On the forenoon of the 4th Mr…

chunk 292 · paragraph 1075

poison Dr. B. became suspicious that all was not right, and mentioned the subject to John A. Deemer and other friends of the deceased, who also were apprehensive that Tom had suicidal intentions, he having made a similar attempt once before, but no further action was taken. On the forenoon of the 4th Mr. Deemer called on Dr. Brown and requested the latter to accompany him to Nolan’s place of residence, saying that he had seen old Tom in a dream last night, lying on his bed dead. On opening Nolan’s bed-room door, there he lay, dead, sure enough, with the bottle of morphine lying beside him empty. Tom Nolan was, in appearance and habits, a typical British soldier, of Irish extraction, aged about 56 years. After serving through the Crimean war, he went through the Sepoy mutiny in India, and afterwards served in the United States army. He was the oldest settler of Georgetown, and at one time he owned nearly the whole place, being an expert miner, but his fondness for strong drink, threatened to make him an object of charity in his old age, and he was too high spirited to beg. He had a heart as big as a mountain, and all that can be said against poor old Tom, is that “he was his own worst enemy.”