Five Years Old, Alone in a Canoe, and a River That Would Not Give Him Back
Neighbours and loggers dragged the Snohomish for a day and a night before a boy's body was found and carried to town for burial.
Little Beanie Murdock, aged 5 years, son of Richard Murdock, of Cherry Valley, seven miles up the river from Snohomish, was playing in a canoe across the river from Snohomish last night when he fell in and was drowned. The neighbors and loggers in the vicinity spent all day and night dragging the river. George Clark found the body this noon, when it was brought to Snohomish for burial.
“The neighbors and loggers in the vicinity spent all day and night dragging the river.”
The Snohomish and its tributaries were the region's roads before they were its recreation, and a child on the water was never far from real danger. The response recorded here — neighbours and logging crews dropping their work to drag the river all night — is the small-town mutual aid that still shows up when a Washington river takes someone.
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