Lou’s View

By Lou Bernard

When I write about the past, I always try to remember how things were back then. Our society has changed a lot, in many respects. One of these, an important one, is how we deal with mental illness.

A century ago, we didn’t have the understanding of mental illness that we do now. Today we have medications and doctors, and a better idea of how these things work and how to treat them. In the past, we didn’t know as much, making it more challenging to deal with these situations.

All of this is my sensitive way of trying to segue into the headline, ”Mad Man With A Hatchet.”

The Clinton County Times, one of my favorite newspapers, ran this one on October 23, 1903. I love the Clinton County Times precisely because of stuff like this. “To hell with sensitivity,” that was the Clinton County Times’s motto. They were perfectly happy to run a bizarre story on the front page anytime, whether it made any sense or not.

In this case, it was the incident of Vincent Williams of Beech Creek, who tried to murder his father with a hatchet.

Why? Because he was nuts, that’s why, as explained thoroughly by the Times.

“For a couple of years D. Vincent Williams, aged about thirty years, who resides with his parents below the Beech Creek station on the B.E.V. Railroad, has been somewhat unbalanced, and at times quite obstreperous and extremely dangerous,” the story began. That was pretty much the most sensitive statement made in the article.

Williams was having a bad day, mental-wise. He was in what was thought of as a “spell” in those days, meaning that whatever mental illness he suffered, the symptoms were particularly bad at that moment. He picked up a hatchet, which apparently were available in vending machines back in 1903, and attacked his father with it.

He walked into his father’s bedroom at night, while his father was sleeping, and jumped on the old man. “Like a wild beast,” the Times reported. Williams attempted to kill his father with the hatchet, causing several minor cuts and injuries. The Times referred to these with the somewhat ambiguous phrase,”slight hacks.”

Williams was kneeling on his father, holding him down while he attempted to hit him with the hatchet. His father’s arms were free, however, and he was able to defend himself somewhat, shouting for help and adding to the noise that was already happening.

This brought the rest of the family on the run, and they grabbed Williams and wrestled him off of the old man.
The Times clarified,”The reports that the son had the strength of a beast and stealthily entered the room and dealt the father two terrific blows while he slept are no doubt exaggerated, as one such blow with a hatchet from so strong a man would have finished him on the spot.” Good for the Clinton County Times for not dramatizing the situation.

After the family pulled Williams off his father, the police were called, and they picked him up and brought him to Lock Haven, locking him in the old jail under charges of “lunacy,” which apparently was a misdemeanor in those days. The Times speculated that he would be taken to an insane asylum, which was probably what happened.

This was all reported on the front page, along with a small fire at the mayor’s house and a bumper crop of persimmons from a local man. Just another day in our history, as reported by the Clinton County Times.