Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 195, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 August 1913 — MEN TO BE PROUD OF [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MEN TO BE PROUD OF

FORTITUDE AND HEROISM SHOWN BY RAILROAD BUILDERS. Driven to Sea When Houseboat Parted From Her Moorings, Workers on Florida and Key West Line Saved Themselves.

In the Wide World there is a story related in connection with the building

of the Florida & Key West railroad. Many of the laborers were housed in huge barges, or “quarter boats,” with two - story superstructures, says the writer. These .craft were towed from key to key

as the work advanced. One of them, "Number Four," was torn from its moorings at Long Key before the 145 men aboard could try to get ashore. Shortly before daylight it drove out across the Hawk channel, in a smother of sea and a roaring wind, and was smashed on the back of the Florida reef. The great barge was pounded to pieces in a twinkling, but there were men in her who showed heroic resolution even in this terrible situation. Bert A. Farlin, one of the resident engineers, and the leader on board, might have saved himself, but he went below to try to put heart into his men, and was killed by a flying beam when the superstructure collapsed. The men who had the grit and courage to use their wits crowded out on the balcony to windward to escape this , falling wreckage, and swore that they would pull through. Those who had the will to live were saved under almost incredible circumstances, while the cowards who had crowded into the hold perished to a man.

As the quarter boat floundered toward the reef, with the seas breaking clean over her, and with death for all on board apparently certain, a barge whirled past her in a fog of spray. Two mechanics, Kelly and Kennedy, stood side by side on the deck of the quarter boat. Kelly jumped for the barge as it sped past, and Kennedy was at his heels. A gray sea rose and swallowed them, and their comrades counted them as lost. Almost a week later the barge was picked up with Kelly and Kennedy aboard, crazed and almost dead for want of food and water. They recovered, however, and returned to the keys. As many as 87 of these quarter boat men were picked up out of the ■sea alive. With remarkable strength and with courage truly indomitable, they had ridden out the hurricane, clinging to of wreckage, to tables and to trunks. The Italian steamer Jenny passed them late in the afternoon of the wreck, found 44 of them and took them to Key West. Her boats risked the dangerous seas all night long and it is tragic to record that they heard the voices of others in the darkness, but were unable to locate the calls for help. The British steamer Alton picked up ,26 more and landed them at Savannah. For days and weeks news of other castaways came from distant ports —Mobile, Galveston, New York, London, Liverpool and even from ’Buenos Aires, whither they had been taken by parsing ships. Without boats or life preservers, knowing nothing of the sea and undisciplined for such a crisis, these hardy tollers battled for life with a success which makes their story remarkable tn the annals of shipwreck.