Excerpt from the “Items from Cid” column:

Last Tuesday, Thomas YATES, who is familiarly known in this neighborhood as Uncle Tommy, had the misfortune of losing the thumb and three fingers of his left hand at J.R. PLUMMER’s saw mill. The day after the accident, the thumb was found about twenty-five yards from the saw.

Source: Davidson Times-Dispatch, 29  January 1890.  Paper available at Google News Archive.