Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-06-25
HARRY WHITES DEATH.
Thrilling Account of the Sufferings
Dean Horton.

Thrilling Account of the Sufferings oil
Dean Horton.
A special to the Examiner, dated June
23d, gives the following particulars in re.
gard to the death of Harry White, of Wood.
land, in addition to those already pub
lished in the RECORD UNION:
Dean Horton. who was with Harry
White when he died, near Diamond valley,
has sufficiently recovered to tell the story
of his sufferings and his companion S
death.
Harry White, who was married to Hor-
tons sister, was Woodland contractor,
and we'll known in San Francisco. The
two were camped in a little tent near a
creek, fifteen miles from Diamond valley,
Grant county, Oregon. One night Hor-
ton made fire and heaped lot of char
coal on it. Then ne and White rolled
themselves in their blankets and went to
sleep. That is all that Horton knew until
he woke up, strangely weak and faint, with
terrible headache and an awful thirst.
A deep snow had fallen during the night
and had drifted around the tent, closing the
space at the bottoms and making it COM
pletely air tight. The charcoal fire had
consumed the air in the tent, and the car
bon fumes had asphyxiated poor White,
and almost killed his brother-in-law as well.
Horton says that he remembered won
dering who he was and who the dead man
beside him was. He saw rifle leaning
against the tent-pole, and remembered that
Harry White had one of that pattern. So
he decided that the dead man was his sis
ters husband. After lying there two days
Horton managed to drag himself over the
dead body. Though only clad IN his un-
derclothes he crawled through the snow to
the creek for drink of water. He man.
aged to get back and was not able to move
again for two days more. He felt himself
freezing and SO struggled to get on some
clothes. In doing so he knocked the tent.
pole down, and was not strong enough to
raise it, but he managed to crawl to tree
and half lift the tent with rope.
He had not eaten anything, the doctors
figure, for an entire week when he sue
ceeded in building a fire and half baking
some dough to save him from starvation
Every time he entered or left the tent be
had to crawl over the frozen body of his
companion. The day after he broke his
fast Horizons thirst compelled him to again
crawl to the creek.
Meanwhile Horizons younger brother
Marion, at Diamond valley, became uneasy
at hearing nothing of his relatives. He &C.
cordingly started out to search for them.
He first came across the half-fallen tent
in the snowdrift. Under it lay the dead
body of White. A half-obliterated trench
in the snow showed where Dean had
dragged himself to the creek. The boy
followed the trench for thirty feet. There
he found his brother
Dean Horton lay huddled up ON the bank
of the creek. He had on him only trousers
and undershirt. His feet were bare His
head was half in the icy water. Since he
had stopped there to drink several more
inches of snow had fallen and nearly buried
him. 1t is to this that his escape from
freezing to death is ascribed. 1t was morn
ing when he went to drink; it was nearly
dark when Marion found him.
Marion dragged his brother back to the
tent and stayed with him until morning
BY that time he had brought back enough
life to Deans body to admit of his being
left alone. Then Marion rode back fifteen
miles, to Diamond valley, for help.
Dean Horton was held on horse and in
this way was carried out of the steep gulch
To get the dead man out was harder task
1t took dozen men to carry the stretche1
up the almost perpendicular side of the
canyon.
Harry White was buried at Diamond val.
ley. He was 80 years old. Whites parents
reside in Woodland, Yolo county, and he
leaves wife and child in Diamond valley
besides relatives in San Francisco.
Dean Horizons feet were frozen. His hip
and shoulder, where they touched the
ground, and the left side of his face, that
lay in the water, were also black and Bills.
tered. The physicians say that he must
have laid in the tent two days before the
charcoal fumes found their way out through
the snow and left the air pure enough tc
bring him back to consciousness. Horton
is man of splendid physique and of 6
marvellous constitution. Otherwise be
could never have kept life in his body
during the eight awful days before he wa:
found