Mrs. Eliza Ruland's Death

New York, 1895

Left Her Husband's Side at Midnight and Cast Herself Into a Well.

Eliza Ann Ruland of New Village committed suicide at 12 o'clock Sunday night by jumping into a well in the rear of her residence. The loss of her three children is believed to have been the cause. She was the wife of John Ruland, a farmer. The couple went to bed early Sunday night. Mrs. Ruland was melancholy, and spoke several times of her three dead children. She went to sleep before her husband did.

At 12 o'clock Mr. Ruland was awakened by feeling his wife stepping over him toward the outer edge of the bed.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"Out to the kitchen," was the reply.

Mr. Ruland thought no more of the matter for a time, but as his wife did not return he started out to the kitchen to look for her. She was not there. He tried to open the kitchen door but it was locked on the outside. Opening the little window he called out several times. No answer came and he ran to the front door. The key was missing.

Mr. Ruland was greatly excited by this time. Opening a window he climbed out. Not finding his wife elsewhere, Mr. Ruland procured a lantern and looked into the well right back of the house. He could not see the bottom, so he tied the lantern to a rope and lowered it into the well.

In the bottom of the well, floating on the water, was the lifeless body of a woman who had been his wife for more than sixty years. Mr. Ruland ran for help, and J. D. Hammond and Walter and George Coleman set to work to get the body of Mrs. Ruland from the well. A ladder was lowered into the well. Walter Coleman descended and passed a rope around the old lady's body. The scene after they laid the old lady's body on the ground was a pitiful one. Aged Mr. Ruland fell upon his knees, and folding his arms around his dead wife's neck, wept as though his heart would break.

Several years ago one of their sons died. Then another child passed away. When the third and last child was taken away the old lady's sorrow knew no bounds. The church bell seemed to affect her deeply, and she became melancholy when it rang.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, Feb. 8, 1895, p. 4.