Joseph Henry

The Child

Joseph Henry Flinn, known to his family as “Joe Boy,” was born in 1931 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was the eldest child of Joseph G. Flinn and Margaret (Freudenberg) Flinn. By the mid-1930s the family had moved to Indianapolis and was living at 1944 Ruckle Street.

At the time of Joseph Henry’s death, the household included three younger children: Mary Margaret, Jimmy, and Shirley Jean. In the surviving newspaper account, Shirley’s name was printed as “Shirley Dean,” but family information identifies her as Shirley Jean.

Joseph's name also appears in records as Joseph Flinn Jr., reflecting that he shared his father's given name. The newspaper preserved the names of the younger children in the house: Mary Margaret was about four, Jimmy was about two, and Shirley Jean turned one on the day Joseph died.

The Accident — November 12, 1936

On the afternoon of November 12, 1936, five-year-old Joseph Henry Flinn was killed in a hunting accident near Solsberry, Indiana, in Beech Creek Township, Greene County. The newspaper report places the accident in woods on the W. H. Brown farm, about fifteen miles west of Bloomington.

According to the article, the party stopped for a drink of water. George Hendrickson of Indianapolis, who was with the family, leaned his loaded gun against a stone. Joseph Henry stumbled against it, and the gun discharged. The shot struck him in the chest. He was taken toward medical help but was pronounced dead before reaching aid.

The article also notes that the gun’s hammer was not cocked but rested against the firing pin. That detail survives as part of the original account and has remained part of the family story ever since the clipping was preserved.

The water stop is described as a pause at a well or spring. George Hendrickson's surname also appears as Hendrixson in related notes, a common kind of spelling variation in newspaper and family records. Joseph's father and Hendrickson carried him toward help, but he died before reaching a doctor.

The Firearm

The newspaper’s description of the gun is a small detail, but it is one of the most telling parts of the article. It says the hammer “was not cocked but rested against the firing pin.” That points to an older exposed-hammer shotgun, most likely a simple break-action single-barrel or double-barrel model of the kind common in rural households in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

On that type of shotgun, when the hammer was down it could rest directly against the firing pin, and the firing pin could rest against the primer of a loaded shell. If the hammer was struck hard enough, the blow could drive the firing pin into the primer even without anyone pulling the trigger. Modern firearms usually avoid that problem with a rebounding hammer or a transfer bar, but those safety features were not standard on many older farm shotguns.

That detail helps explain how the accident could happen exactly as the newspaper described it: a loaded gun, propped against a stone or boulder, with its hammer down on a live round while children were nearby.

Common makers of these older exposed-hammer shotguns included Stevens, Iver Johnson, and Harrington & Richardson. Many did not have a rebounding hammer, a transfer bar, or a modern cross-bolt safety. That is why the article's mechanical detail matters: it describes a kind of gun that could fire from a hard blow to the hammer even though no one meant to pull the trigger.

The Hunting Trip

The family’s home at 1944 Ruckle Street in Indianapolis was roughly 75 to 85 miles from Solsberry by road. In 1936, that was a meaningful trip. The family brought all four small children along, so this was not a casual walk into nearby woods. It was a planned visit to a particular place known to the adults.

On 1930s roads, that distance could easily mean a trip of around two hours. Bringing four small children suggests the adults were going to a known place, not simply trying an unfamiliar hunting ground for the day.

Joseph Henry was there with both parents and George Hendrickson of Indianapolis. The article says Joseph had been hunting with his father before and had been taught not to touch the guns used by his father and his father’s friends. That detail is painful, but it also preserves a small part of who he was: a little boy old enough to be included in his father’s hunting outings, still young enough to be only five.

Later research into Greene County land records and plat books suggests that the place of the accident may have lain within a part of Greene County connected to the broader Flinn or Flynn family landscape. That wider setting helps explain why a family living in Indianapolis might have been hunting in that particular area.

Contemporary Newspaper Accounts

Two newspaper clippings preserve the immediate public record of Joseph Henry’s death. The first describes the accident itself and gives the names of the parents, the Indianapolis address, and the surviving siblings. The second records that funeral services were arranged in Cincinnati, linking the Indiana accident to the family’s Ohio burial place.

Both newspaper items are also useful for small family details. They preserve the Indianapolis address, the father's occupation, the names of the younger children, and the spelling error that changed Shirley Jean to "Shirley Dean" in print.

