We publish by special
request the following extract from the Port Rowan Age.
It becomes our painful duty to record the death of one of our most
enterprising business man, W. Bro. John E. Stearns, from the effects of
wounds received from one of his horses while feeding him. As the
deceased was unconscious up to the time of his death, and no person was
in the barn at the time, there is no possibility for knowing the
particulars of the accident.
Mr. Stearns was a member of the Masonic fraternity, also of
[........] U.W., and a member of the High School Board of this village,
and his tragic and untimely end has cast a gloom over the community.
On Monday at two o'clock, the funeral sermon was preached by the Rev.
E. S. Jones, Pastor of St. [.........] Episcopal Church, in the Baptist
[Chapel]. The sermon was listened to by one of the largest congregations
ever assembled on such an occasion in this village.
Before the service the members of the Masonic fraternity, of his own
lodge, in this place, together with brethren from the Langton, Vittoria,
and Port Dover lodges, about 100 in all, assembled in the lodge room,
and from thence proceeded to the home of our departed Brother, where
that beautiful portion of the Masonic service for the dead was read by
W. Bro. W. W. Rutherford, after which the breathe formed a procession
and proceeded to the church, the body being born by six P.M.'s.
After the services a procession of teams reaching almost a mile,
wounded their sorrowful way to the family burying ground, on the estate
of the late H. J. Killmaster, where the body was deposited in the earth
with the usual Masonic ceremonies and so solemn was the ceremony that
many of those present were seen to weep.
In the death of our deceased Bro. his widow has lost a dear and
loving husband, the children a loving father and the community one, who
if he had been spared, would have done much to build up our
village.
The widow, relatives and friends of the departed Bro. have the
sympathy of the community in their sad bereavement. [An
unreadable Latin phrase.]
