Cicero Dawson

Cicero Dawson a Suicide

Standing in the rear of Fox’s saloon just after 11 o’clock Monday night Cicero Dawson fired a bullet through his head and fell over on the floor dead.  There was no eyewitness to the tragedy.

A few minutes before 11 o’clock Dawson entered the saloon and standing at the bar exchanged a few words with Nelse Tritch, the bartender.  He was smoking a pipe and seemed in the best of spirits.  After the bar was cleared Mr. Tritch went into his office and Dawson went out.  Ten minutes later he heard a noise in the back room.  Thinking a box had fallen upon some bottles he went back to investigate and found a man lying face down on the bottles.  He did not recognize the man and called to Mr. Fox that a man had cut himself all to pieces on the bottles.  Mr. Fox rushed back and saw that the man was dead.

Mr. Dawson had visited Buckley’s chili parlor just before committing the rash deed and nothing unusual was noticed in his manner, although he remained in the place and talked freely for half an hour.  No one knows anything that could have caused him to commit the rash deed.  Deceased was 33 years old and is survived by parents, Mr. and Mrs. Francis Dawson, three brothers, Alfred of Madison, Orville of near Madison and Henry of Paris; and three sisters, Mrs. Joe Parish, Mrs. Warner Fennel and Mrs. Walter Noel—Moberly Democrat.
Monroe county people are sorry indeed for this unfortunate family and deeply sympathize with them in this great trouble.


Source: Monroe County Appeal dated January 10, 1908, submitted by Vickie Stinson from the newspaper article collection of her grandmother, Bess Kipper Atterbury.