List of unusual deaths in the 19th century

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Lists of unusual deaths
Antiquity
Middle Ages	Renaissance	Early modern period
19th century	20th century	21st century
Animal deaths

This list of unusual deaths includes unique or extremely rare circumstances of death recorded throughout the 19th century, noted as being unusual by multiple sources.

• 
  The fatal shooting of Thomas Millwood, mistaken for a ghost
• 
  The Dublin whiskey fire
• 
  The bizarre assassination of Empress Elisabeth of Austria

19th century

Name of person	Image	Date of death	Details
Thomas Millwood		3 January 1804	The 32-year-old plasterer was shot and killed by excise officer Francis Smith, who mistook him for the Hammersmith ghost due to his white uniform. Smith was later sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted to one year's imprisonment with hard labor, and he received a full pardon later in the year. [1] [2]
Victims of the London Beer Flood		17 October 1814	At Meux & Co's Horse Shoe Brewery, a 22-foot-tall (6.7 m) wooden vat of fermenting porter burst, causing chain reactions and destroying several large beer barrels. The beer subsequently flooded the nearby slum and killed eight people. Several people also reportedly died from alcohol poisoning as a result of drinking the flooded liquor. [3] [4] [5]
William Henry Harrison		4 April 1841	The 9th President of the United States died a month after his inauguration from an illness (possibly pneumonia or enteric fever) that developed after he stood in the rain to deliver his 2-hour-long inaugural address, the longest by any U.S. President. Medical treatments Harrison received in the last week of his life included opium, castor oil and leeches. Harrison remains the U.S. President to have served the shortest term in office and was the first President to die in office. [6] [7]
Zachary Taylor		9 July 1850	The 12th President of the United States died of diarrhea and dysentry 5 days after consuming raw cherries and iced milk at a 4th of July event at the site of the Washington Monument. [7] [8] [9] Persistent speculation that Taylor was poisoned would lead to the exhumation of some of his remains in 1991, but scientific testing found no evidence of poison. [8] [9]
William Snyder		11 January 1854	The 13-year-old died in San Francisco, California, reportedly after a circus clown named Manuel Rays swung him around by his heels. [10] [11]
Victims of the 1858 Bradford sweets poisoning		1858	In Bradford, England, a batch of sweets accidentally poisoned with arsenic trioxide were sold by William Hardaker, colloquially referred to as "Humbug Billy". Around five boxes of sweets were delivered and sold. Around 20 people died and 200 people suffered from the effects of the poison. [12] [13]
Jim Creighton		18 October 1862	The 21-year-old American baseball player from Manhattan died from abdominal pain, possibly caused by pitching or swinging at the ball, which likely gave him a ruptured bladder or a ruptured hernia. [14] [15]
Julius Peter Garesché		31 December 1862	The Cuban-born professional soldier was killed on the first day of the Battle of Stones River when a cannonball decapitated him. [16] [17]
Archduchess Mathilda of Austria		6 June 1867	The daughter of Archduke Albrecht, Duke of Teschen set her dress on fire while trying to hide a cigarette from her father, who had forbidden her to smoke. [18] [ verification needed ] [19]
Unknown woman		1869	A woman in Gayton le Marsh, Lincolnshire, England, became severely ill and later died after consuming her own hair for 12 years. [20] [21]
Clement Vallandigham		17 June 1871	The American politician and lawyer, who was defending a man accused of murder, accidentally shot himself while demonstrating how the victim might have done so. His client was acquitted. [22] [23] [24]
James "Jim" Cullen		6 November 1873	The 25-year-old Irish man became the only man ever lynched in Mapleton, Maine, [25] after he committed a robbery and beat two deputy sheriffs to death with an axe. [26]
Unknown man		1875	A factory worker in Manchester found a mouse on her table and screamed. A man rushed over to her and tried to shoo it away, but it tried to hide in his clothes, and when he gasped in surprise the mouse dove into his mouth and he swallowed it. The mouse tore and bit the man's throat and chest, and he later died "in horrible agony". [21] [27]
Victims of the Dublin whiskey fire		18 June 1875	At The Liberties, Dublin, Ireland (then part of the United Kingdom), a fire broke out at Laurence Malone's bonded storehouse on the corner of Ardee Street, where 5,000 hogsheads (262,500 imperial gallons or 1,193,000 litres or 315,200 US gallons) of whiskey were being stored. The heat caused the barrels in the storehouse to explode, sending a stream of whiskey flowing through the doors and windows of the burning building. The burning whiskey then flowed along the streets where it quickly demolished a row of small houses. Despite the damage from the fire, all of the resulting 13 fatalities were caused by alcohol poisoning after drinking the undiluted flooded whiskey. [28] [29] [30]
