Cudgegong Valley History Project

PASTORALIST COMMIT SUICIDE. Mr. Samuel Pickett, a well-known pastoralist, residing at Long Gully, about 14 miles from Rylstone, is reported to have committed suicide. Deceased, who was 76 years of age, had been suffering from ill health for the past four or five years, and had recently been much worried with fear that his stock would perish during the coming winter. He took a dose of strychnine, and refused any emetic. He had spent the greater part of his life in the district, and had reared a family of twelve, all of whom, with their mother, survive him. (Sunday Times, Sunday 20 April 1902, p. 8).

LATEST NEWS BY WIRE. [Press Telegraph Association.] SYDNEY A SAD SUICIDE. Samuel Pickett, senr., aged 76, residing at Long Gully, near Rylstone, committed suicide by taking a dose of strychnine from a bottle kept in the house for poisoning dogs. He lingered several hours. Though evidently he underwent great agony, he resolutely refused to take an emetic. He had been in ill health for four or five years past; this, added to the fear that he would lose all his stock for want of feed during the coming winter, brought about a feeling of despondency. (Maitland Daily Mercury, Tuesday 15 April 1902, p. 3)

AN OLD RESIDENT OF LUE. POISONS HIMSELF WITH STRYCHNINE. DEPRESSED BY DROUGHT. (from our Correspondent). On Saturday morning, the 12th instant, between 9 and 10 o'clock, Mr. Samuel Pickett, farmer of Long Gully near Lue, informed his wife and son that he had taken poison, but his statement was at first not believed. Some two hours afterwards symptoms of strychnine poisoning showed them-selves, Mr. Pickett having a fit, followed by another an hour and a half later, in which he died. Deceased, who was in his 77th year, was a native England, and had been residing at Long Gully for forty years, where he made a comfortable home for himself. Mr. Pickett reared a large family of sons and daughters, all of whom are married. During the past few years Mr. Pickett suffered from bad health, especially so for the last six months, and was often heard to say that he wished he was dead, as he was only a trouble to himself and those members of his family near him, but he was never heard to threaten to take his own life. The desolation of the drought had recently worried the deceased, who became much depressed as it became more and more evident that many of his stock would perish. A bottle with a small quantity of strychnine in it was kept on a shelf in the kitchen, for the purpose of poisoning dogs, and deceased must have taken this into his bedroom the night before he took the fatal dose, as he did not leave his room on Saturday until about half-past nine in the morning, when he made the statement of having taken the poison. A cup of tea had been taken to deceased by his wife early in the morning, and appearances indicated that he poured a portion of the tea into the strychnine bottle, stirred the contents and then drank it. Deceased was much respected in the locality in which he so long resided, and very general sympathy is expressed for the members of his family, many of whom occupy good positions in the district. An inquest held at Long Gully on Tuesday, before Wm. Taylor, J.P., Coroner, and a jury of five, when a verdict was returned, of death by strychnine poisoning self administered. The re-mains were interred at Lue. (Mudgee Guardian and North Western Representative Thursday 17 April 1902, p. 11)