Ottumwa weekly courier. (Ottumwa, Wapello County, Iowa) 1872-1899, 1873-07-03
A TERRTRLE BoAT RIDE.
Shooting Rnpias-0nc Hundred ana
Forty Miles in Two Hours.


Forty Miles in Two Hours.
Clear Creek is miniature river that
runs through the canon of the same
name. 1tdescends upon down grade
of four hundred feet per mile, with
here and there q fall over rocky pre-
cipice fifteen or twenty feet in height.
Large boulders, forty or fifty feet in
diameter, and weighing thousands OF
tons, impede its dashing progress every
two or three hundred yards, while its
curves are so sharp and so frequent
that the stream can nowhere be seen
Tor distance OF q thousand feet
Granite cliffs two OF three miles high
project over it on either side, and give
n frightful, romantics dangerous APP
pearance to the rushing torrent be-
meath.
just below Blackhawk, on the side
OF the stream, q small reservoir has
been constructed, in which is kept an
ordinary skiff. Last Sunday, two lit
tie sons of Martin +. Walker. aged
respectively ten and twelve years, got
into the boat, and were splashing the
water with a stick, when the fasten-
ings gave way,and the boat went drift
ing toward the rapidly-running cur
rent. The little boys soon discovered
their danger, but were powerless to
avert it; SO they clutched hold of the
side of the boat, and with pallid coun-
tenances awaited their doom. Soon
the boat was caught by the current,
| and began descending at a fearful rate.
Over Black Hawk Rapids they went
like an arrow, clearing distance Of
sixty feet at a single dash. Lighting
again on the torrent surface, the boat
seemed to have gained new impetus,
and shot by the boulders and around
the rocky points with the celebrity of a
sunbeam.
AT distance of about six miles be-
low the starting point Conductor Glib
| bons, who was starting out on the rear
platform of the down G.. G. train, saw
the boat coming. and Immediately
stopped the train. All hands repaired
to the waters edge, and did everything
in their power to arrest the flying boat
but past them she went like bullet
from rifle, and was out of sight in a
| moment. The conductor then ordered
the engineer to put on full head OF
steam and follow as rapidly as posi-
BILE, which he did, constantly sounding
the alarm of danger. He did not get
| another glimpse of the boat, but the
alarm brought the employees at Beaver
Creek Station to 1.-The lookout, and
quickly making slip moose they
sought to throw 1t over the bow of the
boat as she came under the bridge
| This they succeeded in doing, but could
no more hold it than they could have
held thunderbolt, and over Beaver
| Creek Falls she went with the speed of
| the lightning. The falls are about
thirty feet high, and at the foot are a
number of large boulders, but the We
| locity of the boat was such that IL
| cleared them easily, and struck the
water some twenty feet beyond
From here no one saw the boat or its
| living freight until it reached point
one hundred miles below Denver
Through Golden into the Platte river,
and under the Denver bridges she went
unnoticed, nor slackened her pace un-
til she lodged in drift at the distance
below Denver above mentioned. The
| Platte does not run very rapidly, but
the boat had acquired such wonder
full speed in its descent from the
mountains that it far outrode the cur
rent. A Mr.. Walsh, who lives on a
farm near the drift where the boat
lodged, discovered the boys still in the
boat, which was nearly full of water,
and took them to his home. They
were restored to their overjoyed pa
rents the following evening, after hav-
| ing accomplished the most perilous
journey in the quickest time ever be-
fore made by any human being who
escaped alive. The distance travelled
was one bundled and forty miles in
two hours, but how it was ever done,
or how the boat escaped being dashed
to pieces upon some of the huge boul-
ders or rocky cliffs which everywhere
intercept the course of Clear Greek is
nothing short of Providential mira
| Gle. Probably not again in a thousand
years could the journey be made with
the best appliances and by the most
skillful Mariners Central City (Col)
| Coach.