James A. Moon		10 June 1876	The 37-year-old blacksmith, self-proclaimed inventor, and American Civil War veteran killed himself with a makeshift guillotine. [31] [32] [33]
Hague and another female servant		October 1881	A British servant of one Mr. Birchall was instructed by his master to retrieve a four-chambered pistol. [34] Hague did so, but while examining the gun he shot himself in the jaw, which caused instant death. He was discovered by another servant, who also shot herself demonstrating how Hague died. [35] [ failed verification ]
Sir William Payne-Gallwey, 2nd Baronet		19 December 1881	The former British MP died after sustaining severe internal injuries when he fell on a turnip while hunting. [36] [ failed verification ] [37] [ failed verification ]
Samuel Wardell		31 December 1885	The lamplighter in Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York, had attached a 10-pound (4.5 kg) rock to his alarm clock, which would crash to the floor and awaken him. On Christmas Eve, he rearranged his furniture for a party, but forgot to change his room back afterwards. When the alarm mechanism went off the next morning, the rock fell on his head and killed him. [21] [38] [39]
George Murichson		13 May 1886	The 8-year-old boy from Aroostook County, Maine, died from a hemorrhage after having a live snake pulled out of his mouth. The snake was speculated to have gone down his throat after he had "gone to sleep in some field". [40] [41] [42]
Caroline Yates		16 March 1887	According to an autopsy during her inquest, the 25-year-old woman, living in Redfern, New South Wales at the time, died from peritonitis due to an internal injury inflicted by Dr. Sabowiski with the intent of "procuring abortion". [43] [44]
Unknown Iraqi male		22 August 1888	At around 8:30 pm, a shower of meteorites fell "like rain" on a village in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq (then part of the Ottoman Empire). One man was paralyzed and another died. His death is considered the only credible case of death-by-meteorite. [45] [46] [47]
Isaack Rabbanovitch		August 1891	A bear walked into the barkeep's inn in Vilna, Russia (now part of Lithuania) and picked up a keg of vodka. When he tried to take it back, he was hugged to death by the intoxicated bear along with his two sons and daughter. Villagers shot and killed the bear. [21] [48]
Unknown sailor		1892	A sailor in Bermuda was arguing with other sailors, but the argument turned into a fight and the sailor was pushed into the water. A marine began undressing for a rescue attempt, but an officer ordered him to stop because there was a boat nearby that had ladies on it. As the sailor continued struggling in the water, five men volunteered to save him, but he had already drowned. [21] [49]
Mary Agnes Lapish		April 1893	The Australian woman stumbled into a barbed-wire fence, possibly while intoxicated, and was strangled by her fur collar. [50] [51]
Jeremiah Haralson		1895	The former United States Congressman from Alabama disappears from the historical record after his 1895 imprisonment for pension fraud in Albany, New York. He was reportedly killed by an unknown animal while coal mining near Denver, Colorado, c. 1916, but there is little or no historical evidence for this. [52] [53]
Bridget Driscoll		17 August 1896	The 44-year-old, the first recorded case of a pedestrian killed in a collision with a motor car in Great Britain, [54] was struck on the grounds of the Crystal Palace in London, by a car belonging to the Anglo-French Motor Carriage Company while giving demonstration rides. [55]
Salomon August Andrée, Knut Frænkel, and Nils Strindberg		October 1897	The group of men died of exhaustion on the island Kvitøya after trying to reach the North Pole by hot air balloon. [56] [57] [58]
Empress Elisabeth of Austria		10 September 1898	The Empress of Austria was stabbed with a thin file by Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni while strolling through Geneva with her lady-in-waiting Irma Sztáray. The wound pierced her pericardium and a lung. As her extremely tight corset held the wound closed, she did not realize what had happened (instead believing a passerby had struck her) and walked on for some time before collapsing. [59] [ verification needed ] [60] [ verification needed ]

References

1. Baggoley, Martin (9 April 2015). "The Hammersmith Ghost and the Strange Death of Thomas Millwood". Crime Magazine. Retrieved 17 August 2024.
