Old Time News Reporting Proving Mathematics Was Not A Prerequisite To Report The News

24 January 2026

1146

R. Linda:

I was looking over me email when I saw my Ancestry.com flash up on the screen with an important hint about a distant relative, whose name I had never heard of and whom I had never known anyway. And for good reason on that last, he was born way before me time. I didn't immediately click on the hint; it took weeks, yes, it did, not from being lazy, but just not interested. However, when I clicked on Ancestry a little bit ago, I decided to look at the hint. It was a newspaper article from long ago. It said:

Six Men Injured in Melee at Shelby, Ind. Crown Point, Dec. 1906

At a dance at Shelby, John and Frank Lafferty were shot and probably fatally wounded. Frank O'Sullivan, who shot them, was in turn clubbed unmercifully and is in a critical condition. Six men were injured in the melee, and the scene in the dance hall was one of carnage. Three of the desperadoes are in the county jail. Two have escaped.

Okay, so let me get this straight: the Lafferty's were probably fatally wounded, Francis O'Sullivan is in hospital along with the Lafferty's. Now, three others are in jail, and two got away. Me math must be off, or the new article is leaving some "desperadoes" out of the mix. Six men were injured in the melee, but only three are accounted for in the article. If they were injured as badly as is indicated, then none of the three are in the goal. Or, does it mean 6 MORE got into it? Three of which are cooling their heels and heads in the nick, and two escaped . . . and the sixth one? Where is he? That's five accounted for, where is the sixth? All in all, there were three named individuals and six(?) unnamed, for a total of 9 personages involved in the melee, possibly. But the numbers don't add up to what the article says!

I be confused there, R. Linda! 

This relative, Mr. Francis (Frank) O'Sullivan, had left the old sod and moved to the land of opportunity in the late 1800s, way, way before I showed up on the scene. Because he moved to America, he wasn't included in everyday conversation back home, so out of sight, out of mind. His name and bad self became a distant memory, if any memory at all. As far as I know, he didn't write home, he didn't send money home, he never came back to visit, so what the deal was, I have notta clue.

I can only think this argy-bargy was nine men in their cups, fighting over either a woman, money, cheating at cards, or a family feud. Whatever it was, it turned nasty and violent, and I don't know the outcome. I have no real clue if the Lafferty's died of their wounds, or if O'Sullivan recovered or succumbed to his injuries, nor if the authorities tracked down the two escapees, or if anyone went on trial for any of that nonsense. I couldn't find a follow-up to the article, which makes me think everyone possibly went their merry way, or hobbled on their merry way. 

This sounds not at all unusual for nine Irishmen (I'm assuming that was the case) drinking together, with one accusing another of something and the rest joining in. I tell ya! There are a lot of good, upstanding, law-abiding O'Sullivans in this world, and I don't have the full story on old Francis here, but that bit of information has done nothing of importance to me family tree, so why? I guess it's a story to pass down, but not all the information is there. So Francis could have been the instigator, or he could have been the victim of something he took exception to. 

It baffles me as to why I needed to know that? However, if I need to read that article, so do you, for no other reason but the knowledge, early reporters did not know their mathmatical equations, OR, they weren't really at the scene of he crime, and so with sketchy information published second hand information that as you see is not too much different from todays reporting of events . . . or anything for that matter. Nothing has changed, has it? 

Gabe

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