Mr. Orrin Oaks, an old and generally known resident of this city, met with a sudden death on Monday last. He had been to Proctors Meat Market and was going from there to his home when, at a quarter of eleven o'clock, just after getting inside his gate, he fell. His daughter Miss Gussie (Augusta) on going out a few minutes after was shocked by finding the form of her father lying there. By the assistance of some gentlemen who were in the vicinity, the body was carried into the house, but life was entirely gone, and he is supposed to have died almost instantly, of heart disease.
Mr. Oaks was a venerable gentleman of over seventy one years, having been born in Stephentown, Rensselaer County, New York, in February 1804. He removed to La Porte, Indiana in 1835, and there married. He removed to this state in 1856, settling as a farmer on Greenwood Prairie, in the town of Farmington, in this county. In common with the early settlers of this region he passed through the privations of the hard times. An incident that he told of the well-remembered hard winter, was that at one time he went from his place nearly to Oronoco for a few potatoes, that being the nearest house at which there was any food to spare. In 1861 he moved into this city and has since lived here. In 1869 Mrs. (Phoebe) Oaks died.
The funeral, which took place on Wednesday afternoon from the Presbyterian Church, was largely attended. The burial service of the Episcopal Church was read by Rev J F Walker, and the sermon was preached by Rev H A Newell, pastor of the Presbyterian Church. The remains were conveyed to the cemetery by the two lodges of Odd Fellows, of which order Mr. Oaks was a prominent and honored member.