Canton Weekly Register

BERNADOTTE DROWNING STORY TOLD TO CORONER BY FRIEND WHO WAS WITH GEOPINGER.

ENGINE DRIVES BOAT INTO SWIFT CURRENT WHEN IT STOPS AND TWO MEN LEAP FOR THEIR LIVES;
ONE IS CARRIED OVER DAM,

"My God! What shall we do?"

Those were the agonized last words of Charles Geopinger, whose little gasoline launch was caught, with a "dead" engine, Friday afternoon, in the swift, flood-swollen current of Spoon river, 30 yards above the dam at Bernadotte.

"Jump!" answered his companion, Clarence Matheny, and leaped overboard to struggle for the shore.

Grasping a useless oar in either hand, Geopinger sprang after. A few moments, and Matheny, a strong swimmer, had reached the narrow river's bank. Geopinger, who could swim but little, was yet struggling in midstream, nearer by a dozen yards to the dam. The launch had disappeared. Already it had been swept over. It was sinking and rising, bobbing and dancing, in the whirlpool where that wall of water--two feet thick, at least--was pouring.

Matheny shouted for assistance. He was unheard, except by a few horror-stricken, helpless women and children.

He got a boat, and thought he might effect the rescue of the drowning man by reaching out a pole from the shoal water near the bank. But Geopinger was not then to be seen. The fight for life was lost.

Search for the Body.

The supposition was that the body lay above the dam. Men soon were out with grappling hooks, dragging the raging little river's muddy bed, finding nothing, but persisting, on the theory that the corpse had sunk into the slime, where presently a hook might catch upon it.

Finally, on Saturday, late in the morning, search below the dam was started. A child who saw the tragedy thought Geopinger went over. The child was right.

Just before 11 o'clock Lewis Pickel found the body, near the river bank a hundred feet below the dam. It was bruised and battered from the whirlpool's buffeting, having probably for hours been tossed and thrown, borne down and then dragged back--the plaything of the mad, contending currents.

The corpse was carried to the hotel of the village and Coroner W. T. Zeigler at Canton was notified.

Inquest Is Held.

At the inquest conducted by Dr. Zeigler, Saturday afternoon at 5 o'clock, two witnesses were heard--the companion of Geopinger when the fatality occurred, and the man who found the body.

They told the story that already is related. Further, the jury was informed that Geopinger was an unmarried man, not far from 35 years of age, whose home was in Bushnell but who through the summer had been conveying pleasure parties up and down the river in his launch, and fishing. For the last two months he had lived in a tent across the river from Bernadotte. Before that, he was camping near Seville.

Friday afternoon, soon after 1 o'clock, he had asked Matheny to go with him up the river, in the launch, to raise some fish traps. They started from the usual place, but the engine moved just long enough to send the launch well out into the stream, and then stopped still.

If this had happened any day of all the summer, before the heavy rain of Wednesday, it would not have mattered. The launch could have been paddled to shore. Or, even if it had been carried to the dam, it must have stopped there. There had been but little water running over. But, with a river running bank full, and two feet of water pouring over the dam, the engine's balk spelled death.

There was found upon the body a gold watch and a diamond ring. A pocketbook supposed to have contained $50 or $60 was missing. Doubtless it had slipped out of the pocket where it had been carried, while the corpse was tumbled in the whirlpool.

The wrecked launch lies upon the river bank, a little way below the village.

The jury--composed of Harry Tuthill, Amos Derry, Patrick Ryan, Lewis McCaughey, Peter Joachim and J. Herriford--returned a verdict of accidental drowning.

Was an Only Son.

Charles Geopinger was the only son of Mr. and Mrs. Christopher Geopinger of Bushnell. Until two years ago he was his father's partner in a harness shop. Last winter he built his motor boat, which was accounted one of the fastest and best upon the river. He was well esteemed in Bushnell and had many friends.

Besides his aged parents, four sisters survive him. They are the Misses Amelia, Emma, Cora and Louisa, all at home.