Elizabeth-Town gazette. [volume] (Elizabeth-Town, N.J.) 1818-1821, 1819-03-16
From the Kingston ~. c.) Chronicle.
DISTRESSING CASUALTIES.

From the Kingston y. " chronicle.
DISTRESSING CASUALTIES.
Extract Of letter, dated Ernest Tom,
Wednesday morning, 2o'clock, Febrna-
ny nth, 1918.
81 know not how to detail the melan-
choly events OF the present week in this
place.
g On Sunday, two men (Saraaizin, the
cooper and James Dusenberry) who had
been from the Mill Greek, over TO Fish
Point and were returning in a double
sleigh drawn by one horse, drove into a
crack, about third Of the distance over,
where the ice had parted twenty or thirty
feet, aud the wafer was skinned over
with ice Of the preceding nights freezing.
The horse and sleigh are supposed to have
gone down instantly but the men remain
ed on the surface, until their cries had
alarmed man on the island and another
90 this shore, who ran TO their assistance,
aud arrived near enough TO see them
struggling but, before they could reach
them, they went down. The bottom was
raked on Monday, and the bodies, horse
and sleigh drawn up in twenty fathoms
water. Yesterday they we're inferred.
:" This melancholy event was followed
by another. Mr.. Edward Clark, an aged
and very infrm man, in the third Conces-
sion, persisted on Sunday night. He rose
from the bed, and went to light his pipe
at the FIRE, when he fell into it, and was
burned TO death
=" But those occurrences are lost and
unseen in the deeper gloom of al accident
which has just happened.
$ Mr.. james w. Jones expected to
have been 10 town on Saturday, but re.
peated Disappointment prevented him.
Last night be went up to the widow
Williams's (about three miles above the
village) intending to remain there until the
morning, then to take horse from thence
and go down to Kingston. About twelve
O'clock, was walked by shrieks of some
passing my window, calling to me some
thing | know not what abontl about fire.
AS | opened my eyes, perceived the
room brightly lighted. and, at first,
thought it must be our own house envelo-
ped in flames. l sprang from bed, and
saw, from the window, Mr.. Jones's house
covered with sheets of fire. The same
moment, his daughter, Julia (about IL
years of age) opened the kitchen door,
and told US her mother was in the house.
We ran over. The front part of the
house Showed no fire.-Mr. Wilcox
caught board, burst open the door, and
stepped 10 enter, when the upper floor
came down with dreadful crash, and a
volume of smoke and flame, bursting out.
drove him back. The building was now
enclosed in an awful confagration, and
We were forced to stand by, and gaze on
the scene, silent, awe-struck and inactive.
Julia says, they went to bed about 9
O'Clock. She and little sister, year or
two old, slept with her mother, 10 the bed
room at the eud of the front room. Her
mother put two or three green sticks and
some kindling wood into the stove. She
was walked by her mother, standing by the
bed side, screaming TO her; pointing to
to the kitchen filled with flame. and ex-
claiming, " see the fire !" She opened
the kitchen door, to try if she could get
to her little daughters in the other bed
room; and, at the same time, told Julia to
spring out Of the window, which she did.
She saw her mother shut the kitchen door,
and thinks she threw something out of the
window, as if to keep the air from draw
ing through. But perhaps it was smoke.
At all events, she turned to take the child
from the bed. Julia ran round to the
window of the room, where her other
two sisters slept, but the flames prevented
her from entering or looking in; and when
she returned to the front window, she
could see nothing Of her mother.
"We can now distinguish Mrs. Jones's
remains lying near where the bed stood;
but have not yet attempted to remove
them. The scene is dreadful. l never
witnessed any event, which cast SO heavy
gloom over my feelings"
Copy Of a letter from an officer Of the YET
lon Stone expedition to his friend at Bel
le FOntane, dated