12 Year old commits suicide near Crosswicks

from the New Jersey Mirror 22 Mar 1865

We published in our last paper, a brief account of a boy, only twelve years of age, committing suicide, by hanging, near Crosswicks. The following particulars of the affair, we copy from the Bordentown Register:

SUICIDE.--About two weeks since, a boy named Josiah Mason, committed suicide by hanging himself, near Crosswicks. The deceased was a mere lad, only twelve years of age, and was hired out by his widowed mother, living in this city, to Mr. Robert E. Woodward, a highly respectable farmer, residing near Crosswicks, for a term of four years. He was in the employ of Mr. W. only a few months, during which time, we are assured by his employer, he conducted himself very properly, always obeying in whatever was required of him. About the time the deed was committed, at his request, he was allowed to go home for a short time.--Upon leaving home to return to his employer, he remarked that it was the last time they would see him. The same remark was made to a negro boy upon the farm, but no attention was paid it in either case. On the morning of the occurrence, he was discovered in the wood-house arranging some horse lines about a beam, but this also elicited no marked attention.

It was supposed afterwards that he was then preparing to hang himself. In the afternoon he had been missed for more than half an hour, when receiving no answer to his repeated calls, Mr. W. went into the barn, and there found the unfortunate boy hanging from a beam, his feet about eighteen inches from the floor. Life was extinct, and Mr. W. did not feel justified in touching the corpse until the proper authorities were present. The boy had obtained a pair of stout leather reins, and tied one end securely around the beam, while the other was formed into a noose, which was most effectually arranged. After preparing everything, he must have swung himself off a bench at the side of the barn. The coroner, being summoned, viewed the body, and deemed it unnecessary to call a jury.

The body was brought to Bordentown and interred the next day. The only reason that can be assigned for the commission of the act, is the fact that the boy disliked to work, and his mother very properly meant to make him earn his own living, as she is a poor widow, with a large family, and could not afford to keep him in idleness.