A Tragic Afternoon on Lake Washington
A young boy is struck down by a sailboat boom during a sudden squall, and his father's grim prophecy about the lake is chillingly fulfilled.
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.
Arthur Copp, the 11-year-old son of J. A. Copp, proprietor of the Rainier boat house, on Lake Washington, at Leschi park, was drowned at 6 o'clock last evening while sailing on the lake. In company with another boy, named Fred Sears, Copp took a small sailboat from the Rainier boat house and spent the afternoon cruising around Mercer island. While returning home, and when about half a mile from shore, the boat was struck by a squall, which drove the boom stick to which the sail was attached across the boat. Young Copp was seated in the stern at the rudder, and the boom struck him in the breast, knocking him out of the boat into the water. He was stunned by the heavy blow, and it was several seconds before he rose to the surface. Young Sears, though badly frightened, shoved an oar out, but the drowning boy had not the presence of mind to grasp it. The wind filled the sail and carried the boat away and, when Sears finally took the sail down, he was so far away that his companion sank from sight for the last time before he could row back to him. Only an hour or two before the boy was drowned his father said to Coroner Horton, in talking of the supposed drowning of W. C. Thomas: 'When a body goes down in this lake, it never comes up again.' Within a very short time he learned that his own boy's body had gone down to prove the truth of his remark.
“When a body goes down in this lake, it never comes up again.”
Lake Washington remains a place of both recreation and tragic danger, and this account highlights the somber, folkloric reputation the lake held in the 19th century—that its depths were unforgiving and would not release what they took.
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