Together these clippings connect Indianapolis, Solsberry, Cincinnati, and Saint Bernard in one continuous family story.

Burial

Joseph Henry Flinn is buried at Saint Mary Cemetery and Mausoleum, 701 E. Ross Avenue, Saint Bernard, Hamilton County, Ohio. His grave is located at Section 7, Lot 374, Grave 6. He rests with his maternal grandparents, Henry John and Augusta Freudenberg.

The funeral notice in Cincinnati fits naturally with this burial location. After the accident in Indiana, Joseph Henry was returned to the Cincinnati and Saint Bernard world of his mother’s family.

The cemetery is a German Catholic parish cemetery in Saint Bernard and is managed through the Cincinnati Catholic Cemetery Society. The cemetery office is at Saint Mary Cemetery and Mausoleum, 701 E. Ross Avenue, Saint Bernard, Ohio 45217. The cemetery entrance is near 39.1695 N, 84.4907 W.

Open Saint Mary Cemetery in Google Maps.

Joseph's burial location is also supported by Find a Grave Memorial ID 116412399 and by Mark R. Gideon's family tree entry, both of which place him with the Freudenberg family in Section 7, Lot 374, Grave 6.

Parents and Siblings

Father

Joseph G. Flinn was identified in the newspaper account as a Greyhound bus driver. The family was living in Indianapolis at the time of the accident, having come there from Cincinnati about two years earlier.

Mother

Margaret (Freudenberg) Flinn was born October 3, 1909. She was a daughter of Henry John Freudenberg and Augusta Wiechaus Freudenberg of Cincinnati.

Margaret died November 11, 1978. Through her, Joseph Henry was tied closely to the Freudenberg family and to Saint Mary Cemetery, where he was buried with his maternal grandparents.

Siblings

At the time of Joseph Henry’s death, the Flinn children named in the newspaper were Mary Margaret, Jimmy, and Shirley Jean. The newspaper printed Shirley’s name as “Shirley Dean,” but the family name is Shirley Jean.

The Freudenberg Family

Joseph Henry’s maternal family, the Freudenbergs, were German Catholics rooted in Cincinnati and Saint Bernard. Their story helps explain the family’s cemetery ties, the Cincinnati funeral arrangements, and the place where Joseph Henry was finally laid to rest.

Henry John Freudenberg lived at 4339 Virginia Avenue, also described in records as Bagdley Street or Virginia Avenue Hill. His death certificate ties the family directly to Saint Mary’s Cemetery, establishing the burial ground as part of the family’s earlier history before Joseph Henry’s death.

Henry John Freudenberg was born December 6, 1860, in Germany and worked as a florist in Cincinnati. He died March 15, 1928, of broncho-pneumonia and was buried at Saint Mary’s Cemetery two days later. His wife, Augusta Wiechaus Freudenberg, was the informant on his death certificate and was listed at the Virginia Avenue address.

Henry John's death certificate names his father as Henry Freudenberg of Germany; his mother's maiden name was not recorded. Augusta Wiechaus Freudenberg was also from Germany. The undertaker listed on Henry John's death certificate was Busse & Borgmann.

The Thirteen Children

Henry John and Augusta Freudenberg had thirteen children. A family photograph taken around 1915 at the home on Bagdley Street, also remembered as Virginia Avenue Hill, identifies George, Henry, Marie, Gus, Neddie, Dick, Louise, Otto, Hannah, Bernard, Margaret, Frank, and their parents. The small girl standing near Henry John is Margaret Freudenberg, Joseph Henry’s mother.

Several of Margaret’s siblings remained especially close to the family story. Jean, Louise, and Otto Freudenberg never married. Louise and Otto are confirmed buried at Saint Mary’s Cemetery, and family memory remembered Otto as very close to Margaret’s family.

Geographic Analysis — Location of the Accident

The maps and overlays associated with this research place the accident in the countryside around Solsberry in eastern Greene County. By 1937 Brown land appears near the section 28/33 boundary in Beech Creek Township, close to Solsberry. Older Flinn and Flynn land appears in neighboring Center Township, roughly six miles south of the Brown farm area.

These images help give shape to the setting of the hunting trip. They also suggest that the outing may have taken place in a district that belonged to a wider family geography rather than to an entirely unfamiliar place.

The location work used the newspaper description together with Greene County plat books from 1879, 1906, and 1937, plus the 1956 USGS Solsberry topographic quadrangle. The relevant township-and-range area is Beech Creek Township, T.8N, R.3W and R.4W.

