Another Man On the Run

 

I've posted this picture of my 3rd great grandfather on this blog before. It is a favorite of mine due to the mischievous grin on his face. As I was compiling my research notes on him, I ran across two newspaper articles that further insinuated his mischievous nature.

It certainly begs the question, what was the foot race really about? A few days later after discovering the above article, I pondered if it had actually happened and if perhaps they elaborated on why it was being run. Since my search of my 3rd great grandfather's name hadn't turned up an article, I manually browsed to the following week's edition and on page 5, learned that the race had indeed been raced.

My 3rd great grandfather lost. He was 41 years old at the time. Unbeknownst to him, he only had another 20 years to live at that point. Unfortunately for me, although their are some digitized newspapers in this area from which I pulled the above two articles, there is no digitized newspaper on the year of his death in 1899 so I have no idea the reasons for his early demise. 

I don't know who Jeff. Chapman was either though I have a hunch. I've been to the Smith family cemetery and have pictures of every tombstone (it is a very small cemetery) and one of those tombstones belongs to a James Chapman who is buried near Abraham's grandmother Barbara Driver Smith's tombstone. I suspect this means Abe and Jeff were related, perhaps cousins.