2. Elhassan, Khalid (4 July 2018). "10 Historical Deaths Weirder Than the Movies". History Collection. Retrieved 6 September 2024.
3. Mikkelson, Barbara; Mikkelson, David (17 January 2007) [Originally published 31 August 2002]. "Did a Beer Flood Kill 9 People?". Fact Check. Snopes . Retrieved 7 August 2024. The ongoing spate of Internet reports of unusual deaths, both real and fictional, might lead some to believe extraordinary modes of demise are a recent phenomenon. Nothing could be further from the truth — the Grim Reaper has always found incredible methods of ending human life.
4. ""A real beer tsunami". Remembering the big British beer flood of October, 1814 with brewing historian Martyn Cornell". As It Happens. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 17 October 2014. Retrieved 7 August 2024. It is 200 years since a tidal wave of beer tore through London, England. And while that may sound like a drinker's dream, beer historian Martyn Cornell tells Carol that this was a "real tsunami of black beer running through the streets."
5. Johnson, Ben. "The London Beer Flood of 1814". Historic UK. Retrieved 12 August 2024. A bizarre industrial accident resulted in the release of a beer tsunami onto the streets around Tottenham Court Road... This unique disaster was responsible for the gradual phasing out of wooden fermentation casks to be replaced by lined concrete vats.
6. Mütter EDU Staff (20 January 2017). "What Killed William Henry Harrison?". Education Blog. College of Physicians of Philadelphia . Retrieved 12 August 2024. Since today is inauguration day, allow me to shed light on what has to be one of the most unusual inauguration stories: the death of William Henry Harrison.
7. Paoletti, Gabe (31 July 2019) [Originally published 13 November 2017]. Kuroski, John (ed.). "The Strange Deaths Of 16 Historic And Famous Figures". All That's Interesting. Retrieved 8 August 2024. Many of history's most important figures have suffered strange deaths that do not seem to befit their noble legacy.
8. "Dead President: Zachary Taylor and His Calamitous Chow Down". The Skeleton Key Chronicles. 18 February 2020. Retrieved 12 August 2024. We all learn about assassinations of presidents in history class but I was looking for something a bit more unusual, and I found it – the death of Zachary Taylor.
9. Savey, Edward (6 July 2021). "US President Zachary Taylor". ConstitutionUS.com. Retrieved 12 August 2024. Then you have those remembered for their short stay in the White House and unusual cause of death. The 12th president, Zachary Taylor, belongs to the latter category.
10. Bletchly, Rachel (2 November 2012). "Death and dumb: The 13-year-old killed by a circus clown and other truly epic exits". Daily Mirror. Retrieved 3 July 2024.
11. Henley, Nicole (11 March 2020). "This Might Be the Strangest Death in All of History" . Retrieved 13 September 2024. However it transpired, it goes without saying that this death has arguably gone down as one of, if not the most, unusual reported manners in which someone rode the pale horse.
12. Johnson, Ben (8 December 2014). "Dying for a Humbug, the Bradford Sweets Poisoning 1858". Historic UK. Retrieved 12 August 2024.
13. Baldwin, Cassidy; Rushton, William. "Halloween Sadism: A Review of Poisoned Halloween Candy". Alabama American College of Emergency Physicians . Retrieved 12 August 2024. Yet, the historical literature reports only few isolated cases over the last 150 years...
14. Jaffe, Chris (14 October 2012). "150th anniversary: Jim Creighton's fatal swing". The Hardball Times . Retrieved 22 September 2024. But no single event is stranger to us or better demonstrated how very different the game was in its early years than what happened 150 years ago today.
