Charles Seely
Personal
Gender: Male
Date of Death: October 2, 1940
Death Place: Wellsville, NY
Charles Seely
Belfast Man Dies Suddenly
BELFAST – Charles Seely, sixty-five, who had lived on a farm a mile and a half northeast of here for many years, died in Jones Memorial Hospital at Wellsville this morning.
Mr. Seeley was found by his housekeeper in a serious condition Tuesday evening and was immediately rushed to the hospital.
He is survived by a brother, Norman Seely of Belfast, and other relative in Gowanda and Lamont, NY.
Published in The Olean Times Herald (Olean, NY), October 2, 1940, page 5
Official Investigate Death of Well-known Belfast Man
BELMONT – State Police and Sheriff Deputies today were investigating the death of Charles Seely, sixty-one year old Belfast farmer, and the wounding of his middle-aged housekeeper.
Seely, a widower, died early Wednesday in a Wellsville hospital several hours after being found on the kitchen floor of his farmhouse with throat wounds.
The housekeeper, Mrs. Esther Johnson, forty-nine, mother of ten children, told police that Seeley had tried to beat her to death while she slept but that she managed to flee barefooted to a neighbor’s home for aid. She was treated for a deep cut above the left temple.
Investigating officers spent most of the day yesterday at the Seely farm of about 100 acres located in the town of Candadea, nearly one and one-half miles east of Belfast and a half-mile east and north of the Genesee River
The first officers to arrive came a few minutes after eleven o’clock Tuesday night in response to a call for medical assistance and because of the claim of the attempted attack, made by Mrs. Johnson. She had been Seely’s housekeeper since last November when he bought the farm on which the tragedy happened. These officers were Troopers Jay Carmichael and C.P. Sharett of the Friendship State Police sub-station.
The call for them was relayed from the farm home of Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Brundage along the along the river at which Mrs. Johnson appeared barefoot, clad only in a summer calico dress, her head and shoulders covered with blood from a wound said to be a combination of a cut and a bruise on the left side of the head an inch above the temple. Archie Collins, living across the rivers, was appealed to by Mr. Brundage to go for doctors and to call officers. As quickly as possible, he went to the office of Drs. Perry and Grey, who were soon attending the injured woman, while he went to a business place to telephone troopers.
While physicians were treating Mrs. Johnson, Mr. Brundage and Mr. Collins went to the Seely farm home where they found Mr. Seely covered with blood, lying on the floor of the kitchen, conscious but losing strength from loss of blood. Mr. Seely recognized his neighbor, took $15 in bills from the watch pocket of his trousers and handed it to Mr. Brundage, remarking that he had promised to pay that sum owed to him as soon as he got his pension check. Mr. Seely was a veteran of the Spanish-American war.
The two troopers, who had hurried to the Seely house to attend him advised his removal to the Wellsville hospital, which was done in a Belfast ambulance.
So far as could be learned, Mr. Seely made no statement, other than given above, and investigating officers made no comments as to whether or not he did so at the hospital before his death.
Investigating officers did say that trail of blood led from the kitchen on the east and back side of the residence twenty-eight feet to a one-story tool and feed house farther to the east. Inside this tool house was a couch alongside which there was a large pool of blood, some on the couch and a heavy overcoat, which lay on it.
Coroner Nathaniel H. Fuller, Friendship, had not issued a certificate of death late last night and stated it was unlikely he would do so until officers had completed their investigation. The coroner thought it unlikely an inquest would be held.
Other investigating officers from the Friendship station were Sergeant Charles R> Stanton and Trooper Lewis, from the Bureau of Criminal Investigation of the State Police, Sergeants Harry M. DeHollandet and Paul Mellody of Batavia, from the office of Sheriff Edson A. Brigham Under-sheriff Raymond F. Dare and Deputy Sheriff Lloyd E. Milliman, also District Attorney E. Allen Mapes, Friendship.
During the questioning, the officers visited the Brundage home. Officers declined to express their opinions or to discuss details pending the outcome of the investigation. No arrests in connection with the case had been made yesterday.
From various residents of Belfast familiar with the circumstances of the purchase of the farm by Mr. Seely it was learned that he bought it in November, 1939, from those who held a mortgage against the land, at a cost of $1,100 and that when the deed was drawn in a Wellsville attorney’s office it was made out jointly to Mr. Seely and Mrs. Johnson. Funds for its purchase came from about $1,300 received by Mr. Seeley from the United States government back pension grants allowed him.
The farm, formerly owned by Woodard Reynolds of Belfast, was the birthplace and boyhood home of William Muldoon, deceased, well known as the one-time trainer of John L. Sullivan while in Belfast nearly fifty years ago being fitted to win the prize fight championship of the United States from Jake Kilrain in Louisiana. Mr. Muldoon was later a member of the New York State Boxing Commission and ran a sanitarium at White Plains.
Published in The Olean Times-Herald (Olean, NY), Thursday . October 3, 1940
Seeley Rites
BELFAST – Funeral services for Charles Seely, sixty-five, who died Wednesday morning in Wellsville, will be held Saturday afternoon at two o’clock in the Sullivan Funeral Home here. The Rev. George Chamberlain will officiate. Burial will be in Riverside Cemetery.
Published in the Olean Times Herald (Olean, NY), Friday, October 4, 1940
