Samuel Crumpler's Oak Tree, Old Park, Lytchett Matravers

Image: © Becky Williamson Taken: 24 Sep 2016

See also: Image] A COUNTRY TRAGEDY By Beau Parke Samuel Crumpler paid the price for being so nice and trusting with his bull; He walked the field that blistering Summer's day whilst checking acreage and gauging chores unmindful of his young and powerful charge. Then suddenly the animal took pace and rushed and roared and snorted t'wards his face, whilst Sam stepped back, yet still believed the bull was easy to contain: But on it went, momentum built to such a speed and strength that Sam, alarmed, tried frantic'ly to reach for branches of the nearby oak, but failed to get the leverage he needed now to avoid its frenzied, maddened surge; He yelled in terrifying pain as he was pinned against the trunk and gored relentlessly by this unreal, unreasoning monster that he'd fed and nurtured from a calf; The blood was spurting forth as sweat and slime and slaver from the bull was intermixed with gore, and bones were crushed till Samuel Crumpler's broken frame was tossed into the air, now cruelly scythed and crunched beyond all comprehension. His sorrowing widow and nine sons and daughters saw him laid to rest a few days later in the Village Churchyard, knowing that local history had been made at his expense for trusting that young bull and lowering his guard. Samuel Crumpler, wheelwright, carpenter and sometime farmer died, aged fifty-five, in 1849; a kind and strong and gallant, some say foolish, family man.

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