Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1874-05-29
A MARVELLOUS ESCAPE.


The marvellous escape of young Dun
ming at Leeds has already been alluded
to, but his story is so interesting that it is
worth giving in detail. When the alarm
was given he was at his work in the
spoolroom of the Nonotuck silksworks,
and, rushing out of the mill, his first
thought, of course, was for his family.
Hesfound that his father, wife and three
children had all left the house. He shout
ed to them to run for their lives, at the
same time pointing to them what direc-
ton to take. His wife and children
obeyed him and were saved but his
father, an old man of seventy eight, think.
ing that something might be got out OF
the house before the flood reached it.
went back. In dashed the son after him
begging him to leave the doomed build
ing. While raising one of the windows
the floor gave way beneath their feet, and
his father disappeared from his sight. The
young man had just time to Chamber out
of the window and as the house tipped
over crawled up its side to the roof just as
the building broke up, leaving him but a
fragment to cling to for his life, and on
he went sailing down that awful flood in
full sight of wife and children, who, as
they looked on in terror and agony, ex-
pected momentarilly to see him sink be-
meath the surging mas. In few seconds
his frail raft was crushed like an eggshell,
but his presence of mind never deserted
him. He jumped for another, and when
that was gone for yet another. He was
Fastening down with the current at ter
rifle speed, and, intent on the fearful task
he had in hand, never once thought of
the dams toward which he was hasten
ing. The first one is reached in the
awful crash and jam. He is hurled
seemingly twenty feet in the air, to
come down and be submerged for the
first time far beneath the waves. AS
he came to the surface again and clasped
another piece of driftwood he realized
with an intensity unimaginable by those
whose lives have never been imperiled
that another and higher dam was but a
short distance below, and that he had ab-
solutely no hope for life unless he es-
capped from the flood before that point
was reached but fortunately the swollen
mass of water and debris at that moment
surged toward shore, and seizing an op-
portunitv which seemed to be providen-
TALLY presented he clambored across
some broken roots, which served him as
a bridge, and with a leap again had a
foothold on the earth. The feelings of a
man who, like him, had scarcely hope
of life, on finding himself escaped from
the Jaws of death cannot be depicted.
Only cool and intrepid man could have
passed through that experience, and pos
sibly Mr.. Dunning could not but Tor his
experiences before as raftsman in Can
adian waters. He had been swept half a
mile down the river and was utterly ex-
hausted by the intense strain on mind and
body, nerve and muscle, yet as he lay on
the bank for moment to get his breath
he could not suppress a smile at the ap-
pearance of man who escaped from the
flood near the same place by seizing hold
of the limbs of a large tree on the DanK.
Fleshy though he was, this man went up
that tree like squirrel, and did not stop
until he was at least thirty feet above the
water,