Tragedy on the Slough
A sixteen-month-old child loses her life in a tragic drowning accident near the family home.
Tuesday morning, John Matson's little sixteen-month-old child, while playing, fell into a small slough alongside his house on the east side, and was drowned before she was discovered. Doctors Pearson and Stapp were immediately sent for, but on examining the body they found nothing could be done, as life was entirely extinct and had been for some time, as all signs of congestion had disappeared.
“Doctors Pearson and Stapp were immediately sent for, but on examining the body they found nothing could be done.”
Accidental drownings in the tidal sloughs of early Aberdeen were a frequent and heartbreaking consequence of the city's rapid, unregulated expansion over low-lying marshlands. Today, the systematic filling of the tide-flats and modernized urban planning have mitigated many of these specific dangers that defined life for pioneer families.
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