I found the articles about William Heath very interesting, however this is not our William A. Heath. Our William A. Heath died Oct 25, 1903 of natural causes in Brookland/Ulysses.
The suicide/murder of this other William Heath took place in Vermont in 1910. William Heath, son of William & Jane and brother of George, Jim & Kate died sometime between 1903-1910.
The story that passed down to us was that he drowned. I have no details of when he drowned or where he drowned. I will see if the state of PA has a death certificate on file for him. I don't think this William Heath is the same but it would be worth looking into. If he died around Sept 1910 then he will be listed in the Vermont-June 1910 Census. I will see if the age, birthplace and parents' birthplace matches to our family.
Does Georgie or anyone from your family know how Jane Shay Heath died in 1898? There is no death certificate or death notice on record at Potter Co or the State of PA. We may only know the answers about this through surviving grandchildren. The death could just as easily have been cancer or tuberculosis. I'll look into this and see what I find.
********************************************************************I was thinking that it could be (with a big Could be) the younger William -- but it most likely isn't...I just found it odd to be listed in the PA newspapers. I have been querying Heath/death/drowning but have yet to get any hits for the younger William.
At first I ignored the articles -- but then I was thinking that it could be a remote possibility-if you look at the Crandalls many are located in the New England area - I then speculated it could be a possibility that Wm might have been in VT due to the connections there with a Crandall or so.
I just find it odd too - that our family has always heard that Thomas's death wasn't suicide but murder - being it is "difficult to shoot yourself in the back" -- Was this a case of mistaken family lore.... -- the newspaper article on Thomas indicated he was shot in the head -- questions and more questions.
I'll run some more queries on Shay in the newspaper database and see what I come up with. I actually broke down and paid for a month's subscription to a national newspaper database.
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After reading a few more articles - this can't be our William Heath.
BTW - do you know who Mary L. James is --- she is listed as a housekeeper on the census with Wm, and his children. It looks as if she had 2 small children as well.
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