Edward Ulch Killed

A Former Napoleon boy is Dashed Down an Embankment Thirty Feet by a Passenger Train and Instantly Killed

The coroner thinks it was suicide.

Edward Ulch, who has been working in Defiance as a day laborer for the past year met his death Friday evening last in a manner shrouded with mystery as to whether accidental or intentional. As the Defiance Napoleon accommodation was nearing the bridge which spans the Maumee about one mile this side of Defiance, it struck a man standing on the track looking directly toward the approaching trainThe train, according to the engineer's testimony; was running at the rate of about 20 miles an hour, a sufficient rate to dash the unfortunate man down an embankment 30 feetWhen picked up his neck was found to be broken from the fall, as the condition in which the body was found proved that he struck the ground square on his head, death being instantaneous. The coroner was notified and the remains identified as Edward Ulch, a young man about 26 years of age, who has been living for the past year with his brother Jackson, in west Defiance.

The Coroner's inquest elicited that Mr. Fred Hilton was walking arm in arm with Mr. Ulch toward the railroad crossing as the train was approachingWhen he saw the headlight of the engine around the curve, Ulch left his companion and stepped onto the trackPartly kneeling, as if listening, he remarked that 'he would show the railroad something!' Raising up he was struck, carried a short distance and hurled down the embankment to his ill-timed death.

The young man was temperate and up to the time of the accident was in a cheerful mood, laughing and joking with Mr. Hilton on the way to the post-office where the deceased intended mailing a letter to friends in Napoleon, apprising them of his good luck securing a position for all winter in the stave factory in DefianceHe was blind in one eye and this is the only solution to his mysterious actions, as the blind eye was toward the approaching engineThe remains were brought to Napoleon Sunday morning and interred in Glenwood cemetery.