Sidener - Hugh "Shorty"
Rockville Republican 3-13-1889
"Shorty" Sidener, brother of Charles Sidener, deceased, is reported suicided at Crawfordsville this morning by throwing himself under the cars on the Vandalia at the depot.
"Horrible Accident" - unknown paper/source
Great crowds of people flocked to the intersection of Water and Franklin streets this morning to see a most horrible sight. There lay the body of a man who had been mangled by the wheels of the west bound O. I. & W. passenger train. The head had been completely severed from the body and legs, arms and body had been broken and cut by the wheels. As near as can be learned the story of the accident is as follows: As the train was passing Water Street, a man was noticed standing on the North side of the track in such close proximity to the moving cars that those who saw him thought that he was in danger of being hit by the projecting steps. When the baggage car had passed, the man with a quick motion threw himself under the wheels of the first coach and the rest of the train passed over him. The engineer did not know that anything had happened until he was signaled to stop. The body and its severed head were moved to one side of the track and a messenger was dispatched for the coroner. While the crowd was awaiting that official's arrival there was much speculation as to who the unfortunate man was when someone said that it looked like Hugh E. Sidener, familiarly known as "Shortly" Sidener. The head was turned over and the bloody face exposed. "Yes, that's father," exclaimed Will Sidener, who had been standing in the crowd for three or four minutes looking at the mangled body and throwing up his hands, fell over into the arms of someone standing beside him. The young man was lead away and the body was taken to Hartland & Scott's undertaking establishment and there prepared to be taken to his home on east Jefferson Street. The deceased was fifty-two years old and leaves a wife and two children, a son and daughter, Will and Bertha. He was a brother of Jim Sidener and a brother-in-law of Judge Britton, John R. Robinson and Mrs. C. C. Sidener. He has served two terms as sheriff of this county but was unfortunate and lost his money. A sufferer both in body and mind he was subject to fits of melancholia. He also had attacks of something akin to vertigo when he would without warning faint and fall over. He has, notwithstanding his ill health, been working out on Judge Britton's farm. He was there yesterday but was scarcely able to work. This morning he had started out again and it is conjectured that the noise and draught occasioned by the passing train as he stood near the track caused him to faint and fall headlong under the wheels. The funeral will be held tomorrow afternoon at 3 o'clock at the house and the remains will be interred at the Masonic Cemetery. The deceased was a Mason and that order will conduct the services at the grave. (Although she is not mentioned by name, his wife was Susan Britton.) Shorty Sidener was actually Hugh E. Sidener.
I have a copy of an obituary from a Crawfordsville newspaper which his aunt, Sarah Ann Smith Wallace, clipped and put in her Bible. Unfortunately she did not record the date or name of the newspaper. The article with the title "A Horrible Accident" says that he died that day so it must have run on March 13, 1889. It is not listed in the indexing of Vital Statistics done by the Crawfordsville District Public Library. Unlike the article you have from the "Rockville Republican" stating that his death was a suicide, this obituary refers to it as an accident. The article says that he served two terms as the sheriff of Montgomery County. This seems to have been something of a family occupation since his brother, James B. Sidener, served as deputy sheriff. Their brother-in-law, James Q. W. Wilhite, was also the sheriff of Montgomery County, and their uncle by marriage, William K. Wallace, was the sheriff of Montgomery County before he became the clerk of it.
Michael Kirley