A Team of Fine Horses

I love finding little clips like this one in old newspapers.  They add color to the lives of my ancestors.  Henry Meinzen is my great-grandfather.  This article was published in the August 26, 1901, edition of the East Liverpool Evening News Review.

A team of fine horses belonging to Henry Meinzen ran off at Steubenville Saturday and caused great excitement.  The  driver  jumped from the wagon and escaped injury.  The horses ran at great speed for several blocks when one of them fell.  It was so badly hurt it had to be shot.

Always the questions.
How did this news reach East Liverpool but was not published in Steubenville newspapers (at least as far as my searches show)?

What caused the horses to run off?  Was the driver inattentive for a moment?  Had something frightened them?  How sad that one of them had to be put down -- sad for the horse and sad for Henry who would have had to replace the horse.

Was Henry the driver or someone else?  Henry would have been 64 in 1901.  If he was the one who jumped and was uninjured he was certainly more agile than I am!

Why take a team of horses into the city unless they were pulling a wagon rather than a cart or buggy?  Or perhaps it was a large and/or heavy carriage.  There were still 10 children living at home in 1900.   If a wagon, what was on the wagon?  In 1900 Henry was living in New Alexandria, a neighboring town to Steubenville, and was working as a gardener.  Had he brought fresh produce to town to sell?

I'll never have answers to these questions but nonetheless, they come to my mind.

--Nancy.

Copyright ©2017 Nancy Messier. All Rights Reserved.
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