Ice Breaks: Two Young Men Drown in Snohomish River Tragedy
Horace Low and Arthur Butt, employees of the local newspaper office, lost their lives after ice gave way beneath them while skating on the river.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
It was nearly ten o'clock in the evening when Horace Low and Arthur Butt, who had been employed in this office, went out to skate on the Snohomish River. They were accompanied by Charles Elwell, who also worked here, and another young man named John J. Packard. After skating for some time, they moved to a place where the water was sufficiently frozen to bear their weight. Suddenly, the ice gave way under them. Their cries attracted the attention of their companions, who did all in their power to rescue them but without avail. Encumbered with warm heavy clothing, thick boots, and their weights, although they struggled manfully, making almost every effort to escape, they were, after breaking a number of yards of the ice, drowned.
Clayton Packard went to the assistance of his comrade, Arthur Butt, getting within ten feet of him by lying down and crawling toward the open water; but the ice gave way under him, and it was an amount a miracle that he escaped with his life. Charles Elwell attempted to procure a pole with which to assist the others, but Horace Low, both in the darkness prevented him from finding one, and the other young man also perished. Packard and Elwell immediately came to town to give the alarm, and nearly every able-bodied man proceeded with ice picks to the scene of the disaster. By the aid of grappling hooks and a loudly improvised net, the bodies were recovered and brought to town about midnight.
Both the unfortunate victims were young men of excellent habits, and no more promising young men can be found in this country. Horace Low was the youngest son of J. N. Low, Esq., an old resident of this county and Olympia, and at one time of Snohomish Co. Capt. Arthur Butt was the oldest son of John Butt, a resident here, and last year the county Treasurer of this county. The death of these two young men has overwhelmed with woe two of our households and cast a gloomy pall over the community. From the first settlement of this county no other event has ever occurred. May we never have to record its parallel.
This 1876 tragedy highlights the immediate dangers of Snohomish's geography, where the river was both a lifeline and a lethal hazard in winter. The loss of two young professionals—one connected to the territorial government as Treasurer's son, the other to the press—shook the small frontier community, reminding us that early infrastructure was often just frozen water and wood planks.
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