A Haunting at the Mount Remarkable Hotel –
Part II
- The Death of a Watchmaker.
In 1877, Dugald Wilson, a local watchmaker was walking along Stuart Street when he went under the veranda of the hotel. It was a dark night, and the hotel's lamp was lit, but Wilson did not see the trap door to the cellar was open, and fell through the hole, smashing his head on the ground below. Mr Peck had gone down to the cellar at about 6pm and heard the man fall. He rushed to help him, just as witnesses to the event, James Hart and Peter Toner came down the ladder to help lift Wilson out.
They carried the senseless man into the hotel. Wilson was very drunk and belligerent, telling the men to leave him be. He died that evening. The following day during the inquest into his death, it was reported to Mr F.J. Whitby J.P. and a jury of 13, that Wilson had been in town for a fortnight, and that entire time had been drunk.
The jury concluded that Dugald Wilson came to his death on 15 August 1877, ‘through a shock to his nervous system, caused by a fall down the cellar of Moran’s Hotel, Melrose.’[1]
Dugald Wilson was 65 years old at the time of his death.[2]
[1] 'CORONER'S INQUEST.', The Express and Telegraph, (31 August 1877), p. 2.
[2] ‘Dugald Wilson’, South Australia-Deaths 1842-1915, Australia, Death Index, 1787-1985, Vol. 82, (1877), p. 298.
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