Sad Ending Submitted by Angela duQuesnay-Garcia May 2005 The Lafayette Advertiser, January 19, 1901 ************************************************* Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ Three weeks ago, Paul J. Daron disappeared and his family did not know what had become of him. He was a watchmaker and travelled a lot, sometimes absenting himself for a couple of weeks at a time. But this time, the circumstances of his disappearance were such that you could not hardly believe he would return. He lived on the right bank close to the location of the Bonne Carre and the 14th December he came in a skiff to the left bank and stayed there until dark. He met some friends to have a little drink, and it was not until close to 11 pm that he tried to cross the river alone in his skiff. He did not return home but no one was worried about his absence. But at the end of two or three days, his wife learned that he had crossed the river at night, and she became concerned. There was no clue of what had happened to him and the guess was that it was not good. Everyone searched for his skiff and found it in Jefferson Parish, close to Waggaman. It was found afloat with only one oar on board. This was the first indication of an unfortunate loss. Daron and his friends believed that one day or another, the river would cough up his body after it had swallowed him. But could we doubt that his body was there, so close to where his family lived? When Daron arrived on the right bank, across from his house, and he attempted to disembark from his boat, the sky was probably still dark, the moon not having risen yet, and he very well might have been unable to distinguish the landing, mistaking the water for the beach and jumped. When he fell, his legs would have been forced into the sand where he would have been trapped. The skiff could have left the bank, and there would not have been any place to hold onto, no support. He would have fought in vain to extract himself from the moving sand. His efforts would have only have gone to suck him in further. We have learned that his neighbours heard cries of distress coming from the direction of the river around midnight the same night, but no one went to see who was calling for help. Daron, constantly fighting against death, plunged continuously deeper into the water, which in the end covered him completely, and in exhaustion he would have stopped fighting against the inevitable, and allowed himself to be pulled in face first.... During the next three weeks, he stayed there, covered with water. By accident he was discovered Friday morning. Joseph Amedee went up to the river in his skiff following the line of the bank, dipping his oars in the water and taking them out again, when all of a sudden one of the oars brought up a piece of clothing. It was Daron's jacket. Amedee quickly proceeded to investigate and found there was a body in the clothing. He announced his gruesome discovery and soon the poor Daron was brought to the river bank. The body had been preserved perfectly, thanks to the cold temperature of the water. He was transported to the St. John the Baptist Cemetery, where he received a Christian burial.