A Near-Death Experience on Lake Union
Three young men capsized in a pleasure boat, saved by the quick thinking of two local boaters who paddled out to rescue them.
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.
On Wednesday afternoon, three young men—George Cushman, Willard Merwin, and Byron Page—went out on Lake Union for a sail in Mr. Horton's pleasure boat. When nearly in the middle of the lake, the boat swamped, precipitating all into the water. Merwin and Page, being good swimmers, were all right; but Cushman exclaimed, 'I can't swim! I can't swim!' He clung tenaciously to his harmonica, however, on which he was playing when capsized. Luckily, they all succeeded in getting on the bottom of the boat. Several canoes went out, but were too small to do them any good. After a little while, Mrs. A. Pinkham went out with her boat, as did Mr. Nollop with his, and they jointly rescued the boys from their perilous position, for which they will please accept the heartfelt thanks of the two young men and their many friends. This mishap shows all the necessity of learning to swim, and the example of the lady should well stimulate others of her sex to learn to wield the oar, that in like circumstances they may perhaps be the means of saving precious lives.
“He clung tenaciously to his harmonica, however, on which he was playing when capsized.”
Long before Lake Union became the epicenter of high-end rowing clubs and floating homes, it was a wilder, more dangerous backyard for early settlers. The 1878 account highlights a persistent Seattle theme: our relationship with the water is as much about recreation as it is about the constant risk of drowning.
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