A Dec. 5, 1853, newspaper reported the death of Leander Martin, 22. He and his brother Joshua, 23, rode into Bowling Green “on a drunken spree.”

Leander fell from his horse and was laid out in a stall of L.W. Potter’s livery stable.

Anxious to go home, Joshua tried to lift his brother but fell across him and was found later passed out on his dead brother’s chest.

A coroner’s inquest ruled that Leander died “by drunkenness, assisted by the pressure of the body” of his brother.

– “Way Back When in Warren County” is compiled by researchers at the Warren County Public Library and appears twice weekly in the Bowling Green Daily News. For more information about the library, visit warrenpl.org.