Learning from the past, living in the moment, and leaving footprints for the future. Stories of lov

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Accidental Amputation

As it was written in the Middleboro Gazette newspaper:
Loses part of three fingers in sawing mishap 9/20/1912

Carl Z Pierce


Carl Zachariah Pierce, my great grandfather, was born in 1872.   He was a handsome young man who played baseball on the Middleboro, MA town league.  In 1897 at the age of 25 he married 16 year old, Mary Catherine Wilbur just before Christmas.   Six weeks later, on February 2nd, she gave birth to their daughter, my grandmother, Mary Ann.

According to divorce records, the marriage ended in April 1909 due to gross and confirmed habits of intoxication that began on or about December 1, 1898. 

This addiction held on tightly for the rest of his life, causing many confrontations with police and acquaintances.  It also caused him to not only lose his job in his father's hardware store but also caused him many health problems. 

In 1912, Carl was earning money by sawing blocks of ice out of the Carver pond in Bridgewater.  The pond sat at the bottom of hill surrounded by trees and accessible only by a path from the road.   One day while Carl was sawing out a block of ice he accidently amputated part of three fingers.

Carl Z. Pierce died on July 29, 1927 at the age of 55 of a root canal pharysurgical abscess, myocarditis acute while 
incarcerated at the Bridgewater State Hospital for alcoholism. Myocarditis is an inflammatory disease of the heart muscle (myocardium).  He died from inflammation of the heart muscle caused by an infection, namely his abscessed tooth.

He is buried at Hillside Cemetery, Auburn Street, Bridgewater, MA. He has no marker but was told he rests to the right of his daughter, Mary Ann.


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