Rallston - Glenn
Source: Waveland Independent Waveland, Montgomery County, Indiana Sept. 8, 1899
The unloaded gun got in its deadly work at Yountsville, Tuesday. Glenn Rallston of Crawfordsville, 17 years old, was boat riding with a couple of companions and in a bantering spirit one of them threatened to shoot Ralston (sic), pointed the gun at him and pulled the trigger. The weapon, a 22 calibre rifle, proved to be loaded, and the ball took effect in Ralston's bowels. He died on Wednesday. Rev. LF Galey preached the funeral at Crawfordsville yesterday. kbz
Source: Crawfordsville Weekly Journal Friday, 8 September 1899
A post mortem examination of the body of Glenn Ralston failed to locate the ball that caused his death. The ball passed through the liver and large intestine, however, and presumable lodged in the vertebrae.
Source: Crawfordsville Weekly Journal Friday, 8 September 1899
Glenn Ralston, of 902 West Street, who manages the Yountsville Park, was badly shot last Tuesday while boating on the dam there. He was in a boat with a son of John Warner and John Sidener and one of the party carried a gun. In some way this was discharged, the charge passing through the bowels of young Ralston. Dr. Engleman was summoned at once and after telephoning to Dr. Ensminger to meet him at the boy’s home he started to Crawfordsville with the young man. The shooting was entirely accidental and no blame attaches to John Sidener, who had picked up the rifle, which was a repeater, and had worked the mechanism several times and no cartridges fell out so he supposed all the shells had been extracted and when the Ralston boy and Bert Warner, the other boy in the boat, threatened to splash water on Sidener he said if they did he would shoot them, and unknowing he kept his word.
Wednesday about 8 o’clock, Glenn W. Ralston died at the home of his parents, Mr. and Mrs. William Ralston, of 902 Sloan Street. He was the young man who was accidentally shot Tuesday by Johnny Sidener while boating on the Yountsville dam. When Dr. Engleman brought him to his home here Tuesday afternoon it was hardly thought that he was mortally wounded, but after Drs. Engleman and Ensminger had made an examination, it was seen that the boy stood small show of recovery. The ball, a twenty two caliber, had been fired from a hard shooting repeater and had entered the abdomen at a bad point. The ball never passed out of the body and the victim bled inwardly from the first. It was quickly ascertained that the bowels had been punctured and all night long the boy grew weaker. He suffered considerable pain and finally died at the hour stated. The funeral took place at the Salem Church near Attica.
Glenn Ralston was seventeen years and nine months old and was a boy popular with all his young companions. Johnny Sidener, who did the shooting, is a son of Willam Sidener, and is prostrated by the result of his act. All the boys had been snapping the gun and none of them dreamed of it being loaded.