Young Man Said to Have Been Victim of a Joy Ride…

The Alexandria Gazette was a succession of newspapers based in Alexandria, Virginia, USA. The newspaper was established on February 5, 1784 by George Richard & Company as the Virginia Journal.  A publication in the Alexandria Gazette on May 17, 1915 stated:

“Crushed By Auto – Young Man Said to Have Been Victim of a Joy Ride…

Wilmington, Del., May 17 – Edward Scott, aged 21, stableman on the country estate of Henry B. Thompson at Greenville, died yesterday as the result of injuries sustained yesterday afternoon when an automobile he was driving turned over and rolled into Red Clay Creek below Ashland.  Charles Peoples, aged 26, gardener on the Thompson estate, who was with Scott, is at his home suffering with serious injuries to the chest and head.

The young men are said to have taken their employer’s automobile in the absence of the family.  They were speeding down the hill below Ashland and when they failed to slow up at the turn near the bridge spanning the creek the machine upset.  They managed to extricate themselves from the wreckage and crawl to the shore of the creek, where Edward Clark, of Wilmington, who was passing in another automobile, found them and brought them to their homes.  Scott had several broken ribs which punctured the lungs and he died yesterday morning.”

Edward was born on 18 Nov 1893 at Ballycollin, Derriaghy, Co. Antrim; Mary J. Straton was present at his birth.  He was one of eleven children born to Richard J. Scott and Sarah Crowe.  He was the 2^nd child and first son born to the couple who resided at Lagmore, Derriaghy.  Records from Christ Church Derriaghy revealed he was baptized on 14 Jan 1894 – a Church that many of my Scott family attended, where they were baptized and married.  Many of my Scott’s, and connected families, are also interred in the Church Yard.  Edward is my 2^nd cousin 2x removed.

The 1901 Census of Ireland shows Edward, a scholar, and his family residing at 2 Lagmore, “Derraghy’.  By the time the 1911 Census was taken they were living in 18 Lagmore and Edward, now seventeen, was farming with his father.

The S.S. Merion’s Ships Manifest was the next record I unearthed – dated 10 Apr 1913 the manifest showed Edward of “Legmore“ traveling with David McCourt of White Mountain and William Crowe of “Legmore” – Edward was traveling with his cousins.  The young men left Liverpool, England and after a thirteen day voyage across the Atlantic arrived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA on 23 Apr 1913.

Two short years after his arrival in Philadelphia, a Death Certificate issued by The State of Delaware Bureau of Vital Statistics, dated 17 May 1915, recorded that Edward Scott of Greenville, Delaware and formerly of Ireland had died in an “automobile accident” and an “inquest was pending”.  The record confirmed that he was in the employ of H.B. Thompson and the son of Richard Scott of Ireland.

Edward is interred at the Silverbrook Cemetery in Wilmington, Delware and is memorialized on the family burial ground at the Christ Church Derriaghy.

“Erected by Richard Scott

Legmore

In memory of his son

Edward who died on the 17^th May 1915

As the result of an accident

And was interred

In Silverbrook Cemetery, USA.”

Sadly, his death date inscribed on the headstone is incorrect.

In the summer of 2014 while photographing and documenting the graves at Christ Church Derriaghy – I did not realize that Edward was one of “mine”.  He has connected me to another Twisted Limb in my ever expanding family tree.

‘Tread softly because you tread on my dreams’.  W.B. Yeats