Ionia County MI Archives Obituaries.....Sowle, Harvey A. 1918 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/mi/mifiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Sandy Heintzelman sheintz@iserv.net December 5, 2009, 1:14 pm Portland Review, 12 Feb 1918 Once Killed A Man Was Also With Donald Campbell When He Drowned. Late Harvey Sowle Lived In The Shadow of Tragedy. Hazardous Undertakings Held No Terror for Him: Called Him “Daniel Boone.” Harvey A Sowle died at his home in Culverton early Wednesday morning after an illness lasting several years. He was once a familiar figure down town, but illness had kept him confined to the house and his activities ceased long ago. He was fond of hunting, trapping, and fishing. He knew the woods around Portland like a book. The habits of inhabitants of forest and stream were fixed in his memory and he seldom went after game without bringing it home with him. So marked were these characteristics, so fond was he of the outdoor life, that someone nicknamed him Daniel Boone years ago and the name stuck to him until death. His fondness for hunting was the cause of a sad accident more than 35 years ago. He accompanied the late Wm. Bates and Frank May on a hunting trip to a corn field near Dennis O’Connor’s place one Sunday morning. The corn was a little more than breast high and the men, who separated, were hidden from each other. Mr. Sowle fired at a quail and there was a cry from another part of the field. The shot had struck Mr. May and he died a few hours later. A coroner’s jury decided the shooting was accidental, but the memory of that occasion remained with the man always. If there was a particularly hazardous job to be done people looked up Harvey Sowle. He was often employed at dynamiting, during the spring floods. He was working with Donald Campbell and C. J. warren on a scow in Grand river when Mr. Campbell was drowned. A break had occurred in the Warren dam and the owners wished to inspect it. Mr. Sowle stretched a rope across the stream a few rods above the dam, then he passed one end of another rope around this, the other end being secured to the scow, and by paying out the free end gradually the men allowed the scow to float down the stream to the dam. The river was swollen and due allowance had not been made for the slack in the rope stretched across the stream. When the boat reached the break in the dam it was sucked into it by the swift current. All three men were thrown into the water. Mr. Campbell was drowned, Mr. Warren suffered severe bruises and Mrs. Sowle was badly frightened, but not hurt. He had made narrow escapes in his day, but this was probably the closest he came to losing his life. Mr. Sowle was born in Lockport, N.Y., Nov. 28, 1852, and came to Michigan when he was quite young. His father, H. A. Sowle, Sr., was in the hotel business in Portland for years. Harvey was married to Miss Myra Moore, at Battle Creek, Oct. 12, 1873, and the couple came to Portland to reside in 1877, having lived here continuously since that year. The wife survives and the children are Mrs. C. R. Doyle, Bert and Vern Sowle, Detroit, Floyd Sowle, Portland. Funeral services were held at the house Friday and burial was in Portland cemetery. All of Mr. Sowle’s children were here for the funeral and Miss Lois Cowles came from Lansing to attend. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/mi/ionia/obits/s/sowle1624nob.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/mifiles/ File size: 3.7 Kb