WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP, N.J.– A quiet stretch of Jeffery Road became the scene of unbearable loss Friday when 74-year-old Donald Dakin, a gentle giant of the Warren County community, died in a single-vehicle accident that has left neighbors and loved ones reeling.
Emergency crews were called to the rural roadway just after 3 p.m. after a passerby spotted Dakin’s pickup truck off the pavement and heavily damaged. First responders worked frantically at the scene, but the lifelong Washington Township resident was pronounced dead from injuries sustained in the crash.
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State Police are still investigating what caused the vehicle to leave the roadway. Speed and alcohol do not appear to be factors, troopers said.
To everyone who knew him, Donald Dakin was simply “Mr. Donald”—the soft-spoken retiree who still shoveled driveways for elderly neighbors, showed up with a pie when someone was sick, and never missed a grandchild’s game or recital.
“He didn’t have to say much,” longtime neighbor Linda Carovillano said through tears Saturday while placing flowers at a growing roadside memorial. “You just felt better being around him. He made the world slower and kinder.”
Friends say Dakin spent his life working with his hands—first as a mechanic, later maintaining local ballfields and church grounds long after he needed to. Even in retirement, he was the first one called when a fence needed mending or a kid needed advice delivered without judgment.
“He taught half the boys in this township how to change their oil and the other half how to treat people right,” said township committeeman George Smith, who grew up two doors down from the Dakins. “Losing him feels like losing the heartbeat of this community.”
Dakin is survived by his wife of 52 years, three children, eight grandchildren, and a tight-knit circle of friends who gathered Saturday evening on neighbors’ porches, telling stories and laughing through tears.
Funeral arrangements are pending, but the family has asked that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Washington Township Recreation Department—the fields Donald quietly kept pristine for decades.
“Every time a kid scores a goal on those fields from now on,” Smith said, “Donald will still be out there with them. That’s just who he was.”