The Hartford herald., 1912-02-07
THOUSANDS SEE
DEATHS OF THREE
Iu the Grinding Ice At
Niagara Falls.
AWFUL STRUGGLES OF VICTIMS
AS They Found Themselves
Swiftly Drifting to Ger
tain Destruction.
EFFORTS TO RESCUE FUTILE

Niagara Falls, N. Y, Feb. A.
The great ice bridge that has chok-
ed the river channel between the
cataract and the upper steel arch
bridge below the falls for the last
three weeks broke from its snoring
Just at noon to-day and went down
the river, taking with it to their
death a man and woman said to be
Mr.. and Mrs. Eldridge Stanton, of
Toronto, and Burrell Heacock, sew
enteen years old, of East One hun
dreed and seventeenth street, Cleve-
land, Ohio. Four other persons were
on the ice at the time but managed
TO get ashore in safety.
The bridge was considered per-
fectly safe. For weeks the great
field of ice had been coming down
the river, piling up against the bar
rier until it was from sixty to eigh-
ty feet thick, and under the influ
ence of zero weather the great mass
had become firmly anchored to the
shore.
The jam was about 1 1000 feet in
length and in some places a quarter
of a mile in breadth. For two weeks
it had offered safe passage to the
hardy, and to-day an immense
crowd of excursionists came to view
the winter wonder of the river.
Had the accident happened an
hour later i'm the day, hundreds
would have lost their lives, for the
crowd was moving into Prospect
Park in the elevators that run down
the cliff for the purpose of ventur-
ing out upon the ice.
Somewhere deep in the great
whirlpool tonight sleeps the man,
partly identified as Mr.. Stanton,
who twice cast aside chances of res
cue in order to remain with his ter
ror-stricken wife, and who in the
shadow of death, just at the break
in the rapids, spurned assistance
for himself and attempted to bind
about the womans body a rope
dangling from the lower steel arch
bridge.
The lad, Burrell Heacock, was
cast in the same mould. Had he not
turned back on the ice to give as
sistance to the man he, too, might
have made the shore. On the bridge
at the time it tore from the shore
besides these three were Monroe
Gilbert, of this city; Ignatius Roth,
of Cleveland, Heacock's companion;
William Hill, an old river man;
William Lablond. river man, and an
unidentified Italian.
The man and woman started first
toward the American shore but they
were stopped by lane of open wa
ter. Back they ran again toward
the Canadian side, turned about and
made for the American side. When
hardly more than fifty yards from
the rocky shore, the woman fell on |
her face, utterly spent.
Il can't go on; | can't go on" she |
cried. Let us die here"
AS the woman fell, the man
strove to get her to her feet again,
and tried to drag her along the ice,
calling for assistance to Roth and
Heacock, who were nearest.
Heacock turned back to the cou-
pie and helped support the woman.
The act cost him his life.
Roth struggled along over the
hummocks Of ice, getting close to
the open stretch of water at the
Canadian end of the jam. There
were men on the shore ready to give
him assistance
Word that the ice bridge had
gone out flashed through the city
like wildtire and within a short time !
the American shore of the river was |
lined by thousands of people who
the tragedy being enact c
I'd in the deep ravine below them. 4
After getting Roth safely ashore 1
he men made an effort to reach the 1
'ther three on the ice foe. But at h
! point about 600 feet below the up h
'er steel arch bridge the ice field
'roke into two great fields, one sec /,
ion went toward the American e
hore and anchored on great rock Il
iear Che hydraulic power house. The II
moving foe, with three helpless be- Y