EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of a weekly series on our region’s history coordinated by the Trumbull County Historical Society.

President William McKinley, two-time governor of Ohio and 25th president of the United States, was the third youngest of the four McKinley sons.

Born in Niles, he had two older brothers, David and James, and a younger brother, Abner. He also had five sisters, Anna, Helen, Mary, Sarah and Abigail. Abigail died when she was 6 months old, but the other siblings survived to adulthood.

While President McKinley’s assassination is infamous, his brothers’ deaths are less well-known, but were also sudden. Abner’s obituary in the Penn-Yan Democrat, dated June 17, 1904, mentioned that “Abner McKinley was the survivor of the four sons in the McKinley family, each of whom met a sudden or violent death.”

James McKinley died of apoplexy on a train near New Castle, Pa., on Oct. 11, 1889. He married Eliza Howe Fuller and had three daughters and one son.

He worked in the fuel and gas industry, organizing a number of companies in Ohio and Pennsylvania. He lived in California until his wife and one of his children died of typhoid, after which he relocated to Stark County.

David McKinley, who served as the Hawaiian Consul General from 1885 until his death, died from the same condition at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco on Sept. 18, 1892. Apoplexy is an historic term for what is today known as a stroke. David McKinley’s symptoms, mentioned in an obituary in the San Francisco Chronicle, included paralysis, loss of consciousness and temporary loss of his voice.

On Sept. 6, 1901, anarchist Leon Czolgosz assassinated President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. Czolgosz admitted no remorse for the shooting and was quoted in an article from Lapham’s Quarterly as saying “I shot the president because I thought it would help the working people and for the sake of the common people. I am not sorry for my crime.” President McKinley died from an infection caused by the gunshot wound on Sept. 14, 1901.

Abner McKinley, the youngest of the McKinley children, was a successful lawyer who practiced first with his brother William in Canton and later in New York. The State Herald newspaper from 1904 reported that he died of Bright’s disease in the early morning on June 11, 1904, at his home in Somerset, Pa. The Lock Haven Express newspaper mentioned that he had been suffering from the disease for two years. Bright’s disease, according to the University of Leeds Library, is “is an archaic term for what is now referred to as “nephritis,” an inflammation of the kidneys, caused by toxins, infection or autoimmune conditions.”

David McKinley was originally buried in the Odd Fellows Cemetery in San Francisco, Calif. In 1903, his remains were moved to Greenlawn Memorial Park, Colma, San Mateo County, Calif. to be buried next to his daughter. James McKinley is buried in West Lawn Cemetery in Canton. President William McKinley is buried with his wife Ida Saxton McKinley and his two young daughters in McKinley Memorial Park in Canton. A Presidential Library and Museum are nearby the McKinley National Memorial. Abner McKinley is buried in West Lawn Cemetery in Canton.