The Ouachita Telegraph - Negro Named Scott May be Drowning Victim

Date: May 2000
Submitted by: Lora Peppers <lpeppers@ouachita.lib.la.us>




**********************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm
**********************************************
 



The Ouachita Telegraph
Saturday, April 29, 1871
Page 3, Column 1

Drowned.
 About ten o'clock Monday night the cries of some one calling for help,
were heard in the river in rear of Sanders's saloon and Rauxet's store.  
A few persons in the vicinity, hearing the cries, ran to the river bank 
and could see the struggling man in the water not more than fifty feet 
from the bank.  As hastily as possible they loosed a dug-out near at hand, 
but the fastenings were so stubborn that enought time elapsed before getting 
the boat loose for the drowning man to cease his groans and struggles, and
finally to sink forever.  It was not until next deay that the anxiety to
know who it was that was thus hurried into eternity, was almost
definitely relieved.  A negro man named Scott, who lived just across the
river, had been in town Monday and got very drunk.  He has since been
missing, and the belief is that he fell into the river from his boat, or
in trying to get in it, and being drunk, although a good swimmer, was
drowned as stated above.  All doubt will be settled when the body
rises.  To those who witnessed the drowning man's struggles and heard
his appeals, the occurrence was a very sad one.
 It is a wonder that cases of drowning are not more frequent at this
stage of the river.  Men throng the stage planks of boats, pushing and
elbowing each other; boys, with reckless daring, ride old logs along the
water's edge; men cross the river in frail boats, some of which are mere
boxes, and yet this is the second case of drowning we have had to
chronicle in over five years.

#  #  #