Joseph "LeRoy" Norton was born in 1859 in Vermont. He settled in Spring Grove with his parents in the 1860s where they farmed on English Prairie. His wife Anna Ward was born in England in 1861 and came with her parents to English Prairie in 1866. Leroy and Anna married in 1879.
One December day in 1923, LeRoy was driving his team of horses to Spring Grove with a load of block wood when he recognized Matt Hahn on the side of the road. Matt was a well-known character, who had worked as a blacksmith in Solon Mills for several years and earlier as a hired hand for the Mark Pierce family on their farm in English Prairie. Hahn was about 60 years old and was separated from his family.
When Norton stopped his team and invited Hahn to ride with him, he noticed he was in a stupor. Norton urged him to ride with him but instead of taking the seat, Hahn insisted on sitting on top of the load. Norton warned him that he might fall off from where he sat. As the team jogged along, Norton heard noises behind him and drew his rein to stop the team, but they were going downhill, and he could not bring them to an immediate stop.
Hahn had fallen from the load between the front and rear wheels of the wagon and the rear wheel with the heavy load road over his chest. Norton stopped a passing auto and with assistance, brought him to his home. Burton Township Supervisor, Frank May, was notified and he brought the seriously injured man to the Woodstock hospital where he died the next morning.
A coroner's inquest was held where Hahn's friend, Joe Kuhn, told his story. Hahn had been drinking for several days in Solon Mills when he asked Joe (who admitted that he had also been drinking) to take him to Grass Lake. They made the trip in Kuhn's Ford truck while drinking a pint bottle of moonshine along the way. They tried to buy more in Grass Lake, but unable to, Kuhn said he drifted around the town all day, but didn't see anything more of Hahn, and couldn't even tell what he himself did, only that he got home around seven o'clock that evening.
"That moonshine", Kuhn said, "could put a man out of business for a couple of days". State's Attorney Lumley asked where they got the moonshine, but Kuhn swore the pint wasn't his and he had no idea where Hahn got it.
The coroner's jury brought in a verdict of "death caused by injuries received while intoxicated". Lumley promised an investigation into the moonshine. And LeRoy had a story to tell for the rest of his life that ended in 1945.
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