TRAGEDIES OF FRIGHT NIGHT

Hallowe’en in 1907 Santa Rosa passed without event, or at least nothing as serious as two years earlier, when a mob of little heathens ended up in jail.

(RIGHT: Detail of cartoon from The Salt Lake Tribune, November 1, 1907)

Nationally the prank d’jour was still stealing front yard gates, but it seems that in 1907 there was also a larger than usual number of Hallowe’en fatalities chronicled in the newspapers. Some examples:

In Tucson, 20 year-old Ramon Lavota and his buddies stretched a wire across the sidewalk to trip a Chinese man who fell, then drew a handgun and shot Ramon dead

Jarvis Willett of Fox Lake Wisc. died of a heart attack on the discovery that pranksters had hidden his wagon

Newton Reddinger’s head was blown off when a boy in Oak Ridge Penn. fired into a crowd that was taunting him

Nine year-old Carl Appel of New Haven was pinging his pals with his little pea-shooter when he ran into a brick wall, fatally driving the pipe into his throat

Joseph Berbeno (14) of Harlem blew out the brains of his 12 year-old friend in a game

Annie Osgood of Ashland, Kentucky, was on a suicide watch after she wrapped herself in a sheet and frightened her sister so much that she leaped from the bedroom window, breaking her neck

Mrs. Sadie Stiver of Logansport died of shock on hearing her daughter scream at the sight of trick-or-treaters

HALLOWE’EN PRANKS IN SANTA ROSA
Festivities Keep Alive an Old Custom Which Many Participated Thursday Evening

Thursday night (Hallowe’en) was joyously celebrated in Santa Rosa, when many of the old-time customs were revived, the mellow gleam of the Jack O’Lanterns was seen and “spooks” were about in the land. In many Santa Rosa homes there were a number of little parties, at which there were Hallowe’en festivities and several public entertainments.

There were prank players abroad, too, and it will not be surprising if a number of householders awake this morning to find front gates missing or tied up, and other mischievous tricks perpetrated while men slept. If they do they must charge it up to the old-time excuse “boys will be boys.”

– Press Democrat, November 1, 1907