Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1912-02-08
THREE DIE IN
NIAGARA FALLS
Man and Woman Clasped in Each Others
Arms Fall to Their Death-BOy'S
Life Almost Saved.

channel between the cataract and the
upper steel arch bridge below the falls
for the last three weeks broke from its
mooring at noon Sunday and went down
the river taking with it to their death
man and woman, said to be Mr.. and
Mrs. Eldridge Stanton of Toronto, and
Burrell Heacock, II years old, ofCleve-
land, O. Four other persons were on
the ice at the time but managed to get
ashore in safety.
The bridge was considered safe. For
weeks the great fields of ice had been
coming down the river, piling up against
the barrier until it was from sixty to
eighty feet thick, and under theinfuence
of zero weather the great mass had be-
come firmly anchored to the shore The
jam was about ZOO feet in length, and
in some places quarter of a mile in
breadth.
For two weeks it had offered safe pas
sage to the hardy, and Sunday an i'm
mense crowd of excursionists came to
view the winter wonder of the river.
Had the accident happened an hourlater
in 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
yenturing out upon the ice.
Somewhere deep in the great whirl-
pool sleep the man, partially identified
as Mr.. Stanton, who twice put aside
chances of rescue in order to remain
with his terror stricken wife. and who,
in the shadow ofdeath. just at the break
in the rapids, spurned assistance for
himself and attempted to bind about the
woman's body rope dangling from the
owersteelarch bridge. The lad, Burrell
Heacock, was cast in the same mould.
Had he not turned back on the ice to
give assistance to the man, he too might
have made the shore.
The man and woman started first to-
ward the American shore, but they were
stopped by lane of open water. Back
they ran towards 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 as 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 assist
ance to Roth and Heacock, who were
nearest. Heacocl1 turned back to the
couple and helped support the woman.
This act cost him his life. Roth struggled
along over the hummocks of ice, getting
close to the open stretch of water lat
the Canadian end of the jam.
There were men on the shore ready to
give him assistance and stationed at
the bottom of the cliff just at the foot of
Eastwood street, Niagara Falls, Ont.
Roth was afraid to trust himself in the
icy water. Lablond jumped out to the
field of ice with rope and half carried,
half dragged the boy ashore.
After getting Roth safely ashore the
man made an effort to reach the other
three on the ice foe, but at point 900
feet below the upper steel arch bridge
the ice field broke into two great fields.
One section went toward the American
shore and anchored on a great rock near
the hydraulic power house. The moving
foe with the three helpless beings passed
slowly down the river.
The other foe then shot toward the
American shore, was caught in an eddy
and whirled there for about five minutes.
This was within sight of the tumbling
waters that marked the beginning of
the rapids and death.
Heacock saw the rope dangling from
the bridge and made ready to catch
one. Very coolly he took off his overcoat
and posed himself on the tossing floe
In his course there dangled one rope
and second was moved toward him.
He caught that held by Officer Pat
Kelly of the Ontario police force and
company of about twenty railroad men
caught it, and jumped free of the ice
The sag of the rope at that great
drop, 200 feet, let him into the chilly
water up to his waist, and before he
was clear of it he was frightfully bat
tered by three successive foes of jutting
ice.
Not content with the efforts of the
men above to draw him up, he tried to
assist himself hand over hand. The
time was lilo o'clock and the hour or
more that the boy had been on the ice
and the effects of the icy ducking had
Slapped his strength. He stopped trying
to pull himself and hung limp ON the
rope, which spun around like top.
Kelly and his men pulled steadily.
Ten feet, twenty, twenty-five feet up he
came. The great crowd on the bridges
cheered-those that were not weeping.
Grimly the boy hung on, trying always
to get himself or his leg wound about