J. Frank Allen
Born: January 1st, 1970
Died: January 20th, 1889
Obituary
Sunday evening a rumor was current to the effect that J. Frank Allen, a cigarmaker, had been accidentally killed while our target shooting. Further inquiry proved the rumor to be too true. About three o'clock Sunday afternoon Mr. Allen, Frank A. Foote, clerk at C.P. Squires' wholesale drug house, and William Meyer, a carpenter at the B & N.W. shops, were shooting at a target in the back yard of Mr. Allen's residence at 1215 North Sixth street, The target was a tin can placed against the barn, about forty feet away from the marksmen, and at the time, Mr. Allen was acting as target keeper. He had reset the can and stepped back about five feet when Meyer fired and the target dropped over and rolled off the block on which it was set. Foote was standing a little to one side and back of Meyer, ready to shoot next.
As the can fell off the block, Mr. Allen also fell in the snow. he was picked up insensible and carried into the house, where he expired in about ten minutes. Medical aid was summoned, but assistance ws of no avail. he was unconscious from the istant he was shot until death. The ball from the rifle, a 22-calibre, struck Mr. Allen behind the right ear and lodged in the back of the neck.
Both Mr. Meyer and Mr. Foote were fast friends of Mr. Allen and spent many hours together in target practice, and this purely accidental and sorrowful affair has caused these two gentlemen to become almost frantic with grief.
J. Frank Allen was fifty-three years of age, and a cigarmaker. Having lived in Burlington the past thirty-two years he was well known and had many friends. He was a member, in good standing, of the Cigarmakers International union and the funeral services will be conducted tomorrow at 2 p.m. in accordance with the rites of that body.
A wife and three daughters, the youngest about fourteen, are left to mourn his loss.
At the request of Mr. Meyer, a coroner's inquest was held yesterday afternoon. A jury consisting of J.C. Koonz, J.M. Parham, and Chas. Sponholtz, was empanelled by Coroner Unterkircher. The evidence was given and a verdict rendered to effect that J. Frank Allen came to his death by the accidenta discharge of a gun in the hands of an unknown party, supposed to have been William meyer or Frank Foote.