Topeka Franklin Zimmerman

Last Tuesday afternoon as Topeka Zimmerman and his brother William were going southwest on the Sun City road, with a heavy load of lumber, the team took fright and became unmanageable. Topeka, the oldest, was thrown from the wagon and both wheels passed over his body, from the effects of which he died after suffering intensely for two days.

Mr. Zimmerman was a young man, about twenty-three years of age and lived with his parents at Burrton. When the accident occurred he was about one-half mile west of this place on the way to his claim in Pratt county. He was brought to Dr. Morton’s house where he was kindly cared for until death relieved him of his sufferings. His parents were sent for and arrived Thursday evening. The mother was almost crazed with grief to find her son with whom she had parted only two days before then in the full vigor of youth, now with the pallor of death on his face with only life and consciousness enough left to whisper once, faintly the word "Mother." The funeral took place Saturday, November 30.

Mr. I. Zimmerman, living three miles south of here, gave us the following details of the sad accident that happened to his eldest son, last Tuesday, about eighteen miles south of Hutchinson. While driving down a hill, about half a mile south of Arlington, in Reno county, with a pair of mules and some two thousand eight hundred feet of dressed lumber on the wagon, and while his younger brother was on the ground trying to lock one of the wheels, the team started on a run, soon throwing him to the ground on his face, and one front and hind wheel passed over his body just below the shoulders, breaking three or four ribs loose from the spinal column; he got upon his feet but staggered and fell. The sheriff of Reno county happening along in a buggy at the time took him to the house of a doctor near by, where all was done that could be. He was the first child born in Topeka, the city giving him the name of Topeka Franklin. He was hauling lumber from Wichita for some parties living in the southern part of Reno county. Some hopes are entertained by the doctors for his recovery but the chances are nearly even, the extent of his injuries internally not being known. Mr. and Mrs. Zimmerman started for his bedside last Thursday morning.

The Burrton Telephone, Burrton, Kansas. Friday, December 4, 1878.