July 2007 - Smothered
The New York American furnishes the following account of a late melancholy occurrenced in that city.
Mr. and Mrs. Denison, being on a visit to her father, Mr. Richard Kidney, left the two lovely children to the care of a woman servant, about 30 years of age, and a young girl 14 years of age. They, having put them to bed in a small bedroom, left the candle on the mantel in the room adjoining; about a quarter of an hour after, the woman spoke to them and they not answering, she supposed them to have gone to sleep. Satisfied in her mind of this, she and the younger girl pursued their work in the kitchen for about half an hour, when they both went up stairs for the purpose of seeing them. They found the bedroom door shut, and the children in the arms of death; being smothered by the intense smoke which filled the room. The only way of accounting for this, is, that the oldest child, after the servant last left them, arose, took the light in his room, shut the door, and went to sleep. Thus were two lovely, interesting babes snatched from the bosoms of their parents without a moment's warning by a most horrible death.
Mrs. Denison was Anna Maria Kidney, daughter of Richard Kidney [Johannes/Jacobus/Jan] and Mary Lewis.