FATAL ACCIDENT AT OKAIRAU.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9154, 8 September 1888, Page 5

FATAL ACCIDENT AT OKAIRAU.

A frightful accident happened here on Friday afternoon, the 31st August, by which Mr. John Donaldson was killed by the fall of a tree. He was giving a neighbour, Mr. Thompson Graham, a day's help bush-felling. About four o'clock in the afternoon he was working near a leaning tree that had its head formerly broken oil. Mr. Graham was felling a tree a little distance off, and he called to Mr. Donaldson to look out. He moved to what he thought a safe distance. Mr. Graham's tree in falling hit the leaning stump, which was about 25 feet long, and more than half rotten near the roots, breaking it off and hurling it with great force in the direction in which Mr. Donaldson was standing, the top end of it hitting him on the head and smashing it in a dreadful manner, causing instant death. The deceased leaves a wife and two young children. Ho was held in the highest esteem and great sympathy is felt for the family. An inquest was held before Captain Burleigh, J.P., acting coroner, and a jury of whom Mr. W. H. Nicholson was foreman, when a verdict of "Accidental death" was returned. He was buried in the Church of England burying-ground. The funeral was attended by almost everyone in the district. At a meeting of the committee of the Bay of Islands Agricultural and Horticultural Society, of which deceased was a member, a unanimous vote of condolence with the family of the deceased was engrossed on the minutes and ordered to be transmitted to the widow.— [Own Correspondent.]