Seldom does it fall to the lost of a newspaper to record a more sad and distressing accident that that which happened to Frankie, the oldest child of Mr. and Mrs. Louis Matignon Monday afternoon. Such accidents are unforeseen and therefore unavoidable; consequently they seem the more deplorable. Mrs. Matignon was visiting her mother, just a few doors away, having the children with her. Little Frankie took a strange notion to leave his playmates (something he had never done before) and go home. His mother saw him at the gate from where she was and called to him to come to her. He answered her, but kept looking at the flower beds, in which he was very much interested. The mother’s attention was directed to something else, and that was the last she saw of her boy alive. She came home soon after, and not thinking but that little fellow was playing around the house, started preparations for supper. She soon had occasion to go to the well for water, and nothing can picture the horror and the shock she much have experienced when down at the bottom of the well she saw her first born lying with his little face looking toward her, dead, as it proved. She immediately gave the alarm, and kind neighbors raised the body to the surface. Everything possible was done to revive him, Dr. A.B. Sellards, who had been summoned, keeping up an artificial respiration for fully half an hour, but all to no avail. Little Frankie was dead. No one knows how the accident occurred. Te supposition is that he climbed on the coal house, which is immediately by the side of the well, and in attempting to get down, he got too near the curbing and losing his balance fell to the bottom and was drowned. He was probably in the water an hour or more. Frankie was 4 years, 5 months and 7 days old. He was an exceptionally bright, interesting and affectionate child and was loved by all who knew him. The funeral which occurred Tuesday, was largely attended, many friends and neighbors expressing sincere sympathy, which is more than acceptable at a time of such great grief. The proprietors of the Gazette, individually, join with the others in expressing sincere condolence any sympathy to the unfortunate parents in their great grief. The following card of condolence is from the Gospel Temperance Union: Whereas, It has pleased Almighty Goad, in the order of His Providence, to call from our midst the little child of our beloved brother, Louis Matignon, by such as sudden death, and we bow in humble submission to His Almighty will; therefore be it. Resolved, That we express our heartfelt sympathy to our brother and his family in this their sad bereavement in the death of their little child; and be it further. Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent to our beloved brother and another copy to the Gazette for publication. 4 May 1894 Scranton Gazette