The Nevada Journal

Two Men Drowned.-Mr. John L. Smith, of Smith's Ferry, on the Merced, has given us the following account of a melancholy occurrence which took place on or about the 13th inst, at Horse Shoe Bend, on that river. Two English sailors, one named Kent and the other Sam, were attempting with a skiff to convey a rope across the river, when owing to the force of the current, the boat filled and was carried down the stream. Kent was drowned in attempting to swim on shore. The other man remained in the skiff, and was whirled down the stream with surprising velocity. He was watched with intense anxiety, by the people from the shore, for a distance of a mile, and it was supposed that he would be carried over the rapids below. The skiff however, was driven with great force against a small tree, which he succeeded in grappling, and to which he clung, from an early hour in the morning until late in the evening. Over one hundred people collected on the river bank, within thirty or forty feet of the unfortunate miner, and strange to say, could render him no assistance. The noise of the waters was such that they could not hear his voice. The waters were rising, and as the day was drawing to a close, his last hope for escape from his horrible situation, was in attempting to reach some drift wood which was sweeping down the current towards the tree. He sprung upon a log, and was carried off by the torrent and seen no more.-Stock. Jour