Jerry Doering
Cincinnati Enquirer, 24 July 1875, page 4
NEWPORT
A suicide of rather sensational appearance occurred in Newport last night at half past eleven o'clock. A German named Jerry Doering, living on Bellevue street, in a row of frame buildings or the north side, west of Columbia street, suddenly rushed from his home and took the nearest route for the river where he ended his life.
He had been apparently in good spirits all evening and not more than half an hour before he had taken his night cap of beer in Strouder's saloon, at the corner of Bellevue and Columbia streets and then went home. Mr. Strouder noticed nothing unusual in his behavior then.
But at the time named he appeared at the door of his house in a very excited condition and with a pistol in his hand, Mrs. Doering ran to the low fence which divided her from her neighbor and exclaimed, "Oh Mr. Clark please come and speak to Jerry." Mr. Clark went to the fence but when he saw the sate of affairs he concluded it best not to interfere.
After flourishing the pistol awhile Doering started on a brisk run for the river, with his wife after him, begging him not to kill himself. A party of men ran after Doering to hold him back, but he leveled the pistol at the head of the first man who approached and thus intimidated the pursuing crowd.
Thus he ran from the house door up Bellevue to Columbia, and along Columbia to the river. It was only by strong endeavors that the poor frantic wife was prevented from jumping after him with her babe in her arms.
Grappling hooks were thrown in and in fifteen or twenty minutes the body was caught and brought to shore. With the usual ignorance in such cases the crowd was afraid to take the body out until the Coroner arrived. Had the body been taken out immediately and the proper means used there is scarcely any doubt the man might have been brought back to life.
As it was, Coroner Winston was summoned and an inquest was held. A verdict of "death from suicide by drowning from causes unknown to the jury" was rendered. Doering was a tall and good looking man of German nativity and thirty five years of age. He had been only four weeks from Pittsburg, where he was employed as a traveling agent in the leather business. He had been out of work since his residence here.
It is not known what caused his sudden determination toward suicide further than that he wished to go to California and his wife would not go. As he alluded to that on his way to the river, it is supposed that her opposition might have been the exciting cause of what was evidently an insane fit.