Thomas Nelson Huntington

Tom Huntington Took His Own Life

Friends of Tom Huntington were pained to read in Topeka papers this morning the story of the cause of his death. The Capital gave the details as follows:

Bootleg liquor was responsible indirectly for another suicide in Topeka yesterday.

Two weeks ago Mrs. Agnes Huntington, 206 Quincy Street, filed suit for divorce in the district court from her husband, Thomas N. Huntington, 42 years old. Her principal complaint against him was excessive use of intoxicating liquor.

Yesterday morning Huntington, despondent over his family trouble, committed suicide by drinking carbolic acid. Huntington drank the poison at Mrs. W. J. Price's rooming house, 414 Quincy Street, where he had been staying since he and his wife had separated. Mrs. Price heard sounds of groaning about 10 o'clock yesterday morning, but she said she thought it was the sound of a washing machine and ignored it. Later other roomers heard the same sound and notified her. They went to Huntington's room and found him lying on the bed unconscious. An empty glass and a four-ounce bottle were in his room. penwell's ambulance was called and he was rushed to St. Francis hospital. He died while he was being taken from the ambulance.

Huntington, in a letter to his mother, Mrs. F. Huntington, of Newton, said he could not live without his wife and daughter, Mildred.

Huntington was secretary of the blacksmiths' union in Topeka, and a member of the executive committee of the six Santa Fe shop crafts which struck July 1. Shortly after the strike started he was arrested on a state warrant charging him with violating the industrial court law by calling the walkout. The charge against him still is pending. Lately he has been working for George Senne, local contractor.

The Evening Kansan-Republican, Tuesday 23 Jan 1923.