Winfield Courier, November 20, 1873.

Killed by a Tarantula.

This week we are called upon to record the first case of death by the bite of the most deadly poison species of insect, in this section of the southwest. Sunday last, about 12 o'clock, while Mr. Samuel Vallier, Chief of the Quapaw Indians, living three miles south of Baxter, was going about his farm, he was bitten on the toe of one foot by a large tarantula. He immediately started for the house, but a short distance, and by the time he reached it the pain from the bite was so severe that he was unable to sit up, and threw himself across the bed, not thinking that his deadly foe had followed up his victim, to repeat the bite in a more vital place. But such was the case, the insect had crawled up his clothing, and soon after he lay down it gave him the second bite in the small of the back. This, with the former bite, charged his system with the poison almost as quick as if by electricity. Medical aid was immediately summoned, but before it reached him, he was too near gone for it to do any good. And in the most intense agony he lingered until about 10 o'clock that night, when death relieved his sufferings.