from The Republican (Danville, Indiana)--issue of Thursday, September 1, 1910—pages 1, column 5:
FATAL TOUCH
Boyish Prank of Touching Live Wires Kills Paul Merritt
Paul, son of James Merritt, living just north of the C.H. & D. tracks on the Avon and Brownsburg road was instantly killed Tuesday afternoon when he grasped the high tension wire, carrying 6,600 volts, of the Danville light company.
The eleven-year-old boy was playing in the yard with two little sisters, the older, seven years old. They were the only witnesses of the sad accident. The older girl says that the boy said he was going to climb into a tree and shake the telephone wires. By climbing a gate post he was able to draw himself into a maple tree which had been topped so the wires could pass over it. Standing on the limbs he could reach the telephone wires. Above them, about eighteen inches are the heavily charged wires of the light company. Evidently the little fellow reached up with his right hand and touched a live wire. His other hand was probably still holding the telephone wires. The current thus found a circuit through his body and he fell, his feet catching in the limbs and he hanging head down. The little girls ran to their mother in the back yard with the story that brother was standing on his head in the tree. The mother ran to the tree and found the body hanging. She succeeded in lowering to the ground but life was extinct. A burn in the palm of the right hand and a slight scar in the left showed the points of contact. Mr. Merritt's family has been unfortunate as the only other son born to them was burned to death several years.