The Turnbo Manuscripts
by Silas Claiborne Turnbo
1844-1925
Turnbo Home | Table of Contents | Keyword Search| Bibliography | Biography
A SAD STORY OF THE LONG AGO
By S. C. Turnbo
It has been many years ago. It is not definitely known now how long it
has been but it was some time before the breaking out of the bloody war
between the north and south when a man and his wife and 4 children 3 girls
and a baby boy and his wife’s sister with one baby or a total of 7
people were moving down White River. It is not known now where they were
from but it was supposed they had been living some where in Southwest Missouri.
They had two canoes lashed together and two good sized logs were lashed
to the canoes. They had their bedding provision and cooking vessels with
them. They had good luck on their way down the river until they got into
Marion County Ark. where they met a terrible mishap at the lower end of
the Bull Bottom. Just before they reached the Bull Bottoms Shoals the mans
wife’s sister tucked her baby up in her dress and sit down in the stern
end of one of the canoes and began to steer them with a paddle. The mans
wife was combing one of her children’s head when her sister instead
of keeping the main channel of the river ran the lashed canoes into a chute
on the east side of the river. Though at that time the river was swollen
and the chute looked almost as big as the main channel. About the time they
had got well into this the swift water hurled the craft against the limb
of a stooping sycamore tree which hung down into the water and tore the
canoe and logs apart and threw them all in the water and were all drowned
except the man and his sister-in-law and her baby. Fortunately this woman
had clung to one of the canoes and as the water carried it along down stream
she held to it with all her strength and kept her head and that of her baby
just above the surface of the swift current. The woman as she floated along
screamed for help. It took some time for the man to reach the shore and
thinking it was his wife who was screaming followed along on the east shore
as fast as he could go. As he ran he saw a man cutting sprouts in a field
which proved to be John Terry and telling the man of his trouble, Mr. Terry
left his work and ran down to where his brother Loranzo D. Terry lived and
found him in the field plowing. As soon as his brother John informed him
of the sad calamity he ran to his canoe and by the time he had headed the
craft out into the stream, the canoe with the woman and child clinging to
it was passing the landing and he made all motions to reach the drowning
woman and child before they would pass over the shoal at the mouth of Music
Creek. By this time the woman was so chilled by the cold water that she
was not able to halloo any more and the poor infant was too nigh gone to
cry. Mr. Terry was an expert in the water and he done some of his best work
in that canoe to over take the woman and little babe and did overtake her
between the shoals and where Jim Jones Ferry is now when he had approached
within a few feet of her the woman said to him in a weak voice "Hurry,
I cannot hold much longer". It was now that Mr.
Terry renewed his energies and run his canoe on the side of the other canoe
where the woman and infant was and took the child and laid it down in the
canoe then he took hold
of the woman’s wrist and pulled hard before he could breath her hold
from the canoe and with hard work he managed to pull her into the canoe.
Her and the infant was almost lifeless now. He now snatches up the paddle
and quickly seating himself in the stern end of the canoe soon got
the bow headed for the east shore just in time to prevent going over the
shoals. John Terry and the other man reached that part of the bank of the
river just as Ron Terry landed his canoe and the man was badly grieved when
he found that the rescued woman was not his wife. John Terry and the other
man carried the woman to Ron Terry’s house. Ron Terry picked up the
almost lifeless form infant and ran with it toward his house to make an
effort to revive it but after running a short distance the infant lost its
breath and it was seemingly entirely dead, but Mr. Terry rolled it around
in his hand and the child caught its breath again. Mr. Terry soon found
that if he run it would lost its breath for good and he was compelled to
walk until he reached his house and by the help of his good wife the little
infant was restored by changing its wet clothes for dry ones
and giving it warm stimulants. The same was done for the helpless woman
when John Terry and the other man arrived at the house with her. The alarm
was now given and a number of settlers who lived along the river collected
on the following day and after procuring several crafts began a search (This
story is incomplete.)
Turnbo Home | Table of Contents | Keyword Search| Bibliography | Biography
