The Norfolk post. [volume] (Norfolk, Va.) 1865-1866, 1866-01-24
CHE Mortplk gost.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY "a, 1866
A PERILOUS JOURNEY.
CARRIED DOWN THE NIAGARA ON ICE.

CARRIED DOWN THE NIAGARA on ICE.
Mr.. w. A. Thomson has written
long account to the Buffalo Courier o
his perilous adventure on Saturday las
in crossing the Niagara river in a small
boat in company with two other persons
as alluded to i'm q Geographic despatch
The party left Fort Erie about 6 o'clock
and were about two hundred yards from
the landing at Black Rock, on the oppo
site shore, when tile boat was struck b,
the ice and half filled with water. They
managed to get II upon q small cake o
ice and tried to bail 1t out. While doing
this there was another sudden rush O
ice, running at the rate of four or five
miles an hour, and the boat and men
were daoiivd Into the iivcr. One d
them, Bartlett, jumped upon another
and larger piece OF ice, but Mt: Thorn
son and the third, Warren, fell into the
water. Mr.. Thomson describes the hard
struggle he had In order to draw himself
up and secure a footing OH another cake
of ice, during which Warren, although
a powerful man, was drowned within
twenty feet of him, being unable to siis.
tain himself amid the rushing masses of
ice. METhomson, after the boat was
upset, clutched it again, and managed
to get seated upon it-one end being a
couple of feet under water, and the other
raised In the air. From this perilous
position he sought to obtain another
somewhat less dangerous, and presently
made a plunge to reach a passing cake
| of ice. He fell with his breast and face
upon it, but, being unable TO force him
self further, he was In the greatest dan
ger of falling backward, when he would
inevitably have been drowned by the
| ice floating over him. At this critical
moment one end of the boat tilted up,
| giving some support to his feet-slight,
indeed, but enough to aid him in getting
upon his legs on the ice. He remained
on this piece of ice two hours and n half
before he was rescued, floating down the
Niagara toward the rapids above the
falls. His clothes were frozen stiff, and
in his struggles he had lost his hat,
gloves and overshoes, as well as q leather
bag containing papers, which disap-
peared with the boat. In this way he
was carried seven miles down the river,
Bartlett being several hundred feet from
him on another cake. Mr.. Thomson
cried loudly for help at intervals, and
Bartlett ibid some goodloud praying,' as
MIR. Thomson says, from whose nara
tive we quote this description of the
closing moments of the perilous adven-
ture :
Light became scarce, and as there
was a pause in the shouting, / thought
! would sum up our situation and
chances. | felt it was absurd for my
lips to close thus; it did not strike me
as harmonizing with the endless chain
of natural laws that fills the universe,
MD th;o ,atirv, 1a1 ~ - oxDo 49,.
cue. Still, / saw our chance was one in
a thousand; but thought the boy Bart
lett was the most likely to escape,
therefore / told him IL he was saved and
| lost, to tell my good wife and children
my goodbye, and to say that / went
under bravely. Next to the regret at
the loss which I felt ] would he to my
family, l was keenly mortified at my
not having been spared to make MY
philosophy OF : money, production and
government the law of the world.
Mortified to think that that cursed law
of debt and credit, taxation and tariff,
the falsity and unnecessary existence of
which | know / have by q life of expe-
rience discovered, should have been left
unchanged, a certain curse to my chill
dren and children's children, as to the
rest of mankind. Then I partly on
soled myself that I had left a published
record of my philosophy, the only prac-
tical philosophy of Individual liberty,
which, In my opinion, has ever been
uttered. Finally, as ! am writing the
real thoughts of a mind standingside by
side with apparently inevitable death, i
frankly say, that a sober sorrow for the
loss to my family and the unbalanced
progress of my philosophy in other
mems minds, hold my thoughts nearly
enchanted, to the exclusion of either
the past or future. Lights on Grand Is
land began to re-appear, and l again
turned my attention to. shouting. At
last circumstances changed in our favor;
my shouts were answered and after
much moving on shore, and half an
hours delay, during which we floated a
mile further, i had the intense satisfac-
ton of seeing a light move over the
water, through the ice, and coming d.
rectly toward me, led by my shouts, by
which l continued to guide the boat
Alright. Slowly and with difficulty came
the boat, but at last it was alongside of
my ice cake. AS the lantern fell upon
said cake, | looked to see what / had
been on for three long hours, and found
1t was a splendid thirty feet cake. Next
to going overthe Falls OfNiagara, which
we certainly would have done if we had
passed unnoticed the spot where we now
were, it being the very last chance of
our being heard on the river, and the
Falls only seven miles off, say next
to that my cake cracking In two by my
" weight, or pressure from other ice
had occupied my occasional attention
all the way, and so, when my frozen
mass of clothes, with my body inside
thereof, was rolled into the bottom of
the boat, | rested very thankfully until
| reached the shore. When I reached
the house of the good blacksmith, Pat
rick Slack, | received as much kind
ness, and enjoyed a nice clean bed after
a while, with as much gusto as lift had
been at home. l was as fresh and rs
lively as if ! had never been on the ice
at all, and it is only to-day that every
bone and bit of flesh on my body are as
equity and sore as if had been desper-
ately beaten. Bartlett was rescued by
another boat, and poor Warren was
drowned just about where the Interna-
tional bridge is to be placed"
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