The Supper That Nearly Killed J. R. Schnebley
A Garfield County farmer came close to dying before he took the hint. Now his wife and a neighbor are in the Pomeroy jail, charged with feeding him strychnine.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
POMEROY, April 2. — [Special.] — Upon a warrant sworn out by J. R. Schnebley, Deputy Harden went out yesterday, and this afternoon brought in Schnebley's wife, who was arraigned before Justice Whitcomb and bound over in $2,000 to appear next Wednesday to answer the charge of poisoning her husband.
One William Hawkins is jointly charged in the warrant. The parties live fifteen miles northwest of Pomeroy. Strychnine was found in the food given Schnebley, who came near dying before he took the hint. Hawkins was arrested and brought to town last evening.
“Strychnine was found in the food given Schnebley, who came near dying before he took the hint.”
Domestic poisonings still fill the crime pages, but what makes this one stick is that the victim did the detective work himself, swearing out the warrant before the deputy ever rode out. In 1893 Pomeroy's farm families lived a long horse-ride from the county courthouse, so an arrest meant a deputy dispatched into open country and a prisoner brought back for a justice of the peace — a small-town machinery of justice running at the speed of a horse.
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