The Fremont weekly journal. [volume] (Fremont, Sandusky County, Ohio) 1867-1877, 1868-02-14
A Thrilling Scene.

Ihe local columns OF the st. Louis
Democrat, of Friday of last week, con-
tains the following exciting, and at the
same time amusing, description of the
ice gorge at ST. Louis;
''The intense cold of the past few
days has caused the ice in the river to
gorge, and yesterday the ferry-boats
~ere stopped and people passed over
on the ice on a walk of planks. No
danger was apprehended from this
causeway, and the people of both SEX
es crossed on it.
AT hslf-past four o'clock in the after
noon the passengers who had just ar
river by the Ohio & Mississippi train,
numbering several hundred, commenc.
ed crossing on the plank road, at the
foot of Washington avenue. There
was line ofpeople--men, women and
extending nearly across the
river. Some of them were packing
valises, some carrying sha"ls and over
coats, and several had babies in their
arms. Just as the prilgrims on the sea
of ice were stretched out in a long
line, a crash was heard, and suddenly
the ice began to move. The widest
CONSERVATION prevailed among the
travellers. Some ran back toward the
Illinois shore, but the immense mass of
ice upon which they were floating had
drifted some distance from the shore,
leaving gap of deep running water,
twenty or thirty feet wide. Others ran
toward the Missouri shore, but this was
also inaccessible from the same cause,
and there the multitude were left on
raft of ice, floating slowly toward the
Gulf of Mexico.
When the breaking of the gorge be-
came known, crowds gathered on the
levee, until there were at one time not
less than ten thousand spectators at the
exciting scene. The police were at once
marshaled and efforts were made to res,
cue the people from their perilous sit
uation. The danger was that the large
body of ice would break to pieces by
coming in contact with the shore ice,
and that the people on it would be
swallowed up and ground to pieces by
the icy boulders. The noise of the
moving ice was heard at considerable
distance-a kissing grinding sound,
mingled with splashes Of broken Jumps
and the cracking OF large cakes as they
came in contact with other bodies.
A small steamboat was lying about
block below the plank road, and the ice
struck her bow, and to this point the
crowd rushed; but as the ice came
against the bow of the boat it was
crushed to pieces, and the distance from
ice to the boat was too great for any
thing but frog OF grasshopper to leap.
At length stage plank was run over
from The boat to the moving ice, and
over this the excited multitude Chamber
ed on board in great haste-3ome be-
ing literally dragged along by their
hands and clothes, while others were
pushed and lifted over by the police
men and the men who stood near.
One fat lady, weighing over two hun
dred pounds, was so much excited on
getting safely from the ice, that she
tainted, and was carried to shore over
the heads of the crows, presenting a
spectacle resembling picture in a re-
cent number of the "Last Sensation"
An anxions traveller, who had lost
sight of his wife in the confusion, and
was watching his chance, with an over
coat in his hand ana promising baby
ia his arms, became terribly agitated
as his portion Of ice driited near the