Wednesday, June 6, 2018

Encounter With Snake in Hen's Nest Results in Death of Three Children, 1912

“Serpent, Coiled in Hen’s Nest, Buries Deadly Fangs in Hands of Children,” from The Mebane Leader, published Thursday, June 6, 1912

There was a distressing occurrence just across the Pitt line in Craven County Friday in which three children of George Adams lost their lives. His wife was doing some washing in the yard while the eldest, 8, and youngest, 1 year old, played nearby.

Noises were heard from a nest occupied by a sitting hen. When Mrs. Adams told the eldest boiy to go throw the fowl off the next, the boy went and without looking, put his hand into the nest to catch the hen. He quickly withdrew it, crying that she had pecked him. The second boy volunteered to throw off the hen, but soon screamed that he had been pecked also. The mother rushed to the nest and found a rattlesnake in it and to her horror, saw that the snake had bitten both the boys.

In her anxiety to do something for the older boys, the 1-year-old child was forgotten for the time being, and when she returned for it, found that it had climbed over in the tub of water and was drowned. The two boys that had been bitten by the rattlesnake died the same day, and all three children were buried together in the same grave.


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