People and incidents · New Lisbon, Pemberton Township
Annie O'Donnell's drowning near New Lisbon
Single newspaper index record reviewed; nothing independently confirmed
A library index summary of a 1909 New Jersey Mirror brief records that Annie O'Donnell drowned in a creek by her home on H. M. Black's cranberry bogs near New Lisbon on March 22, 1909, and that the coroner treated the death as accidental. No inquest is mentioned.
An errand to the creek bank
The Burlington County Library System's index to the New Jersey Mirror carries a record for an item in the "LOCAL BRIEFS" column of March 24, 1909, page 3, column 1. By the indexer's summary of it, Mrs. Annie O'Donnell, wife of Patrick O'Donnell, was living in a house on H. M. Black's cranberry bogs near New Lisbon and drowned in the creek there on a Monday. The index itself glosses that Monday as March 22, 1909, which is indeed the Monday before the Wednesday issue; the record as summarised does not print the date.
The explanation the report gives is that a strong wind blew her into the water as she was filling a bucket from the bank, and the summary notes the item said no other explanation could be offered and raised no thought of suicide. Her husband, the account continues, went to the creek when she did not return and saw her body floating downstream. This is a newspaper's working theory as relayed by an indexer, not an established cause of the fall.
The finding
The summary reports that a Coroner Seeds believed the drowning accidental and issued a burial certificate to that effect. That is a coroner's disposition, not an inquest verdict: no inquest, jury, or post-mortem is mentioned, and the summary gives no first name for Seeds. Nor does the record give O'Donnell's age, any description of the creek beyond "the creek at that place," or anything about the couple beyond their names and their residence on Black's bogs. Nothing here was confirmed against a census, burial, or vital record this session, and the underlying newspaper page was not read.
What the item does document is that a family was living out on a working cranberry bog near New Lisbon in 1909 and drawing water from the creek beside it. The record does not say who owned or provided the house, how many other families were there, or anything else about the bog operation, so nothing broader about bog housing is asserted here.
Sources and research limits
- Burlington County Library System, New Jersey Mirror index — search for "O'Donnell" — Re-run and confirmed September 12, 2026: fifty results, of which hit 19 (accession 75241) is categorised "OBITUARIES," headlined "LOCAL BRIEFS.", New Jersey Mirror, March 24, 1909, page 3, column 1. The database supplies an indexer's summary rather than the article's own wording, and the site provides no stable per-record link, so the search query above is given instead. Limits: the original microfilm, held by the Burlington County Library in Westampton, was not consulted; the index has no date-range filter; and no independent record (census, cemetery, or genealogical) confirming Annie or Patrick O'Donnell's ages, origins, or later history, or identifying Coroner Seeds or H. M. Black, was located this session.