Death
While on the expedition to Yellowstone in July 1872, Blackmore's wife Mary contracted pneumonia and died in Bozeman, Montana. William purchased land and donated it to the town for a cemetery. Ferdinand Hayden named Mount Blackmore in Mary's honor.
In 1871 he sent his brother Henry and cousin George Blackmore and their families to look after lands in Colorado. A world recession hit in 1873, investors became agitated, American partners were taking advantage of William's absence leading to a stressful situation for the promoter. In 1877 his sister Blanche and her husband Arthur Boyle (1840–1910), whom she had married in that year, emigrated to America to look after Blackmore's property in New Mexico. Back in England William was suffering from a fall, overwork, lack of rest and over-indulgence. Humphrey prescribed some time away in the South of England. However, after a drinking binge he suffered a sun stroke, returning home in worse condition. Blackmore's business investments fell into more and more precarious states. He was unable to raise funding to travel to the USA sort matters out. On 12 April 1878 William shot himself in his study at Belgrave Mansions, Grosvenor Gardens, London, near Victoria Station.
Read more about this topic: William Henry Blackmore
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“Since the death instinct exists in the heart of everything that lives, since we suffer from trying to repress it, since everything that lives longs for rest, let us unfasten the ties that bind us to life, let us cultivate our death wish, let us develop it, water it like a plant, let it grow unhindered. Suffering and fear are born from the repression of the death wish.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“And yet the sun pardons our voices still,
And berries in the hedge
Through all the nights of rain have come to the full,
And death seems like long hills, a range
We ride each day towards, and never reach.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)