Fairfield Gazette
May 27, 1858

On Tuesday last Francis Smith, a young man about 18 years of age, in the employment of L. Jay S. Turney, Esq., half a mile south of Fairfield, in attempting to get over a fence with some chairs in his hands, tripped, and dropping the chairs fell on one of the chair posts running the rounded end of the post into his thigh. The puncture was upon the inside of the thigh, near to the body, and the nob upon striking the bone broke off. So high up had it passed that it was 24 hours before the wood could be extracted. The nob was 2 inches in length and and one inch in diameter. Every attention was paid him by Mr. Turney and family, and all that science and skill could suggest was brought to his aid.----Doctors J. J. R. Turney, Cope & Cooper, were in constant attendance, but of no avail, mortification set in and he expired on Tuesday last. "Verily in the midst of life we are in death."

He was a young man, a stranger among us, and without any connexion in the state. He has a mother we understand living in Ohio. His remains were taken charge of by the Sons of Temperance of Fairfield; of which order he was a member, and committed to the grave.