Dr. Shearer
meets tragic death
Early Tuesday forenoon
word came to town of the accidental death of Dr. Robert D. Shearer
of Charlotteville.
Deceased was better known
to present-day residents of the district as a summer visitor here.
He was a son of the late Robert Shearer of Charlotteville, and was
born in the county 53 years ago.
He graduated from Simcoe
High School to study medicine, the practice of which profession he
took up in Milwaukee, Wis., in 1893.
Later he purchased a farm
near the family homestead, and for some time back has spent the
summer months upon it. Last spring he sold his practice in
Milwaukee and came here to make his permanent residence in
Charlotteville.
He has had a man working
on the farm and two carpenters, Messrs. Arthur Owen and Monty
Burke, have all summer been busily engaged transforming the
farmhouse into a comfortable modern home.
On Tuesday morning, after
breakfast, Dr. Shearer proposed to help his farmer by doing some
discing, and went to the field about 150 yards from were Owen and
Burk were at work. That was the last seen of him alive.t was when
Mr. Owen noticed that the horses did not move from a certain
corner of the field for a long time that he became alarmed.
The resulting find was the
alarming one of Dr. Shearer lying on the ground dead. His glasses
were in place and the body bore no visible wounds, save a very
small abrasion on the forehead.
The explanation of those
first on the ground was that he must have been the victim of heart
disease. When the physicians came, however, it was plain to them
that he had met his death by violence.
His chest was badly
crushed, no less than seven of his ribs being shattered. The cause
was plain. A big limb leaning against the fence had interfered
with his work and he had attempted to move it, with the result
that it had swung over upon him with fatal violence.
The evidence of what had
taken place were so easy to read that Coroner McIntosh, when he
visited the scene, deemed it unnecessary to hold an inquest.
The funeral will take
place tomorrow. Dr. Shearer is survived by a widow, who before her
marriage was Miss Leila Cunningham of Port Dover. There were no
children.
