New-York tribune., 1916-07-29
4 SWEPT OVER
DAM TODEATH
Branch Saves Girl as
Canoe Is Split in
Passaic River.

Chatham, N. j., July 2s.-Two boys
and two girls were shot over the spill
way Of the dam and drowned here to-day
when their canoe upset. One girl waa
rescued after she had clung for ten
minutes TO a branch Of an overhanging
tree.
The drowned are Mary Dowd. six
teen years old, and her brother, Edwin,
fourteen, of Madison, N. j.; William
Duffy. sixteen, of Madison, and Eliza
beth Getz, fourteen, of Philadelphia.
Margaret Hinch is the only member OF
the canoe party who was rescued
With others from Madison they
started out to-day for the Old Mill, a
favorite picnic ground half way De-
tween Summit and Chatham, where a
dam broadens the Passaic River. Ordi-
narily the water is calm above the
dam. but to-day the Passaic was many
feet above it's normal level.
Gates Had Been Opened.
The fioodgates Of the dam had been
opened to carry off the water, and Sam
uel Edwards, proprietor of the boat
house, had given orders that no boats
were to be rented. Somehow the pic
nickers from Madison got hold of a
canoe. however, and set out. Their COM
panions watched them from the bank.
They went upstream and kept near
the shore, where the current was not
go swift. All went well. But the water
was full Of tricky little eddies that
pulled the canoe slyly this way and
that, and after a brief paddle the girls
decided they would feel safer ashore.
Coming back with the surge of the
current the canoe gradually increased
its distance from shore, and when the
dam was sighted was almost. IN mid
stream. The boys put forth their best
efforts at the paddles, but despite their
endeavors their craft was caught in the
CLASSY incline that led to where the
Passaic was pouring eight feet deep
through the spillway to the rocks below.
Girls Cry for Help.
The girls began to scream for help
when they saw they were caught in the
grip of the current and the boys
seemed to get new strength from the
terror in their voices. By frantic en-
deavors they managed to veer the
canoe to the left of the ioodgates.
1t brought up quartering against an
abutment of the dam and the upstream
side began TO careen TO the pressure
of the current. Before il went under
however, there was a cracking and the
boat broke in two against the abut-
ment-
The FIVE occupants were swept along
with the fragments of the canoe toward
the spillway and brushed along the
face of the dam, which in places IS over
hung by bushes and tree branches
Miss Hinch succeeded in grasping a
branch that held. She kept her grip,
although the current snapped her out
to full length in jiffy and put tre-
mendous strain on her arms
Boy Grasps Branch.
Edwin Dowd also managed to get
grip on a tree branch. The others were
rolled over and over, sometimes above
and sometimes below the surface, with
small chance Of seizing anything. one
by one they were pulled into the last
oily black stretch, where the water
fairly Kissed as it rushed smoothly
toward the fall.
Dowd was nearer the foodgates than
Miss Hinch, and she could watch hlm,
ss well as their companons. She saw
the bush 20 which she was holding had
been undermined by the water and was
gradually losing its grip on the earth;
There was nothing to which she could
transfer her grasp, and she did not
dare warn him Of the new danger, lest
he let 20 in his fright or make some
sudden movement which would tear his
support entirely away.
Men about the boathouse had seen
the plight of the canoeists and were al
ready on the way to help them. Three
had been swept through the foodgates
before they arrived. Joseph Herberger