air. In his efforts to gain a footing, he skinned his knees in a horrible manner, but finally becoming weaker, ceased to struggle and hung there until he choked to death in a most horrible manner.
He had been gone nearly two hours when his mother, becoming anxious, went to the barn in search of him. She found the dead body of her little boy hanging downward from the granary door. She released it in frantic haste and rushing wildly to the house summoned help, but the boy had long been dead. The mother was nearly crazed with grief and inconsolable. The funeral occurred today with a large number of the family’s friends attending. James Miller is a farmer and he and his wife had several children, but little Charley was their favorite and was a child of more than ordinary promise. - s