Tragic Drowning at Squak Slough
A laborer loses his life while attempting to secure a log boom near Derby.
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.
Coroner Horton received notification yesterday morning of the drowning of Andrew Slogan in Squak Slough, near Derby on the Lake Shore road, about nine miles from Seattle. Slogan was employed by David Farrar in the work of running a boom across the slough. Slogan, in trying to reach another log, slipped into the water from the one on which he stood. On coming to the surface, he became rattled and swam up stream. His companion yelled to him to go toward the shore and, perceiving that he was unheeded, tried to catch Slogan. In this act, he fell into the water himself and was compelled to swim to shore for his own safety. Slogan in the meantime sank. His body was recovered yesterday morning.
“Slogan, in trying to reach another log, slipped into the water from the one on which he stood, and on coming to the surface became rattled and swam up stream.”
Workplace deaths in the logging industry were a grim and constant reality of 19th-century Washington. This account captures the brutal speed at which a minor slip on a log boom could turn fatal.
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