October 25, 2026
An August 1857 newspaper item reports a startling accident involving Frank Champion, a St. Louis druggist. He had dropped his pistol; when he picked it up, it discharged and wounded his foot. The paper said the bullet had not yet been extracted and that his foot was painful.
The short item identifies Frank as belonging to “Champion & Co., Druggists, St. Louis.” A July 1857 advertisement names B. F. Champion & Co. in the St. Louis wholesale drug trade. The 1896 biography of Dr. Federal Champion describes his son Frank as a wholesale druggist in St. Louis. Together with the family identification that B. F. Champion was Benjamin Franklin Champion, known as Frank, these records place the accident within the family’s business story.
An 1860 St. Clair County census transcription also lists B. F. C. Champion, age 25 and born in New Jersey, among the people in the same household as Patience Champion. That is consistent with the proposed link between B. F., B. F. C., and Frank, but the census does not state their relationships or identify B. F. C. as Frank. The original schedule should be checked before using this as proof. Read the 1860 census transcription (https://genealogytrails.com/ill/stclair/60st_clr.htm)
It is a brief report, not a full account of what happened next. The notice does not name a doctor, say when the bullet was removed, or describe Frank’s recovery. The family retrospective says son Frank died before Patience, who died in 1892, but does not give his death date. A separate notice reports that B. F. C. Champion died in Belleville on December 31, 1860. That may be Frank/B. F. Champion, but the clippings do not explicitly equate the names, so the date belongs to the possible match rather than a confirmed Frank biography.
The incident also captures how local and regional newspapers carried small personal reports alongside business advertisements, obituaries, and civic news. In a few lines, the paper links a named person, a city, and a drug firm—and gives us a human moment in an otherwise business-focused trail.
Read the August 7, 1857 accident report
Read the July 1857 B. F. Champion & Co. advertisement