The Brown Farm

The newspaper places the accident “in a woods on the W. H. Brown farm.” The 1937 Hixson Plat Book shows Brown family land near Solsberry at the section 28/33 boundary of Beech Creek Township, along the route now associated with State Road 43. The parcels are labeled with initials that are not perfectly clear, including entries read as “F+M Brown” or possibly “F+W Brown,” and a nearby V. Brown parcel in section 29.

No plat image examined so far gives a clean parcel label reading “W. H. Brown.” Even so, the Brown parcels near Solsberry are the only Brown land found in the immediate area on the relevant plat maps, and they match the article’s description of a farm near Solsberry and west of Bloomington.

The nearby V. Brown parcel is shown as about 50 acres in section 29. The Brown parcels nearest Solsberry account for about 120 acres in the section 28/33 area, which fits the size of a working farm in the period.

This location should be treated as likely but not fully verified until a Greene County deed, death certificate, or coroner record directly ties W. H. Brown to the exact parcel.

The working coordinate used for the likely former Brown farm area is approximately 39.09744, -86.73592. That location is about 1.45 miles from Solsberry and about 11.8 miles straight-line from the Monroe County Courthouse in Bloomington; by road, it fits the article’s “fifteen miles west” description.

Open the likely former Brown farm area in Google Maps.

The overlay used in this report shows the section grid around Solsberry, including sections 27, 28, 33, and 34, with State Road 43 running through the Brown parcel area. That view makes the newspaper's "near Solsberry" and "west of Bloomington" descriptions fit together.

Flinn, Flynn, and Brown Land

The land records are interesting because they turn the hunting trip into more than a dot on a map. They show that names connected to the family had a long presence in Greene County, and that the Brown farm appeared in the Solsberry area sometime between the early twentieth century and the 1937 plat.

1879

In the 1879 Greene County atlas, no Brown parcels appear in Beech Creek Township near Solsberry. Section 28 near Solsberry was held by names such as Wm. Gray and H. Shields. In neighboring Center Township, however, three Flinn landholders appear: A. Flinn with 120 acres in section 33, Wm. Flinn with 120 acres in section 30, and Eliz. Flinn with 40 acres in section 30. Together, those holdings show a substantial Flinn presence in the area by the late nineteenth century.

The 1879 section 28 neighbors are useful because they show who owned the land before the Brown farm appears on later maps: Wm. Gray and H. Shields are each shown with about 195 acres near Solsberry.

Another detail worth preserving is that Wm. Flinn's section 30 land was near an M.E. Church shown on the 1879 plat. Small map features like that can help descendants understand the neighborhood, not just the acreage totals.

1906

The 1906 Greene County map still does not show Brown land near Solsberry. Section 28 remained in the hands of Gray, Shields heirs, Watson, and nearby landowners. A Floyd Brown parcel appears farther north in Beech Creek Township, but not in the immediate Solsberry section 28/33 area associated with the later Brown farm research.

In 1906, the section 28 names included Wm. Gray with about 120 acres, Henry Shields heirs with about 156 acres, and Ira E. Watson. That is the ownership pattern that appears to have changed before the 1937 Brown parcels were mapped.

The Floyd Brown holding was about 104 acres in sections 2 and 3, roughly five to six miles north of Solsberry. That northern Brown cluster is separate from the Brown land that later appears near the accident area.

1937

By 1937, Brown parcels appear near the south side of section 28 and the north side of section 33, directly near Solsberry. A J. H. Flynn parcel also remains in Center Township section 33, roughly six miles south of the Brown farm area. That continuing Flynn presence is one reason the Solsberry hunting trip may have had a family-geography connection rather than being a random destination.

The J. H. Flynn 40-acre tract is important because it appears to be the last visible plat-map remnant of the older Flinn/Flynn holdings in that part of Greene County.

The 1937 plats also show a northern Brown cluster with names or initials including C. Brown, H. Brown, H. H. Brown, S. Brown, and J. M. Brown in sections 2 and 3. The Solsberry Brown parcels appear separately at the south side of section 28 and north side of section 33, which is why the deed trail between 1906 and 1937 is the most likely way to identify W. H. Brown fully.

