The New Daily Telegraph (Bluefield, West Virginia)
Monday, January 20, 1896
The Miraculous Experience of Young Grier
He Barely Escapes Death in the Yards on His Way to the Shops for Employment
A young man by the name of Grier, enroute to the machine shops in search of employment
yesterday morning, met with what might have been his death under the trucks of a freight train., which was motionless
when he tried to make his way under it, but started off ere he was clear, and two trucks passed over his legs.
He was taken up by the horrified witnesses to the affair and removed to his boarding house, where, upon examination
of the physician, it was discovered that not a bone was broken. The flesh was quite badly torn. His wounds
were dressed and he reported as doing well and not much the worse off from his experience, which in most cases
would have resulted in loss of both limbs and perhaps death.
The New Daily Telegraph (Bluefield, West Virginia)
Tuesday, January 21, 1896
WANTED TO LYNCH HIM
Another Assault Upon a Child Creates Great Excitement in Parkersburg,
Parkersburg, W. Va., Jan. 20 - Another terrible excitement was caused here today when it became known that another attempt to assault a child had been made and that the assailant had been arrested and was in jail. Last night Charles, commonly known as "Chuck" Russel, was arrested by Policeman Carter, charged with attempting to outrage an 8-year-old girl, the daughter of Russel's wife by a former marriage. In the excited state of feeling over the Wetherill affair, the officers thought it was best, to hurry Russel into jail before the story of the assault became known for fear he would be lynched. The story was kept until this morning, when the street in the vicinity of the jail and in front of the justice's office was croweded with excited people. When the prisoner was brought out curses and threats were hurled at him, and it only needed one commanding word to have caused his lynching.
When the trail opened up and the child told her story, in which she said that Russell
had knocked her down with a club, the excitement became so intense that the prisoner was hurridly hustled out of
the room and back to jail before the preliminary trial was concluded. Perhaps the only thing that saved Russell
from lynching was the report that the assailant of Miss Wetherill had been captured and that officers were bringning
him back to the city.
Death Announcements
MIKEL, William, b. West Virginia, 1813, married
Catharine Warner; died McLean County, Ill. Oct. 15, 1879.
Children: Mrs. Elizabeth Leech, Silvanus Mikel, Mrs. Margaret Kendall, John Mikel, Mrs. Nancy Davis, Mrs. Kate
Martin, Susan Mikel, Mrs. Mary Hatfield, Andrew J. Mikel, Jacob W. Mikel, Mrs. Sallie Marteeny, William Mikel Jr.,
Joseph Mikel. [Compiled from old newspapers by Milo Custer in 1912 -
Submitted by Teri Colglazier]