To request a copy of this photo for your own personal use, please contact our state coordinator. If you are not a family member or the original photographer — please refrain from copying or distributing this photo to other websites.
Thank you for visiting the Arkansas Gravestone Photo Project. On this site you can upload gravestone photos, locate ancestors and perform genealogy research. If you have a relative buried in Arkansas, we encourage you to upload a digital image using our Submit a Photo page. Contributing to this genealogy archive helps family historians and genealogy researchers locate their relatives and complete their family tree.
Submitted: 7/17/20 • Approved: 5/30/21 • Last Updated: 6/2/21 • R1329713-G1329710-S3
Pulaski
Unknown - March 31, 1896
Wife
Unknown - March 31, 1896
Grace
Unknown - March 31, 1896
*Obituary
Benton County Democrat
Tuesday, April 2, 1896
DUCKWORTH, Pulaski S., wife and daughter - Our community was shocked and startled last Sunday when word was brought to town that a terrible tragedy had been enacted in our county about three miles south of Bentonville. Pulaski Duckworth, who was a prosperous farmer with a pleasant home and a wife (about 40 years of age and the daughter of W.G. Williams who lived 35 miles from Ft. Smith in the Cherokee Nation) and two sweet little girls, had, in a moment of insanity, taken an ax and murdered his wife and little three-year-old daughter, Grace, and then taking a pocket knife had stabbed himself twice near the heart and severed both jugular veins and ended his own life. The elder daughter, Anna, aged eight years, escaped, having been absent at Sunday school. A fearful sight met her gaze when she returned and entering the house found her mother lying on the bed in one room dead, her baby sister on the floor dying and her father in an adjoining room dead. She ran for help. Pitying neighbors with kindly hands prepared the bodies for the grave and cared tenderly for the little one who was still living though so dreadfully wounded and the best medical treatment was given but it followed the parents in a few hours and all three were interred in one grave Monday in the Hart cemetery after funeral services. The sympathy of the entire community goes out to the little girl thus sorely bereft, and all hope that time, the great healer of sorrow, will efface from her heart the memory of the terrible tragedy that has overshadowed her young life.
*Obituary
The Springdale News
Friday, April 3, 1896
DUCKWORTH, Pulaski, wife and daughter - {from Colville} Before The News reaches its readers many of them will have heard of the awful tragedy enacted near this place on Sunday morning, resulting in the death of Pulaski Duckworth, his wife and little girl. We give particulars as they are known to us. A little girl of the family had gone to Sabbath School as usual and when she returned and entered the house the first thing she saw was her mother lying on the floor dead. She ran to a neighbors and informed them of what had occurred. He went to the house and found the woman lying on the floor as the little girl had informed him. She had been struck twice on the head with an ax; the little babe had been struck with the ax but was still breathing. On entering the rear room Mr. Duckworth was discovered lying dead on the bed with a gash on each side of his neck and a bloody razor lying near. It was an awful occurrence and one that has caused a feeling of horror throughout the country. Mr. Duckworth was formerly a resident of this township and has relatives living here. The little girl died and all of them were buried at the Hart cemetery yesterday. Mr. Duckworth had evidently murdered his wife and child and then killed himself. He was no doubt temporarily insane.
Contributed on 7/17/20 by judyfrog
Email This Contributor
Suggest a Correction
Record #: 1329713