CORDIER
JOSEPH CORDIERIt is with feelings of profoundest sorrow that we are this week called upon to record one of the most heart sending and unfortunate occurrence that has ever happened in this section.
Joseph Cordier, a well known citizen of old Petersburg, was run over by a freight train at Mannington about 3 o'clock this morning and killed.
He was mangled in the most horrible manner, his legs being crushed to a jelly and his body torn shockingly. He began drinking last Sunday evening and kept drunk until his death. He had wandered on the railroad track where he had gone to sleep. The engineer of the freight train going north about three o'clock could not see him around the curve near Drake's store in time to check his train. He was buried today at the graveyard near his residence. Joe Cordier was strictly honest in all his dealings and never knowingly cheated a man out of a nickel. He was esteemed for his integrity and moral worth. As a citizen, as a neighbor, as a gentleman no man stood higher than the deceased. When he was a friend, he was a friend in all that friendship means.He came from France to this country when but a boy and after serving in the capacity of a clerk for several years began merchandising on his own account, where he lived forty years ago. By close attention to business and honest dealings he built up a fine trade which netted him a good income. He retired from merchandising when the railroad was built and had since devoted his attention to farming. He leaves a wife and four children in Kentucky, one daughter in Iowa, one daughter and two sons in Kansas to mourn their great loss. The deceased was not much addicted to drunkenness, but when troubled greatly would try to drown his sorrows by drink. For months and even years at a time he did not taste it. To the bereaved family the earnest sympathy and hearty condolence of their many friends is tendered.
A husband is gone, a father is away from the family circle, a friend is missing, yet to that innumerable host of Immortals above is added one more soul, where some day a happy family will be re-united to separate never again.
Crofton
Hopkinsville New Era
June 1886
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