Gold Hill Daily News

A Dreadful Accident—Four Lives Lost.

[Correspondence Cincinnati Commercial]

Evansville (Ind.), Feb. 15.

On yesterday morning, several parties of gentlemen crossed the river into Kentucky, for the purpose of shooting wild ducks which are very numerous at this season.

The forepart of the day was mild and cloudy, with indications of snow. At about 1 o'clock P. M., the temperature began changing rapidly, with very high wind from the northwest, and the mercury fell to eight degrees above zero, a change in eight hours of at least twenty degrees. On the river the wind blew with great violence, and caused the waves to run so high that several steamboats were detained at the landing all night. Those who had gone hunting were in three parties, two of which crossed the river, near dark, in safety, though wet to the skin and very cold.

The third party, consisting of four men D. C. Evans, John App, Samuel Grammer and William Stockton, started for the city from the Kentucky shore about half-past 6 P. M., in a small rowboat, in which they had also two dogs and the game taken in the hunt. When about midway across the boat was capsized by the force of the waves, and all four men were drowned.

Their cries for help were distinctly heard from the wharf and Front street, and many persons attempted to go to their rescue, but their efforts proved unavailing, and all were lost. The night was setting in when the first cries were heard, and before boats could be got in readiness their appeals had ceased, and darkness shut out from view even the water which had just closed over them. Mr. D. C. Evans was the last of the descendants, of the male line, of General Evans, who first founded our city, and from whom the name of Evansville was derived. He was a young man, without family, aged near thirty years, and lived with his widowed mother. Warm-hearted and true, he has left a host of friends to mourn his untimely decease.

Mr. Stockton was a man of family, and the others were all single.

Mr. Grammer and Mr. App were both young men, possessed of manly and liberal impulses, which won for them many friends. The loss to our city of these persons cannot be repaired; nor will "the dreadful circumstances of their drowning in sight of the city—the lights of which they must have seen in their last moments"—be soon forgotten. One of the dogs swam safely to shore, and was seen by those who, attracted by the cries, had gone down to the wharf, to run along the beach as though hoping for his master to reach the shore in safety. The boat was found, early in the morning, near a mile below the city, turned bottom upward.

Thus four noble spirits have gone from among us.

D.