Death of E. Morton Lackland

We very much regret to chronicle the death of Mr. E. Morton Lackland, which took place on Thursday of last week, the 9th of March, by suicide, at his home near Charlestown, in this county. He had been under treatment for mental troubles at the private asylum of Dr. Conrad, near the Relay House, Md., for several weeks, but showing no signs of improvement was taken home. On Thursday last he procured a pistol belonging to a gentleman who was stopping at his house, and laid down on a bed. Placing the pistol to his temple he drew a pillow over his head to deaden the sound of the report and fired. Death resulted instantly, and he was found in the position described, by his only surviving sister, Mrs. Thomas Sublett, who had been in his room but a few minutes previous. Mr. Lackland was a gentleman of intelligence and extensive information, and one of the most successful farmers in the county. Last fall he became melancholy, though for no known reason, and last December placed himself in Dr. Conrad’s private asylum, near Relay House, Md. But the best medical treatment failed to afford relief, and Mr. Lackland continued to grow melancholy, at the same time loosing his appetite. Dr. Conrad wrote to his friends that the case was a hopeless one, and he be taken home to die. Consequently, on Monday of last week, Dr. C. T. Richardson and Mr. Wm. L. Wilson, of Charlestow, went down to the Relay House and conveyed Mr. Lackland home, his arrival there being quickly followed, according to information which seems reliable, by the tragic event recorded above. When in good health Mr. Lackland was a splendid specimen of physical manhood, being about 47 years of age, six feet four inches in height, and weighing 240 pounds. He was a member of company B, Twelfth Virginia Cavalry, Rosser’s Confederate brigade, Army of Northern Virginia, during the late war, and was highly esteemed for his genial traits of character, as well as for conspicious bravery and daring in battle. He was a bachelor, and leaves a beautiful estate valued at from $45,000 to $50,000. For many years it was Mr. Lackland’s habit to spend the winter months in Baltimore, making his home at the Eutaw House, and his conspicuous and imposing figure attracted frequent attention.

The Charlestown Spirit of Jefferson, of Tuesday last contains the following:

Death of E. Morton Lackland. — We regret to announce the death of this gentleman, which occurred on Thursday last, at his residence near Charlestown. Mr. Lackland had just passed his forty-first year, and was endowed by nature with such splendid physical manhood as to give promise, before the attack of his recent fatal malady, of extended and vigorous life. His illness was a long and distressing one, accompanied at times by intense bodily suffering yet his friends almost to the last, trusted that his comparative youth and exuberant vigor, which had been fostered by a regular and temperate life, would overcome the disease which he battled the best medical skill and the kindly miaistrations of relatives and friends. Mr. Lackland was one of the most prominent citizens of this county, a man of unusual intelligence, of wide reading and extensive information. During the war he was a member of the Company B, 12th Virginia Cavalry, in the Confederate service, and was conspicuous for bravery and daring. He bore into all the relations of life some of the rarest and most robust virtues of manhood. Temperate in all things, he was notably so in thought and speech. Gifted with strong and decisive feelings, he was by nature and by principle charitable in judgement, and singularly, perhaps absolutely, free from sensoriousness, random or evil-speaking. He abhorred deceit and hypocrisy, and followed truth and sincerity with a frankness that took no counsel of policy, and to the few friends who were admitted into the confidences of his life, it was well-known, long before his illness came, and when life seemed fullest of hope and promise, that he was a sincere and humble christian in thought and in deed. Mr. L., as we now remember, held no office except that of Mayor of this town, at its reorganization in 1872, but he was one of the best known citizens of this section of the State.