15. Schweber, Nate (18 October 2012). "Recalling a New Pitch and a Strange Death". Local History. The New York Times. Retrieved 22 September 2024.
16. Stritch, Thomas (1987). The Catholic Church in Tennessee: The Sesquicentennial Story. Nashville: Catholic Center. p. 145. ISBN   9780961826000 . Retrieved 5 September 2024– via Google Books. Julius was killed in a bizarre mischance when his head was blown off by a stray cannon ball as he rode with General Rosecrans near Murfreesboro.
17. Pittard, Homer. "The Strange Death of Julius Peter Garesché". latinamericanstudies.org. Retrieved 5 September 2024.
18. Palmer, Alan (1997). Twilight of the Habsburgs. The Life and Times of Emperor Francis Joseph. London: Phoenix Giant. p. 158. ISBN   978-1857998696.
19. "Brandunfall der Erzherzogin Mathilde von Österreich" [The Fire Death of Archduchess Mathilda of Austria](PDF). HessenArchiv aktuelle 9/2020 (in German). Hessisches Landesarchiv. p. 5. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 October 2021. Retrieved 24 October 2021.
20. "Extraordinary Case". Liverpool Daily Post . 3 November 1869. The Times gives the particulars of a death which took place a few days ago from a singular cause at Grayton-le-Marsh [sic]... "The occurrence of a similar case to the above is either so rare or so seldom detected, that several medical men of large experience never remember ever having heard of one like it.", cited in "11 unusual tales of terror from historical newspapers". Blog. The British Newspaper Archive . 27 October 2014. Retrieved 5 October 2024.
21. Clay, Jeremy (25 December 2013). "10 truly bizarre Victorian deaths". BBC News . British Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on 19 May 2018. Retrieved 2 September 2024.
22. "Fatal Accident to Mr. Vallandigham". Western Reserve Chronicle . 21 June 1871. p. 2. Archived from the original on 3 November 2013. Retrieved 21 February 2022– via The American Civil War @ 150. Here is a newspaper account of the unusual death of Clement Vallandigham, a leader of the Copperhead Democrats during the Civil War.
23. "Death of Clement Vallandigham". Archived from the original on 3 November 2015.
24. Steve (7 August 2019). "20 Unusual Deaths from the History Books". History Collection. Retrieved 5 September 2024.
25. Winslow York, Dena Lynn (1 June 2001). ""They Lynched Jim Cullen": Story and Myth on the Northern Maine Frontier". Maine History. 40 (2). Maine Historical Society and University of Maine History Department: 126–136. Archived from the original on 20 April 2025. Retrieved 19 April 2025.
26. Dan_nehs (20 November 2020). "A Lynching in Maine: What Happened to James Cullen". Crime and Scandal. New England Historical Society. Retrieved 30 October 2024. A lynching in Maine is an unusual thing. Throughout New England, lynching was extremely rare.
27. O'Neal, Eamonn (31 December 2013). "Man dies after swallowing a mouse". Greater Manchester News. Manchester Evening News . Retrieved 18 August 2024. In 1875, we reported on a very unusual death.
28. "The Great Fire in Dublin". Irish Examiner. 21 June 1875. Retrieved 8 May 2025. Then followed a scene of the wildest horror and confusion. A vast crowd has, of course, collected, but they had to fly for their lives before the blazing stream of whiskey as they rushed hissing along
29. Hyland, Adam (18 June 2020). "The Great Whiskey Fire". Firecall official magazine of Dublin Fire, Ambulance, and Emergency Services. There were 13 deaths, but not one of them was caused by fire itself," Las says. "They were all to do with the madness that took hold. Some of the stories were very sad, but some of them were also bizarre.
30. Mock, Nancy. "The Shocking Story Behind The Great Whiskey Fire Of Dublin". Mashed.com. Mashed. Retrieved 10 January 2025. Even as people were trying to escape the blaze, hundreds more flocked to the area to witness the unbelievable event and to help themselves to free whiskey.
