A. B. CRABTREE

Hartford Herald

May 16, 1894

DEATH IN ROUGH RIVER

TRAGIC DROWNING OF YOUNG

A. B. CRABTREE YESTERDAY

Had Got Aboard a Skiff to Hunt a Bathing Spot

Accidentally Swung Off and Could not Swim.

The Body Recovered

Another victim is added to the sad list of fatalities among our school boys and Mr. A. R. Crabtree, Panther, Daviess county, has found a watery grave.

Yesterday evening about 5:30 o'clock, he in company with Messrs. J. C. Miller and Silas Griffin went to the river to bathe. They procured a boat and rowed up the river about three hundred yards above the bridge when young Crabtree undressed and swung off the stern of the boat into about fifteen feet of water, but held on to the boat while the other boys rowed slowly up stream. After they had gone some twenty or thirty feet in this manner, he let go of the boat, and before the rowers could turn the boat and reach him he sank to rise no more. The alarm was immediately given and in a very short while there was a crowd on the spot seeking to recover his body. The dragging and diving was kept up until about 8 o'clock, when the faithful search of sorrowing friends was rewarded and the young man's body was recovered, and all that human skill could do was done to resuscitate him, but to no avail.

Mr. Crabtree came here from Daviess county at the beginning of the third term of school, and by his manly bearing and studious habits had won for himself the love of his schoolmates, the highest respect of the faculty and the citizens of this place. His untimely death will be a sad blow to Hartford College which was just in the midst of preparing for Commencement. Greater than this, however, and the saddest of it all will be the shock which his parents at home will suffer. He was the idol of the old father and mother at home. They had given him good advantages and were looking forward no doubt with gladdening hearts to the approach of June time which should bring their boy home to them. Sad beyond power of man to tell will be that home-coming, when this evening he will be borne in loving tenderness back to the arms of those who loved him so.

The tenderest sympathy of Hartford's people goes out to those who have thus been robbed of their loved one. Dr. Alexander, who loves his students almost with the tenderness of a parent, was almost overcome by the terrible accident. When seen last night after he had done all he could to assist the searchers, he could only say as the tears ran from his eyes, "It is too bad, too bad!" May He who can bind up the broken spirit, heal with His tenderness the wound of this evil day.