7/30/2013:
Common fears in the past included the fear of runaway horses. In the horse-and-buggy era, accidents caused by runaways were about as common as auto accidents today.
The fear cut both ways, for horses are afraid of just about everything. A horse is prey for predators, and a horse can best escape perceived dangers by running away. A principal axiom about horses held that if a horse runs away or kicks things to pieces, it’s out of fear, often caused by a loud noise or sudden movement.
Newspapers constantly told of deaths and injuries from runaways.
“Hebron Boy Instantly Killed in Runaway,” read one 1918 headline. “Ludwig Tfaff . . . 10-year-old . . . instantly killed while raking hay . . . the team ran away and went to the barn . . . his parents immediately rushed out to the field and found him dead on the prairie.”
In 1902: “Hugo Oberg of Hatton Killed in Runaway,” . . . “Oberg was driving along the river . . . when his team became frightened and ran away.” A “search revealed the body of Mr. Oberg in the river, where he had been thrown . . . . Deceased leaves a wife and two children.” Oberg was 34 years old.
In 1896, “J.B. Peppard [of Grafton] Instantly Killed in a Runaway Accident . . . Mangled . . . Under the Heels of the Runaway Horses.”
At Westhope, “Mabel Solseng, [a] fifteen-year-old girl. . . was killed . . . when the team which her father was driving became unmanageable and ran away, upsetting the buggy and hurling the girl” from the vehicle . . . she died in . . . two hours time.”
Most heartbreaking was the sad accident that occurred at Wales as reported in the Bismarck Tribune on this date in 1913: “Mrs. August Reuger [or spelled RUEGER] and infant child were riding in a buggy when the horse became frightened and ran away, throwing both from the vehicle. The child was instantly killed and the mother injured.”
The baby was laid to rest in the German Lutheran cemetery at Dresden.
The fear of horses, fidgety or unruly and ready to run away as they would be, could never be laid to rest in the horse-and-buggy era.
Today’s Dakota Datebook written by Dr. Steve Hoffbeck, History Department, MSU Moorhead.
Sources: “Child Killed in Runaway,” Bismarck Daily Tribune, July 30, 1913, p. 2;
“Child Killed,” Grand Forks Herald, July 25, 1913.
“Hebron Boy Instantly Killed in Runaway,” Grand Forks Herald, August 3, 1918, p. 9.
“Fatal Accident: H[ugo] Oberg of Hatton Killed In Runaway Tuesday,” Grand Forks Herald, May 30, 1902, p. 6.
“Horrible Death: J.B. Peppard Instantly Killed In a Runaway Accident Yesterday,” Grand Forks Herald, June 27, 1896, p. 8.
“15-Year-Old Girl Killed In Runaway,” Grand Forks Herald, July 16, 1919, p. 3.
“The Horse From A Moral Standpoint,” New Yorks Times, November 24, 1870, p. 3.
Frank M. Ware, “Vice In Horses And Its Correction,” Outing: An Illustrated Monthly Magazine of Recreation, vol. 39, no. 3, (December 1901), p. 284.