Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-01-04
A ooAsTING PARTY,s PERrL

Young Men and Women Hurled Down
Sixty Feet into a Creek-AIiss Jennie
Mitchell Probably Killed-Others In
! jured-She Jumps, While the Rest Go
with the Sleigh-A Broken Shaft.
-Horro0DiUe (Pa.) Special, Jan. l.
On Sunday night last party of young
| people from Stokes Mills, a numbering
| village ten miles from here, went coasting
ON Long Hill, which begins a mile and a
half from the village and runs into
it. The party used an old cut
ter, which was steered by a young
man named Ruhe, sitting on a
Jumper" between the shafts, and hold
| ing one in each hand. The hill is very
steep, and after running straight for a
mile turns gradually to the left. For
nearly all the rest of the distance to the
mills it follows along Trout Run, close to
the creeks bank, which rises sixty feet
/ above the water, and is nearly perpendic-
ular. Within few rods of the bottom of
/ the hill the road crosses the creek on a
/ wooden bridge. The speed attained by
sleighs run in this way is frequently so
great that the mile and half is made in
! three minutes, and even less.
The cOasting party on Sunday night was
made up of nine-Eugene Croft and his
sister Mary, John Slader, Jennie Mitchell,
Mary Hyde, Sallie Wright. William Bond,
! Ella Winters, and Ruhe, the pilot. They
| had made several trips down the hill. and
! started up for their last one at $3.50
| O'Clock. About three-quarters of an hour
later William James, Waterman at the
! lower mill, who was standing on the
| bridge to see the sleigh dash by, heard
screams and cries of terror. He started
/ quickly up the hill, but had gone only a
| few steps when he saw Ruhe coming like
| lightning down the hill with his Jumper
a hn
/ bridge, and Ruhe shouted:
Get help, for Gods sake! The cutters
| down the bankl"
| The screams of the party had been
| heard by parties living near, and when
| the friends of the coasters arrived on the
! spot they found that seven of them had
! been taken from the creek. and were be-
| ing carried to the nearest house. One
| girl, Jennie Mitchell, was missing. Slader
/ said he thought she had jumped from the
| cutter as it plunged over the bank
| Search was made, and she was found in
a spruce tree, where she had fallen and
| lodged. Her skull was injured, and sew
eral ribs were broken. She cannot live.
| The other girls received no external bodi-
| ly injuries, but were all rescued from the
water in a drowning condition. John
| Slader, who brought the news of the ac-
cident here, says that these will all re-
! cover excepting possibly Mary Hyde.
| Eugene Croft had two ribs broken. Sla-
! der7s story is as follows:
81 was sitting in the front part of the
cutter with Sallie Wright. We were
| going terrible fast, and just as we reached
| the bend / heard the shaft crack. | looked
around quick, having my back to the
shafts, and saw Ruhe holding on to the
other shaft with both hands, and trying to
| force the cutter to follow his sled. / think
! he would have got us around all right, but
| suddenly the other shaft broke, and the
next second we shot off the bank. The
girls all jumped up screaming, and would
| all have jumped out, but | shouted to the
boys to each one seize a girl and hold her
in. There were five girls and only three
of us. Jennie Mitchell was the only one
that jumped, but owing to the struggle we
had to keep the other ones in, the cutter
was turned bottom side up when it
was about half way down, and we
were all thrown into the creek. The
water is eight feet deep there, but 100
feet below it is shallow. 1t is very swift
| We fell in heap together, and as l came
! to the surface Sallie Wright came up
alongside of me, and | seized hold of her.
We were both swept dcWn stream. had
hard work to keep her head above water.
If the shallow place at the rocks had been
/ hundred feet further | could never have
got there with her. l reached the rocks,
SOI d lOOIluSs CdIIleu uGf ashore, ldlQ 0ef
on tho snow, and hurried back to save the
rest if possible. | saw one of the girls
sweeping toward the rocks, and one of the
boys struggling with another girl while
he chung to bush that he had managed
to catch hold of. At the same time an
other girl and Eugene Croft were carried
down. [ hardly knew which to help first,
| but Billy Bond, who was the one clinging
to the bush, cried OUT
"'For Gods sake, John, pull me out, or
both of us will have to drOwnp
$50 | grabbed Billy by the two arms and
helped MIN out. He tainted on the bank,
but kept his grasp on the girl, who was
Ella Winters. just then two men came
hUrrylng up, and we three went after the
rest. The girl l had seen sweeping
toward the rocks was Mary Hyde. /
found her lodged against the ice on the
shore. Eugene Croft and his sister we
found a hundred feet further down the
creek. Eugene had managed to get both
himself and Mary out of the water. We
found poor Jennie Mitchell in the tree at
the side of the creek. She fell about fifty
feet before she struck it. The cutter went
clear across the creek"