Watchman Cornelius Mooney

Cornelius Mooney

Watchman Neil Mooney succumbed to a gunshot wound sustained two days earlier when he was shot with a musket while putting out a bonfire that had been lit in a vacant lot at the corner of Eighth Street and Fitzwater Street.

He had just taken a prisoner to the watchhouse and was returning to his beat when he saw the fire. He entered the vacant lot in an area that a fence had been torn down and began to put it out when someone standing by the fence fire a musket at him, striking him in the head. He was taken to a hospital where he died.

Watchman Mooney was a veteran of the Cadwalader Grays, a militia created in preparation for the Mexican-American War that became part of the First Pennsylvania Regiment.