This Day in History: 1900-07-14
Mrs. John Meyer died of a pistol shot wound, possibly accidental, at her home in Darlington. Very little information has been released by the family or through the inquest. Dr. Zabriskie, the family physician, said that she has not been sick. He was summoned to the house to find her lying on the floor of her bedroom in great pain with a bullet just below her heart. Since the bullet lodged in her intestine there was little that he, Dr. Cleveland at the Havermeyer Estate, and a specialist from New York City, Dr. Markoe, could do. She died the next day. Father Meredith of Suffern administered the last rites of the Catholic Church. At the inquest a servant testified that she was looking at Mrs. Mayer when the shot rang out and did not even see the pistol until after Mrs. Mayer had fallen. The inquest, conducted by Dr. Vroom of Ridgewood, concluded that she had died of “injury received from the discharge of a pistol while she was handling the same”. She leaves four young children, one only six months old. A funeral mass was said and the body conveyed for burial in the Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn. A special train carried the many mourners from New York to and from Mahwah. (Bristow)