31. "A Strange Suicide". Crawfordsville Star. 15 June 1876. Page 1, column 3. Retrieved 24 September 2024– via Google Newspapers.
32. "The Guillotine". The Knoxville Journal . 22 June 1876. Page 3, column 3. Retrieved 24 September 2024– via Chronicling America. The situation, as they found it, was bad enough, but the appliances which had been used to produce death were most wonderful, and will stand in the history of suicides without a parallel.
33. Kriebel, Bob (25 November 2016) [Reprint of columns printed 1989-10-22, 1989-10-29, and 1989-11-05]. "The unusual, tragic death of James Moon". Journal & Courier . Retrieved 1 September 2024.
34. Pinheiro, Maria (9 December 2016). "9 of the Strangest Victorian Deaths Reported in the Newspapers". Bizarre. The Lineup. Retrieved 18 August 2024. Then, in an absurd case of irony, the servant managed to duplicate Hague's fate.
35. "Tragic Affair at Widnes". The Yorkshire Herald and the York Herald. York, North Yorkshire, England. 15 October 1881. Retrieved 20 October 2024– via Newspapers.com.
36. "Death of Sir William Gallway". The Northern Echo . 20 December 1881. Retrieved 20 October 2024.
37. "Andy McSmith's Diary: The enemy within Chequers at Sam Cam's delayed 40th". UK Politics. The Independent. 18 December 2014. Retrieved 20 October 2024.
38. "A Singular Death". The Representative. Fox Lake, Wisconsin. 13 January 1886. Page 2, column 3. Retrieved 3 August 2024– via Newspapers.com.
39. "Strange and Unusual Deaths in the 19th Century". C.A. Asbrey. 4 June 2018. Retrieved 1 August 2024.
40. "That Hissing Snake That was Pulled Out of a Boy's Mouth—The Original Story Confirmed—Further Particulars—A Horrible Fate". Sun-Journal . Lewiston, Maine. 11 May 1886. Page 3, column 3. Retrieved 27 August 2024– via Newspapers.com. A strange case which has recently come under the notice of the physicians, is the unhappy fate of the little boy who lived a few miles below Grand Falls... The above case is an actual fact, and so far as we can learn, it is unparalleled.
41. "The Aroostook Snake Story". Portland Daily Press . Portland, Maine. 13 May 1886. Page 1, column 9. Retrieved 10 August 2024– via Newspapers.com. A short time ago the strange story of a snake being pulled out of the mouth of a boy who lived near Grand Falls, in Aroostook county, was telegraphed the papers. Since then the case, which is believed to be unparalleled, has attracted the attention of physicians, and the story is fully confirmed.
42. "A Live Snake in a Boy's Stomach. He Died of Hemorrhage Soon After it Had Been Pulled From His Mouth". The Times and Democrat . Orangeburg, South Carolina. 20 May 1886. Page 5, column 3. Retrieved 10 August 2024– via Newspapers.com. The almost incredible story recently printed about the death of a boy near Grand Falls from hemorrhage caused by pulling from his mouth a live snake which had grown to his flesh proves to be literally true.
43. "THE STRANGE DEATH OF A WOMAN AT REDFERN". The Queanbeyan Age . 22 March 1887. Page 2, columns 4–5 – via Trove.
44. "New South Wales". The Western Star and Roma Advertiser . 26 March 1887. Page 2, column 2 – via Trove. The coroner's inquest on the body of Mrs. Caroline Yates, who died under suspicions circumstances at Redfern last week, was concluded to-day.
45. Stubley, Peter (25 April 2020). "First credible evidence emerges of person being killed by meteor". Science. The Independent. Retrieved 1 October 2024. The odds of being struck and killed by a meteorite are said to be as low as one in 250,000.
46. Atkinson, Nancy (29 April 2020). "Terrible Luck. The Only Person Ever Killed by a Meteorite – Back in 1888". Universe Today . Retrieved 1 October 2024. One astronomer put the odds of death by space rock at 1 in 700,000 in a lifetime, while others say it's more like 1 in 1,600,000. Computing the probability for such an untimely death is difficult because this type of event is so rare.