One detail that may interest family members is that Flynn Road still runs through the same Center Township section 33 area where the plat maps show Flinn/Flynn land. The road name is not proof by itself, but it is a useful place-name clue: local road names often preserve the memory of families who owned or occupied land nearby long after the acreage changed hands. The spelling shift from Flinn to Flynn may reflect ordinary record-keeper variation, phonetic spelling, or a later family preference; older county records often moved between those spellings even when referring to the same family line.

Open Flynn Road in Google Maps.

Records Searched and Next Leads

The strongest parts of the research are supported by several independent records: the accident newspaper notice, the Cincinnati funeral notice, the Saint Mary Cemetery burial listing, the Find a Grave memorial, the Freudenberg death certificate, and the Greene County plat maps.

Confirmed Findings

• Find a Grave Memorial ID 116412399 places Joseph Flinn Jr. at Saint Mary Cemetery in Saint Bernard, Ohio.
• Mark R. Gideon's Ancestry tree entry, tree #76041462, also places Joseph with the Freudenberg family burial lot.
• The 1937 Hixson Plat Book shows Brown land near Solsberry around the section 28/33 boundary.
• The same 1937 plat set shows J. H. Flynn with 40 acres in Center Township section 33.
• The 1879 Greene County atlas shows A. Flinn, Wm. Flinn, and Eliz. Flinn with a combined 280 acres in Center Township.
• The 1906 Greene County map shows Floyd Brown land farther north, but not Brown land at the later Solsberry accident area.

Negative Searches

• The Monroe County death index for 1882-2025 did not show Joseph under Flinn or Flynn, which fits the accident being registered in Greene County.
• The 1879 and 1906 plats did not show Brown ownership in the immediate sections around the later W. H. Brown farm location.
• No plat book examined so far gives a clear "W. H. Brown" label, so the full legal identity of that landowner remains a research target.

Next Leads

• Request Joseph Henry Flinn's Greene County death certificate from Greene County Public Health in Bloomfield, Indiana; the notes list a $10 money-order fee and recommend calling first about nephew eligibility.
• Search Greene County deeds for transfers from Gray, Shields, Watson, or nearby owners to a Brown owner between 1906 and 1937.
• Follow up with the Cincinnati Catholic Cemetery Society, cccsohio.org, for the Saint Mary Cemetery lot card or burial register entry.
• Ask the Bloomfield-Eastern Greene County Public Library genealogy desk about land indexes for section 28, Beech Creek Township.

Useful Contacts

• Saint Mary Cemetery Office, 701 E. Ross Avenue, Saint Bernard, Ohio; office phone listed in the notes as (513) 242-4191.
• Cincinnati Catholic Cemetery Society contact from the notes: Jerry, jerry@cccsohio.org, (513) 557-2306.
• Greene County Public Health, 217 E. Spring Street, Suite 1, Bloomfield, Indiana; phone listed in the notes as (812) 384-4496 ext. 412.
• Greene County Recorder, 1 E. Main Street, Room 120, Bloomfield, Indiana; the notes list office hours as Monday-Friday, 8-4, with copies at $1 per page.
• Bloomfield-Eastern Greene County Public Library genealogy desk; phone listed in the notes as (812) 384-4210.

Family Reference Guide

Some parts of Joseph Henry’s story are settled clearly in the surviving record, while some details remain possible subjects for future family research.

• Settled: Joseph Henry Flinn died on November 12, 1936, in a hunting accident near Solsberry, Indiana.
• Settled: His parents were Joseph G. Flinn and Margaret Freudenberg Flinn, living at 1944 Ruckle Street in Indianapolis.
• Settled: He was buried at Saint Mary Cemetery, Saint Bernard, Ohio, Section 7, Lot 374, Grave 6.
• Settled: Funeral services were held in Cincinnati, Ohio.
• Family detail: the gun was likely an older exposed-hammer shotgun, with the hammer resting against the firing pin.
• Family detail: the Freudenberg family home was at 4339 Virginia Avenue, also remembered as Bagdley Street or Virginia Avenue Hill.
• Family detail: Henry John and Augusta Freudenberg had thirteen children, including Margaret Freudenberg Flinn.
• Family detail: Flinn and Flynn land appears in Greene County plat records across multiple decades.
• Open for further research: the exact legal identity of W. H. Brown and the exact parcel history of the farm named in the article.
• Open for further research: any additional county, church, or coroner records that may provide a fuller description of the accident and burial arrangements.

This page is meant to preserve Joseph Henry Flinn’s story in a form that relatives can read, revisit, and build on over time.