Probably all those buried here are descendants of William B and Margaret Lantz Niel.

Friday, April 15, 1881. The paper then was The Kittanning Times and it was a weekly published on Fridays.

On the front page of the April 15, 1881 edition we found the following.

[SOURCE: The Kittanning Times Vol. 5 No. 48 Kittanning, PA. Friday, April 15, 1881 Whole No. 256]

[Transcribed by Thomas L and Sandra J Nagy, 13 Jun 2000]

A SAD DISASTER

One of the saddest catastrophes which we have been called upon to record for a long time occurred last Saturday evening, in Red Bank Township, about one mile and a half from Eddyville. The dwelling house on the farm owned by Wm. Engle (grandson of Mr. Neal), who's wife died some four years since. In the
evening about 5 o'clock – at which time Mr. Engle was absent at the mill and Mrs. Engle had gone to a neighbors house about half a mile distant for some milk – Mr. Neal discovered the house was on fire in the garret. Mr. Neal was a large man, and had been an invalid for some time past, being unable when lying in bed to arise without assistance and had not been able to go up to the garret for years past but under the excitement he managed to reach the garret, hoping to quench the flames by means of water
brought him by the little girls the oldest not yet eight years of age. Arriving there, and in attempting to throw the water he by some means fell on his back, resting on the ceiling of the second story and lying between two joists. Knowing his inability to rise he calmly told the little girls to go down stairs and get out of the house. They at once went down and one of them ran to Mr. Smith's, where her mother had gone, and in a short time Mr. Engle and Mr. Smith arrived and took out the cradle in which the third child was seated, together with Mr. Neal's books and papers and a few articles of furniture from the first floor, but the upper part of the building was so far consumed that it was impossible to ascend the stairs. After
the house was consumed a portion of the body of Mr. Neal about three feet long was found in the ashes charred beyond all possibility of recognition.
As a matter of course the fact of such dire calamity spread through the neighborhood with the rapidity of wild fire, and in consequence, on Sabbath day a large number of people gathered at the place to attend the little that was left of him to his last resting place. He was laid away beside his wife in a burying ground on his farm, which is located on one of the loftiest knolls in that section of the county.

-Union Free Press