Stanly-Cabarrus-Union County NcArchives News.....Sad and Distressing Accident April 14, 1859
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/nc/ncfiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Carolyn Shank Carolynshank@msn.com November 13, 2007, 12:28 pm

Thurs. April 14, 1859,   North Carolina Argus April 14, 1859
 -- A valued and esteemed friend and occasional correspondent writes us as 
follows from Monroe, Union County, under date of the 7th inst.
  A very sad occurrence took place on Saturday last, at the mill-dam of COL. 
JOHN E. AUSTIN, of this County, on Rocky River. The river was quite high, and 
a party, consisting of two brothers and two sisters, children of MRS. JACOB 
LITTLE, of Cabarrus or Stanly County, who had been to Charlotte with a wagon 
and returning home, undertook to cross the river about the mill dam in a flat, 
at a private ferry belonging to COL. AUSTIN, where another wagon had crossed 
in the flat but a short time before, and were carried by the force of the 
current towards the dam. Oneof the poles used to guide the flat slipped out of 
the hands of one of the parties and the flat became unmanageable. MR. WILLIAM 
AUSTIN and one of the LITTLES, perceiving that the flat would inevitably go 
over the dam, jumped out and swam ashore. The other MR. LITTLE and his two 
sisters were carried over with the wagon, four horses and the flat. The wagon 
ran forward and off the flat, excepting two wheels, which caused the flat to 
keep up at one end and throw the young ladies out into the river. The young 
man, their brother, recovered them and replaced them in the flat., and finding 
that he could do nothing with the flat himself, after floating down the river 
a distance, told his sistters to hold onto the flat, while he would swim 
ashore and seek help and return to their rescue. He did swim to shore, and ran 
to MR. GREEN'S about half or perhaps a mile, and returned and found the flat 
floating down the river, the wagon loose and his sisters gone. One of the 
bodies of the young ladies was afterwards found lodged against a raft. The 
body of other had not been found at last accounts. They were both undoubtedly 
drowned. It is thought they, and the wagon were thrown out at a rapid and 
rough shoaly place in the river, or that they had attempted to grasp hold of a 
small tree which bent over the stream and near the water, and were dragged in 
that way and drowned. It was a deplorable fate for the poor helpless young 
women, and is a heart-rending accident to their widowed mother, as well as to 
their brothers, and everybody. It is wonderful that they were not all lost, 
and it is probable, that if they had all remained in the flat and kept their 
presence of mind, they might all have been saved. One of the horses broke loos 
and swam out, but the other three were drowned. 

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/nc/stanly/newspapers/sadanddi237nw.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/ncfiles/

File size: 3.1 Kb