Felix Grundy McConnell (1809-1846)

Washington D.C. September 9, 1846.  -- The telegraph will have apprised you of the melancholy suicide of the Hon. Felix McConnell.  The news sent a thrill of horror through the community, and crowds eagerly hurried to the body which but a short time ago was bounding with the pulses of life.  Oh! Intemperance! how numerous are thy victims.

It appears that the deceased terminated his existence by deliberately cutting the jugular veins on each side of his throat, and by inflicting deep wounds in his sides, with a knife.  Two of the stabs were nearly perpendicular.  The others were glanced off from his bones and made frightful gashes.  His friends say that for about a week past he had relinquished drinking, owing to indisposition, and that the absence of his usual stimulus caused great despondency.  He was in fact suffering the horrors of delirium tremens.

He could not, as has been stated, been in great want of money, for I am told he had not drawn his mileage.  In addition to this, he had his watch and valuable jewelry on his person, besides a sum of money.  A short time before he committed the deed, he called for a pen and ink, for the purpose, it is supposed, of writing to his wife.  A coroner's inquest was held on the body, at his room in the St. Charles Hotel, and a verdict was rendered in accordance with the fact.

Mr. McConnell was born in Nashville, Lincoln County, Tennessee, on April 1st, 1809.  In 1824, he removed to Talladega County Alabama, where his family, consisting of a wife and four children, now reside.  His funeral took place on the 10th, under the direction of the House of Representatives.  = = = published in the Baltimore Sun, 11 September 1846.

Transcriber's Note:  Mrs. McConnell was Miss Elizabeth Hogan, who married Felix in Alabama in 1835.  According to A Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, Mr. McConnell worked as a saddler before being admitted to the bar in 1836.  He served in the Alabama House of Representatives and the Alabama State Senate before being elected to the U.S. Congress.