Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 November 1906 — SEA THEIR TOMB [ARTICLE]

SEA THEIR TOMB

Fortv-Two Lives SMiffed Out 6»y a Steamer Collision in - Puget Sound. »- . .T ’ HAD NO CHANGE TO BE BAYED Shut in on the Main Deck When the Ship Went Down. VAIN SEARCH FOR THE BODIES Probably Swept Out to Sea—Only One Saved Who Wga Not on the Upper Deck, and She a Young Girl. Seattle, Nov. 20. Forty-two Uvea were lost in Sunday night's disaster in Seattle harbor, off Duwandsh head, when the little steamer Dix was run down by the Alaskan liner Jeanle. Thirty-seven of the seventy-nine passengers on the Dix were rescued. Of the five female passengers on the Dix the only one to escape was Alice Simpson, a 15-year-old girl. She is believed tdt be the only person who escaped from the main deck' of the steamer, w here more than half of the Dix’s passengers were shut in when the fatal crash came. She could not swim, but ter clothing kept her afloat until she was pulled aboard one of the lifeboats lowered by the steamship Jeanie. List of Those Who Went Down. The following are the lost, those having no residence noted being from Pert Blakely, Mash.: W. Bracewell, longshoreman; D. Belter, filer: Fred Bauiet. filer; Peter Buzzetti, barber; C. Byler, manager; W. Byler, clerk; Alex. Carlson, planer; Ralph Clark, clerk; Joseph E. Conway, lumber surveyor. West Seattle; Charles Dennison, mate steamer Dix; Mrs. T. C. Ford, wife of superintendent of Port Blakeley mill; B. Garcia. Filipino; Mrs. Granger, Spokane; Martin Hansen, oiler; Edward Jones, foreman Rothschild & Jones: C. J. Kenney, Fnited States army hospital attendant; John Keating, St Faul; Peter Larsen, oiler; William Mayers, caulker; Albert McDonald, lumber surveyor; Frank McQueerie, clerk: Albert • MoDrummond, lumber surveyor: August Nelson and wife; Fred Piggott. filer: Roland Price, sou of postmaster; Frank Parks, chief engineer steamer Dix; Ivan Read, fireman steamer Dix; James Smith and wife. Arthur Smith; Swan Swanson, lead setter; Charles Williaraj, sawyer, Ballard Lumber company; A. Webster, lumber surveyor; deckhand, steamer Dix: five Japanese, one Chinese and one Filipino. it is believed that the thirty-seven passengers who were rescued included every person who was on the open deck of the Dix when the little craft plnngd down stem foremost into 100 fathoms of waters. It is doubtful whether she can fie raised. None of the Bodies Recovered. Immediately after the Jeanle brought the story of the collision to Seattle the tugs Bahada and Tyeo, the passenger steamer Florence K., and the Jeanle were ordered out to cruise about the sound for floating bodies. One by one the boats have put back without having found any one. The tide was ebbing when the collision occurred and if there were any lmdies at the surface they have probably been swept far down the sound. AWFUL SIGHTS AND SOUNDS Captain of the Sunken Ship Tells HU Terri ble Story. Captain P. Lennon, master of the steamer Dix, told the story of the cola lision after arriving at Seattle. He wns shaking with the cold, his eyes still dilated with the horror of his experience. “I don’t know how it happened,” he said. He was in the cabin when the alarm was given. When he left the deck there did not seem to he the slightest danger of a >ollision; the lights of the other vessel were visible, but how the two vessels came to such fatally close quarters Captain Lertuon did not know. The Dix sank a few minutes after she was struck, and Just before she wont down she was standing up in the water with her bow in the air. All this time the captain was clinging to the rigging forward and he says: “Just then the steamer heeled back to starboard. There was another rush of w ater, cries and screams of men, women and children. From' below came sounds such ns huuian ears have seldom heard. * * * sne ailed and her stern went slowly down until the bow r was standing straight half out of the water. For an instant I clung to the railing. The sight fascinated me with horror. “Lights were still burning and I could see people inside of the cabin. The expressions” on the faces were of indescribable despair. People on dock slid off Into the water, went down shrieking and desperately clutching at the water or at the Jeanie, which still loomed only a few yards away. Within the sinking steamer pandemonium reigned. There were cries, prayers from men and women. The wall of child mingled with the shouts of those who were fighting desperately to gain the deck. What toqk place in that cabin will never be known, as no people were saved from there.” Port Blakeley, which contributed almost the entire roll of the dead, Is a town supported entirely by the lumber plant of the Blakeley Mill company, and the town today la almost helpless In Its grief.