The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-06-27
LUMBERMEN'S ADVENTURES
Exciting Escape From Death-A Pair
 of Boots as a Monument.

Exciting Escape From Death-A Paii | of Boots as a Monument A Tale of an experience as thrilling
 and sensational as any that ever beset
 the path of the pioneer woodsman
 comes from one of the deeper recesses
 of the primeval forest of Mainei this
 week, Men about here who are famil-
 jar with tthe scene of the incident mar
 vel when miracles will cease. In the
 language of one of the men concerned,
 it 'smelled rather too natural" The
 crew was at work on hard set of falls
 known among the rivermen as Hobel
 Falls This section of rough water is
 three-quarters of a mile long, and in
 it there are three turns and as many
 pitches" The two upper drops can be
 run by boats at the present season,
 but the lower and longest drop is lied
 with jagged rocks that toss pillows
 high in air and make the passage of a
 boat next to impossible.
 The writer has many times seen a
 jam of more than one hundred logs go
 through that lower pitch without more
 than dozen logs being in sight, and these only when they struck the great rocks and were thrown in the air by the pressure. Old Holeb has claimed many victims in the years that lum- bering has been carried on in that sec- ton of the state. Baker Ledge" marks the spot where two men were drowned during the spring of 1861. At that time the ledge was marked by placing an old tin baker, then common ly used by the cooks on the drive, at the crest of the ledge near where the accident occurred. The tin baker Is still there and gives 1t its name.
 Wednesday the crew of men at work on Holeb Falls was called upon to break bad jam at the entrance to the lower pitch. The jam was formed in the center of the stream against great powder, and could not be reached from shore. It was decided that one of the boats should be brought down from the quiet water above the falls and used in placing the dynamite under the logs The men who had charge of the boat were notified, and at once started to run the two upper pitches. The boat contained Michael and Thomas Brennan, Joseph Dulac and Peter Par adis, the latter well known as Pete Paragee" all along the river. The two upper pitches were successfully taken and the boat swung into the eddy above the jam.
 The boat was set against the head of the jam, as boats are usually set | against iams..
 Just as Mike Brennan stepped on | 70 the logs and seized the bow of the l boat, the jam settled. Believing the am to be about to go through the oitch From" Brennan in the stern . tang out, "Shove off" In swinging ut from the jam the oar handled by Pete" Paradis became entangled with wo logs, and the boat dipped, shipping 1 several barrels of water. This threw he boat off it's intended course, and before the crew could again control it he craft was In the white foam of the ,itch and being rapidly borne toward what had always been supposed to be ertain death in such cases
 Consternation took possession Of the iver drivers on the shore, yet some ashed down off the rocks toward the oot of the falls, ready for the first ign of a living thing that might he cen in the waters of the eddy below. 'hose who remained at the head of he falls saw their comrades being ossed about in the sWirling waters, nveloped in a mist of spray that was arown up. ''Pete" Paradis clung to an ar, the other had lost his; the Bren- an boys were clinging to the sides of ne craft as it struck the great swell in ne center of the pitch. Then boat and len disappeared from sight, as it was imposed, forever. The men at the cad of the falls saw several splnters the boat thrown into the ar ana new that it had met the expected rate. When half dozen half-crazed men