A Sad Suicide
March 17, 1893
Jacob Hiles despondent over family troubles and after bidding his wife and children goodbye, went to hs bedroom and shot himself--An inquest being held this afternoon--A wife and eight children survive him.
Jacob Hiles lies dead at his home in the old stone house at Mt. Braddock with a bullet hole through his brain.
Shortly after 7 o'clock Hiles went to his bedroom on the second floor of his house and there fired a bullet into his head. His family and neighbors found him dead a few minutes later.
A Standard reporter visited the scene of the scene of the suicide this morning and heard the story of the shooting and the incidents leading up to it from the family and neighbors.
Gibson Gilmore, who lives next door to the Hiles, says that shortly after 7 o'clock this morning he was awakened by his family, who told him Mrs. Hiles wanted him to come at once as Jake had shot himself. Gilmore told them he thought Hiles had just shot to scare them. Gilmore went over at once and went to the room where the shot had been heard. There he found Hiles lying on the floor on his side and his face batherd in a pool of his own blood. As examination showed that the man was dead. Close beside lay a large calibre revolver, the barrel still smoking from the recent discharge. The blood was still streaming from two holes in the head, either of which was large enough to admit two fingers. The desperate man had evidently been sitting on a small box when he fired the fatal shot and then rolled off on the floor. The revolver had been helf against the right temple and the ball had taken an upward course and passed out on the left side of the head some distance above the ear. The body was not moved but left just as found until the coroner shall arrive and hold an inquest.
The story of the wife of the dead man is that Jake came home this morning and after kissing all the children goodbye and shaking hands with his wife started up the stairs telling his wife to tell his son Andy to come up. In a very few moments the shot was heard and the body was found as detailed above.
THE CAUSE
There seems to be no doubt that the cause of the rash act was family trouble. About a month ago Hiles and his boys, Henry, a grown man, and Andy, still living at home, got into some trouble. Henry knocked his father down and the father the prosecuted them before Justice Duncan of Dunbar. The case was finally settled by the boys paying the costs. Since the trouble Hiles hsa been despondent claiming his wife sided with the boys and that the children and their mother had said they wished he would go away and stay away. Gibson Gilmore says that some weeks ago, since the trouble Hiles told him that he didn't care about living and had a notion to commit suicide. Gilmore said he laughed at him and thought there was no danger. Since the trouble with the boys Hiles has been staying with his brother George in Dunbar, who is a policemen there. Hiles was at his brother's house until Thursday forenoon whe he left saying he wsa going to Leisenring No. 3. Before leaving the house he went up stairs and got a big 49 calibre bulldog revolver. His little niece went up stairs a few minutes after he had gone and noticed that the revolver was gone and told her father.
A reporter also saw Constable George Hiles in town this morning and talker with him about his brother's deeed. He said "I don't know whatever made him do such a thing. He seemed in good enough spirits yesterday, although I know he was worried over the way his family treated him. I think Jake was about 40 years old."
Coroner J.A. Batton is out of town, but his deputy here went down at 2:35 o'clock to hold an inquest.
Deceased leaves a wife and family of eight children, half of them grown and the rest small. The scene at the house was a most pitiful one. They felt that they ought in some way have prevented Hiles from his act but all were afraid to interfere and there was no time to call the neighbors. This is the first suicide ever known to occur in Mt. Braddock and nearly the entire population of the town turned out this morning to view the principal actor and the scene of the tragedy.
Hiles had been living at Mt. Braddock for several months and when he worked he drew coke and did other work about the coke works. For some days before the shooting Hiles had been drinking, although he did drink at times. Several persons who saw him in Dunbar yesterday say that he was walking about whistling and seemed all right.
Evening Standard 3-17-1893
The funeral of Jacob Hiles, the Mt. Braddock suicide, will take place tomorrow at 10 o'clock. Burial in Franklin Cemetary.