A Couple of Stumbling Accidents

Occurring on Sunday, April 1, 1888, as reported in the next day's Cincinnati Times-Star newspaper:

    "As the excursion train on the C. L. & N. R. R. passed through Ivanhoe yesterday morning, northbound, John Brown attempted to get off while the train was running at full speed. He jumped on the platform but did not let go the iron rail, and losing his balance was dragged about 100 feet. There were no bones broken, but the man got a terrible shaking up."

The Ivanhoe Station was located in the rear lot of today's UDF Plant.

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On Monday, April 2, 1888, as reported in The Cincinnati Times-Star:

    "The only out of the way feature of the election being held in the Norwood Precinct to-day was the accident that befell Acting Executive W. G. Betty on his way to the polls with the ballot box on his shoulder. When he reached a nice place where the soft mud, caused by the late rains, was holding a convention he tripped and pitched headlong into the clay, with the box following a close second. The only damage done was to the sidewalk, and it is covered with particles of cuticle scraped from divers portions of the aforesaid Executive's anatomy."

Mr. Betty, a Republican-Presbyterian-East Norwood resident, was later the co-author of the 1894 book "NORWOOD, HER HOMES AND HER PEOPLE," for which he and Ren Mulford, Jr., were appointed by council as the village's official historians. At the time of the accident the sidewalks were wooden and the streets were dirt, unless it had rained and then they were mud, as Mr. Betty confirmed this day!