Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-05-08
HEARD HEAVEN'SCALL
Rivers Give Up Their Dead Through
Natures Canonading.
PATHETIC STORIES OF VICTIMS.
Tuesdays Storm Develops q Suicide and
Two Accidents.
A DISTRESSED WIFE's LONELY VIGIL

| A DISTRESSED WlFE'S LONEL1 WILL
"Natural cannonading is the only power
that will force the waters to give up their
dead" Coroner Mcdowell said yesterday.
The Coroner was talking of the dead, who
he contends are always found floating in the
rivers Immediately following severe thun.
der storm. Dynamite and powder are
often successfully used to dislodge bodies in
the rivers" the Coroner went on, 'but the
waters only respond to natures cannonad-
ing"
After the severe thunder storm and elec-
trical disturbance on the morning Of May 4
three bodies were found floating in the
rivers in Allegheny county, and each of the
three had attached to it mysterious story
that is as weird as it is pathetic. Several
bodies, the Coroner says, were found float
ing in the river between Pittsburg and
Cincinnati, but those picked up within his
jurisdiction each tell sublime and elo-
quent story.
Just after daylight on the morning of
May 4 the body of Cornelius Schwalm was
found floating in the Ohio river at McKee's
Rocks The body was sent to the morgue
A Last Gift to His Mother.
On the dead mans person was found re-
ceipt from the Adams Express Company for
package which he had sent to his mother
at Homework, O. Nothing else was found
in the clothes of the dead man. The re-
mains were buried and the Cor
oner began an investigation. He found
3h,@ Cat hod haa
a freight brakeman on the Panhandle rail-
road and that he had been discharged on
April % for drinking. The receipt from
the Adams Express Company was also
dated April %, and inquiry developed that,
after being discharged by the railroad COM
pany, Schwalm went to the e1-
press office and placed in small
box his watch and chain, $40 in
money, two lead pencils, a small
notebook, a penknife and a few other
trinkets and without word of explanation
expressed the package to his mother. To a
friend who accompanied him to the e1-
was never again seen alive. He had been
railroading for four years and he was the
only support of his mother. He was 90
years old. Suicide was the verdict of the
Coroner's iurv.
The body of Nathaniel Wycof was found
floating in the Monongahela river near
Elizabeth about o'clock on the morning of
May 4. Wycoff also mysteriously disap-
peared on April 25. He was prominent
young man at Elizabeth, and his friends
concluded at once that he had been
drowned.
Dynamite Used without Eject.
The parents of the young man employed a
dynamite company of Pittsburg to raise the
body from the water. Over 800 pounds of
powder were exploded in the stream, but to
no effect. The violent thunder of Tuesday
morning did the work the explosions failed
to do.
Ferdinand Korber was a mill worker
employed at w. D. Woods McKeesport
mill. He lived across the river just oppo-
site the mill. He went to and from his
work in private skiff. On Saturday,
April %, he received his months pay,
liquidated some debts he had contracted in
McKeesport and left party of his friends
to go to his home. He was never seen
alive afterward. He was devoted to his
family. His wife, with his supper prepared,
awaited an1iously his coming until nearly
midnight. Then she sounded an alarm. and
before morning his empty skif, turned bot
tom side up, vas found floating
aimlessly down the stream. His wife
was prostrated for time. On the morning
of April 26 her friends found her sitting on
the river bank where her husband formerly
landed still awaiting his coming The
calamity that had overtaken her had broken
her mental forces and she was for time in
sane. She was taken home and for several
days her life was despaired of. When she
recovered she refused to be reconciled until
the body OF her husband was found.
Waiting for Her Husbands Body.
All manner of explosives were employed
to dislodge the body and and while the shots
were being fired that seemed to drain the
river to its channel, the disconsolate wife
sat watching on the river bank in the hope
that her dead husband might be blown
into view. The explosives failed
in their purpose, however, and the
work of resurrection was only completed by
the sto-m of last Tuesday. Korber was
80 years old. He had only been married a
short time. The body was found floating
in the river at Browns station just after
daylight on Tuesday morning. 1t was
taken to the morgue, where during that
afternoon it was identified by the young
wife. When the distressed woman was led |
into the deadroom, where her husbands |
body was arranged for inspection, the scene
was extremely pathetic. The young wife |
threw herself upon the dead body, and it |
was with difficulty that she was taken away. |
She took the body home with her.
"The scientists will not agree with me |
that some shocks Of thunder dislodge dead |
bodies in water" the Coroner said, "but nv |
experience of the ten years has convinced |
me that electric shocks alone will dislodge |
he bodies. We rarely find bodies floating |
in the rivers in winter and a severe thunder |
storm never tails to develop case for us"