Death & Marriage Notices
Oneonta Herald & Democrat
Starting January 1878
Compiled and Contributed by
Sandy Goodspeed

MURDER AND SUICIDE AT UNADILLA.- A Man Shoots
Himself and his Wife.- From our own correspondent. Unadilla, August 12, 1878. The past week has been one of great excitement in our usually quiet village, and, perhaps,
with the exception of the sad GOODRICH and MOREHOUSE drowning affair, by which four persons lost their lives in the Susquehanna river at this place, some two years ago, no event in the history of the town has so startled our citizens
as the report that ran through our streets like wildfire last Thursday evening a little after eight o'clock, that Marshall GRANNIS had just murdered his wife, and then finished the
tragedy by shooting himself. Upon hearing the report, your correspondent hurried to the scene, found Grannis dead and his wife just breathing her last. As there are many reports flying around, some of which had found their into the papers, I will endeavor, briefly as possible, to lay before your readers a true history of the whole affair. Grannis has been a resident to this town from a child, and has always been a bad reputation. He has been in the habit of drinking intoxicating liquors to excess for many
years, and when under its influence was of a quarrelsome disposition. Some few months since, he was arrested on a charge of "drunkenness and disorderly conduct," and at the time made threats of dire vengeance against Officer TUPPER who arrested him. On this charge he was sent
to Cooperstown jail, and on his return, it being about the time the Murphy temperance movement was flourishing here, he become a temporary convert to that doctrine and for a few weeks wore the blue ribbon and religiously adhered
to his pledge. His career as a temperance man soon gave way to his appetite for drink, and his old habits returned, seemingly aggravated by his temporary abstinence. It appears that in this domestic affairs like all others, he was rbitrary and brutal, often abusing his wife with blows and kicks, so that on several occasions they had separated, had "made up," and with many promises on his part, had been united again. The immediate cause of the last separation which culminated in this fearful tragedy of Thursday evening was his discovering in his house a young
man or boy by the name of WARNER, under what appeared to him very suspicious circumstances. A fearful row immediately ensued, which ended in his turning his wife out of doors and forbidding her return. Mrs. Grannis, after a few days, hired rooms in E. C. BELKNAP's building and
commenced housekeeping with her two youngest children, a boy and girl. One older boy is living with an uncle on the Unadilla River road, and another in Rochester at the House of Refuge, having been sent there about a year ago for being engaged in a burglary in this village. On the day of the tragedy, Mrs. Grannis had been working for Mr. MULFORD at Sidney Plains. On her return in the evening, she met her husband in the street opposite Mattice's Hotel, and had a short conversation. Grannis asking her to come down to C. D. Fellows & Son's store within
half an hour and he would make her a present. She promised to meet him there, and immediately passed on to her rooms in the Belknap building, near where the conversation took place. A few moments later she came down stairs accompanied by her little girl and immediately proceeded
to Fellows & Son's store where she had been but a few moments when Grannis came in, asked the little girl to "kiss papa" and stooped down for the purpose, and upon rising, thrust his revolver, a small Empire, twenty-two calibre, into his wife's face and fired, the ball entering her right eye and burying itself in the brain. Geo. B. FELLOWS, the only other person in the store, being behind the counter at the time, started toward Grannis saying, "Marsh, what are you doing?" when Grannis turned toward
him and Mr. Fellows wisely thinking "discretion the better part of valor," started for the door to summon assistance, but before he could get outside another report followed, and Grannis fell to the floor with a bullet in his right temple, which resulted in almost instant death. A number of persons immediately rushed in, and found the murderer and suicide with his victim stretched on the door (sic?) welting in their own blood, and presenting as ghastly and frightful a spectacle as one often sees in a rural village like Unadilla in an ordinary life time. The two were buried at five o'clock
Friday afternoon in the Episcopal church cemetery. It is thought by many that Grannis had designs upon other persons beside his wife, as he had been making threats in a vague manner against several others, among whom was Major C. D. FELLOWS, who had befriended his wife since the separation by assisting her in obtaining the means to commence housekeeping, but fortunately Mr. Fellows was not in the store at the time, which perhaps saved a third victim from being added to the number. As to the numerous versions of the causes that led to this affair,
we will make no comments, but will "Think of her mournfully, Gently and humanly, Not of the stains of her; All that remains of her Now, is pure, womanly."