Richard Carter

• Residence: Calumet, Houghton, Michigan, United States - 1870

Fatal Fall into a Mining Shaft.

On Monday morning last, when the trammers were preparing to hoist from the bottom level, 2,300 feet from the surface, at No. 3 shaft of the Calumet Mine, they discovered the body of a young man lying in the skip hole.

An alarm was immediately given and the body taken to the surface, where it was recognized as that of Dick Carter, a young married man, whose father is a carpenter on the mine and who himself worked as driver of an express wagon in the neighboring Village of Red Jacket.
Besides driving Carter was in the habit of playing the violin at saloon dances, and had been playing at one Saturday night at Lake Linden, a neighboring village, six miles distant, and returned from there about 6 o'clock on the Sunday morning not quite sober.
He was seen by the company's watchman in the shaft house, which is quite a way from any road, about 1 o'clock on Sunday afternoon, and was ordered off, but as he would not go, the watchman, who is a cripple, went for assistance to put him out. On his return, Carter had disappeared and was not seen or heard from until the next morning at 7 o'clock, as related above. It is supposed that after the watchman had aroused him, he had started to go away, but being dazed, had accidentally fallen down the shaft, which dips at an angle of about thirty-five degrees.

As may be imagined the deceased must have received some very serious internal wounds, although no legs or arms were broken, and when found he was of course insensible, although he was still alive, and lived until 3 o'clock in the afternoon.
In falling, it appears he must have got caught twice, as at one place about 1,400 feet from the surface there were stains on the planking forty feet long, showing that he must have hung there quite a long time to lose blood enough to make so big a mark and the same thing occurred about 2,000 feet from the surface.

A brother of the deceased, who was working in the mine, got killed in the same shaft some five years ago, and it appears that whenever the deceased had been drinking be would commence talking about this very same 3 shaft and his brother's death there.

Detroit Free Press
Detroit, Michigan
April 24, 1880. Saturday. Page 4