Grayson County TXGenWeb

The Sunday Gazetteer
Sunday, January 24, 1892

ALONE IN HIS HUT
Some time during the night Sunday an old man by the name of Lobback died in an old, dilapidated hut near the south approach to the wagon bridge across Red river, 4 miles north of the city. No one except the old man was living in the shanty, and at what hour or the cause of his death will probably never be known. Not far away is a tent in which 2 young men are spending the winter. Sunday evening they called on the old man and found him lyin gin his bed sick. They offered to bring him to the city or to do anything for his comfort or convenience but nothing could be accepted. He did not wish to come to the city and stated that he would prefer to be dead than alive anyway. Early Monday morning one of the young men went to the hut when he found his neighbor dead. Word was sent to town and in the afternoon Justice Hughes secured a team from a stable and went out after the body. The shanty presented a pitable appearance. A portion of othe roof had been torn away. It was without flooring, and on the inside, standing in the corner from which the roof had not been torn away, was an old home-made bedstead. On the boards was a quantity leaves and straw and on these was an old blanket. Lying on the blanket was the lifeless body of the old man. His coering consisted of 2 cheap comforts, both of which were too short; one being tucked under his feet and extending about half up over his body, the other extending from his head half way down his lower limbs. Apparently, he had died while asleep and without a struggle. He was not frozen to death as was generally supposed, as the temperature in the swamp had not fallen to the freezing point Monday morning at the time the young man visited the hut. He told the young men, several weeks ago, that he was from north Missouri, but other than this nothing is known of his past life.
The body was brought to the city and buried by undertaker Lindsey, the expenses for which were paid by the county. The remains were interred in the potter's field.

The remains of Jacob Loboack, the old man who died in a hut near the Red river wagon bridge Sunday night, were interred this evening in Oakwood cemetery.