47. Betz, Eric (18 May 2023) [Originally published 12 May 2020]. "A meteorite killed a man in Iraq in 1888, historic records suggest". Astronomy . Retrieved 1 October 2024. If they can find related meteorites in the area, the victim will be the only confirmed human in history killed by a meteorite.
48. "Killed by a Drunken Bear" . The Nottingham Evening Post . 27 August 1891. p. 4. Retrieved 24 September 2024– via British Newspaper Archive. A strange and terrible accident has just occurred in the neighbourhood of Vilna, in Russia.
49. "Delicacy and Drowning" . Western Daily Press . 9 June 1892. p. 7. Retrieved 25 September 2024– via British Newspaper Archive. The Hampshire Telegraph, in its 'Naval Section', relates the following curious story from Bermuda.
50. "THE MYSTERIOUS DEATH AT WEST MELBOURNE. THE BODY IDENTIFIED". The Argus . Melbourne. 18 April 1893. Page 6, column 1. Retrieved 17 August 2024– via Trove.
51. Pinheiro, Maria (9 December 2016). "9 of the Strangest Victorian Deaths Reported in the Newspapers". Bizarre. The Lineup. Retrieved 18 August 2024.
52. Lyman, Brian (26 February 2020). "Killed by wild beasts: The strange story of Jeremiah Haralson's 'death'". Montgomery Advertiser . Retrieved 14 August 2024.
53. Lyman, Brian (26 February 2020). "The lost congressman: Sources for Jeremiah Haralson's remarkable life". Montgomery Advertiser. Retrieved 14 August 2024. The manner of death was bizarre...
54. "Fatal crash with self-driving car was a first – like Bridget Driscoll's was 121 years ago with one of the first cars" . The Washington Post . 22 March 2018. Retrieved 26 December 2023. But Driscoll's death was so unusual that the matter landed in Coroners Court for a full-blown inquest.
55. McFarlane, Andrew (17 August 2010). "How the UK's first fatal car accident unfolded". BBC News. Retrieved 27 August 2013. Melvyn Harrison, of historical group the Crystal Palace Foundation, says people would have been simply bemused at the sight of these "horseless carriages". "It was such a rare animal to be on the roads and, for her to be killed, people would have thought the story was made up," he says.
56. Cross, Wilbur; Hellbom, Thorleif (August 1962). "Last Balloon to Nowhere". True Magazine . There was no reason at all why the explorers should have perished when and where they did..., cited in "Solomon August Andrée – Sweden: The First Attempt of a Flight to the North Pole". The Aviation History On-Line Museum. 2007. Retrieved 6 September 2024.
57. Vojir, Vladimir (1999–2000). "The Flight of Andrée's Balloon Eagle 5". Mysteries of the Arctic. www.vova.cz. Translated by Kriz, Pavel. Retrieved 22 September 2024. Here they perished one by one after an almost three month long exhausting march under strange and never clarified circumstances...^{[ self-published source ]}
58. Quamme, Margaret (5 February 2012). "Ill-fated balloon trip among more unusual attempts to reach North Pole". Books. The Columbus Dispatch . Retrieved 22 September 2024. One of the more unusual attacks on the pole was made by Salomon August Andree, a Swedish engineer who in 1897 tried to fly over it in a hydrogen-filled balloon.
59. De Burgh, Edward Morgan Alborough (1899). Elizabeth, empress of Austria: a memoir. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. p. 310.
60. Matray, Maria; Krüger, Answald (1998). L'attentato. La morte dell'Imperatrice Elisabetta e il delitto dell'anarchico Lucheni[The attack. The death of Empress Elisabeth and the crime of the anarchist Lucheni] (in Italian). Trieste: Mgs Press. ISBN   978-8886424561.

Works cited

• Weeks, David; Gorman, Robert (2015). "15: Fans". Death at the Ballpark: More Than 2,000 Game-Related Fatalities of Players, Other Personnel and Spectators in Amateur and Professional Baseball, 1862–2014 (2nd ed.). McFarland. ISBN   9780786479320 . Retrieved 30 September 2022.