Edward Griswold
1814-Dec. 4, 1892
Niles Republican, Thursday, December 8, 1892, page 2, col. 4, microfilm Niles District Library
SUDDEN DEATH
OF ONE OF THE OLDEST RESIDENTS OF NILES
Edward Griswold Found Dead in a Wood-Shed, Heart Failure the Cause of His Death.
From Thursday's Sun.
Shortly before 10 o'clock this morning, G.W. Boone, a painter working at the residence of F.S. Retan, on Fourth street, went out back of the house and discovered an old gray haired man lying face downward on a pile of kindling in the woodshed. Approaching the man he found it to be Edward Griswold.
A hasty examination satisfied Mr. Boone that life was extinct and he immediately came down town and notified Coroner Barron and a few others who hurried to the spot where the old man lay, as was stated above, on a pile of kindling on his face, his right arm under him with his friendly old pipe still in his hand; the left arm was wedged down by his side against a post which supported the shed roof; his hat lay to the right of him less than two feet away.
As soon as a place at his home was prepared his body was carried into the . . .[illegible] . .
hours before apparently as well as usual. He asked Mrs. J.E. French about 8 o'clock for the kindling wood they had left under the shed and she gave it to him. He notified his folks at home of this fact and said he was going to carry it over into his yard. He had carried two or three loads before his death, which is supposed to have resulted from heart failure. There was no sign of any struggle and to all appearances he had attempted to grasp the post for support, when everything before him turned black. He fell with his face on the kindling, but fortunately missed the many nails that were sticking up, and his face was not bruised in the least.
It is remembered by old settlers that Mr. G's father was a bee hunter, and was found dead on one of these tours. He died of heart disease, and this, his last son, so says the physician, met death the same way.
A coronor's jury was called at 2 o'clock this afternoon, and after a very short deliberation gave the verdict to Justice Barron that "Edward Griswold met death by heart disease."
Mr. Griswold is the last of a family of five boys and two girls who came here with their father, Eber, in 1829, and in his early days he had become accustomed to speaking Indian dialects.