The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1920-02-23
CHASTITY EVENT
ON THE GULF
Three Men Died in a Boat, Probably
from PtOmaine Poisoning,
off Hodges Island

News of an awful tragedy has come
from the gulf. west of Ocala. From
the best information at hand we have
gathered the following:
Last Wednesday morning three
white men left Crystal River in
power launch, to cruise up the coast
as far as Pensacola, looking for and
inspecting cedar for pencil wood for
the Crystal River pencil mill.
The men in the party were Carl
Willis, boatman and guide, in charge
Of the launch and member of one of
the oldest families and pioneer set
tiers of Crystal River; Charles Gerock,
superintendent of the pencil mill
there, a son of the late chairman of
the board of county commissioners of
that county. also a member of one of
Citrus county's oldest families, and
Mr.. Baker of Cedar Keys, thirty miles
farther west on the coast.
Some time Wednesday. it will never
be known just when, but Judging from
the condition of the boat and the state
of the tide, probably mid-afternoon,
somewhere off Hodges Island, a few
miles northwest of the mouth of the
Withlacoochee, death came to these
three men; and all died so suddenly
and so close together in time that
neither was able to shut the power off
and stop the motor, and the boat
wandered about the bay in circles and
curves till it piled itself, at or nea"
high water. on top of the very outer
most reef on oyster bar that borders
the coast from Crystal River to be-
yond the W1thlacoOchee, about five
miles off the mainland.
On this reef the boat lay. high and
dry at low tide. twice each twenty
foul hours and pounding with the ac-
tion of wind and waves at high tide,
until about II o'clock Sunday morn
ing, four days later.
Saturday afternoon a fisherman
working for Mr.. Hodges saw the boat
seemed "queer" and investigated as
he was passing and found the dead
-rne1r in the bottom or huddled across
the thwarts. 1t was very stormy at
the time and he could do nothing but
go into Port Ing1is and report. the
CHASTITY find, It: was next morning
before the party sent out to recover
the boat and bodies reached the scene,
and a party of Ocala men out on the
hay were witnesses to one angle of
the tragedy, but all unaware at the
time of anything sinister in the mat
ter. This party saw a large cabin
launch lying anchored and tied to it
a smaller launch. The boats were
only a third of mile away, voices
could be heard and the air being per-
fectly clear and the surface of the
gulf CLASSY in it's smoothness. every
sound travelled as over a telephone
wire and the boats loomed up on the
edge of the gulf, in the dead calm, like
large vessels The boats soon got
under way, the cabin launch going
northwest to Cedar Keys, as it after
wards developed, with the body of Mr..
Baker and the smaller launch to the
southeast with the other two bodies,
taking them to Crystal River, but
there was no hint. to the onlookers,
that just within their reach, almost,
to mar one of the most perfect days
on land or water that God ever Great
ed, was one of those tragedies so
often coming into the lives of the
human race.
From the best information that
could be had, the men must have died
from ptomaine poisoning, probably
due from eating canned goods. Many
and various were the reports of the
affair, some being inclined to the
cause as drowning by the swamping
OF the launch in a ,squall.
Just what happened and how it
happened probably will never be
known, for there was no human eye
within sight or ear within sound when
the three men met their death.
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