PLUMER MITCHELL.
J. Plumer Mitchell—we called him “Plum”—worked for me on the Independent Press at Franklin in 1879-80. Everybody liked the bright, genial, capable young man who set type, read proof, wrote locals, solicited advertisements and won golden opinions. He married and was the proud father of two winsome children. Meeting me on the street one day shortly after quitting the Press, we chatted briefly.
“I am through with sticking type,” he said.
“What are you driving at now?”
“Torpedoing wells. I started on Monday.”
“Well, be sure you get good pay, for it’s risky business, and don’t furnish a thrilling paragraph for the obituary-column.”
“I shall do my best to steer clear of that. Good-bye.”
That was our last meeting. He met the fate that overtook West, Taylor and Harper, shooting a well at Galloway. The shattered frame rests in the cemetery and the widow and fatherless daughters of the lamented dead reside at Franklin. Poor “Plum!”
T. A. McClain, an employé of the Roberts Company, was hauling two-hundred quarts of glycerine in a sleigh from Davis Switch to Kinzua Junction, on February fourteenth, 1881. The horses frightened and ran off. The sleigh is supposed to have struck a stump and the cargo exploded. Hardly a trace of McClain could be found and a bit of the steel-shoeing was the only part of the sleigh recovered. Obliteration more complete it would be difficult to imagine.