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Show Hunting Accident on Jacobs Creek It was a beautiful day in September, 1915, when Wal¬ter James, Claud Stewart and Cleavy Fernelius set out on a hunting trip in Mountain Green, which ended in tragedy. The three men from Uintah had driven up Weber Canyon and stopped for a short visit with their brother, Ed Fer¬nelius, before starting their hunting expedition on Jac¬obs Creek. Tagging along with the three men was Elwood Williams, eight year old son of James Williams of Mount¬ain Green. There are two versions of what happened. Elwood said that Walter shot a pine hen, then sat down on a rock to rest for a minute. His double-barreled shot gun was loaded and apparently cocked. The gun either slipped and the butt hit on a rock which exploded the bullets, or the trigger caught on something which set it off. Walter was shot in the chest. Claud and Cleavy sent Elwood for help while they ministered to the wounded man. Elwood waded the Weber River and ran to Ed Fernelius' home and broke the news. When Ed and others arrived on the scene they found Walter dead from his wounds. The other version of the tragedy was that Walter began to climb through a fence and the trigger caught on one of the barbs thus causing the gun to fire, hitting him in the chest. Earlier that same day Walter's wife, Lillie, and her sister, Ellen Fernelius Stewart, drove up the canyon to visit their brother, Ed, and family while the men were hunting. As they drove along Lillie remarked that she saw Walter lying beside the road. Ellen, who had seen nothing, told her sister that it was probably a hobo who was drunk, but Lillie insisted that she had seen her husband bying in the dust of the road. They hadn't been to the Fernelius home long when the tragic news arrived. Lillie said she believed she was given a warning of the death of her husband whom she saw lying beside the road. Walter James, son of Thomas and Jennie Little James, was born, 30 May 1891, in Uintah. He married Lillie Fernelius, 26 November 1914, in the LDS Temple. The couple had one child, Afton, who now lives in Draper, Utah. WALTER JAMES 98 |
