The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1912-02-15
Captain Fountain and Life
Savers Take Two Men
From Floating Ice.
men WAITED LONG FOR AID
Went Out on Ice Shooting Early This
Morning and Found Return Cut Of
by Open water-captain Fountain
and Men Make Daring Rescue.

Two men, John Stanley, 1S7 I're-
mont avenue and William HancEman.
lS7 Maple Court, Kenosha, were rescu-
ed from an awful fate Just after
noon today when Captain Frank Foun-
tain and a volunteer crew of life saw
ers made q trip of four miles over the
slush ice along Lake Michigan and
rescued the two men who were ina
rooned on a floating field of ice. When
the men were rescued the field of ice
pushed by land breeze was rapidly
moving into mid lake and already it
had drifted more than three Quarters
of mile from the main field of lee.
The men were hysterical and about to
leap from the ice cake into the water
when the life savers reached them and
took them off their floating prison af-
ter a great effort. The return trip
over the ice was made with great peril
as repeatedly the ice broke right be-
hind the life savers and the men they
had rescued. A great crowd of peo-
pie had gathered on the beach lust
south of the city limits and when the
life savers came in with the two men
they were greeted with mighty cheer.
Stanley and Hanchman had been
lured out on the ice by the large num-
Der OF ducks which had sought d feed
ing place in the few open places.
They aad gone out from the Kenosna
,harbots just after six = 'eloel this
morning taking a shot gun with them
and presumably had planned to get
some good shooting. There was fas-
eination of going out over the ice field
and the men never seemed to consider
the fact that the wind was off the
land and that the ice was liable to
break up at any time. They had gone
about four and a half miles southeast
of the Kenosha harbor when they de-
cided to return to the main land.
They walked back about a mile and
were horror stricken when they saw
that the ice had broken and the field
on which they were standing was
from the main field by near
ly quarter of a mile. The men at
once began to seek to signal people
on the beach. They exhausted their
ammunition firing the gun, but they
got no sign of reply. Then they
raised a flag.
Just after ten O'Clock one of the
men in the look out of the life saving
station discovered two mere spots on
the ice and with the aid of power
full glass he discovered that the spots
were men. He saw that they were
and Captain Fountain at
once legged up light skiff and loading
it on hobs went to the lake at the
foot of Park Row. The captain .ard
his men pulled the skiff over the
treacherous ice for distance OF more
than mile and then found that fully
three quarters of a mile of open water !.
separated them from the marooned
hunters.
The men on the floating ice field
were all but exhausted on account Of
their fright and it was difficulty that
Captain Fountain and his men made
landing on the floating ice and loaded
the men into the boat. The men de-
ciared that they had no idea that the
field. of ice had broken until they had
started to return. Then they began
to make signals to attract some one
On the beach and they had all but
given up hope when they saw the loaf
Of the life savers pushing its way be-
tween two fields of ice. Captain Foun-
tain declared that in another half
hour the men would have been carried
90 far from the main field of ice that
Il would have been impossible to reach
them. The lake was not stormy, but
At that the life savers were well soak:
ed with water.
The rescue of the two men was one
If the most heroic acts of the life
savers known in Kenosha for years.