Obituaries submitted by
Susan
Soloway
Stealing away from mother who was preparing
supper and taking her baby sister and three-year-old brother** to play
on the sand barges just below the city wharf boat, little eleven-year-old
Alzie Beach fell from the boat and was drowned in about five feet of water.
The body had not been found up to the time
of going to press, although the father of the drowned child with a companion
dragged the river for hours after the accident.
The fatality was witnessed by no one except
the three-year-old brother and who gave the alarm. The baby was too
young to know what was taking place.
A colored man was the first to the scene of
the drowning and Mrs. Beach was soon on the spot and directly afterward
Mr. Beach, returning from town, reached the spot.
Miss Alzie slipped out of the kitchen in the
wharf boat where her mother was preparing supper and with her three-year-old
brother, Sam, and the baby, not yet old enough to walk, went to the sand
barges. Two empty barges were connected with the shore by drive ways
where the sand had been unloaded from them. A mussel shell boat well
filled with the shells was anchored on the outer edge of the unloading
barges and was snug up against it.
Leaving the baby on the barge the girl and her little
brother jumped down on the mussel shells to play and to sort out some nice
shells, which looked pretty to the childish eye. The boy was seated
in the middle of the pile of shells, he says, when his sister stepped up
on the edge of the mussel shell
boat and placing her hands on the edge of the barge. This action
caused the light boat to drift outward from the barge.
There the girl stood for a few moments her
feet on the outer boat and her hands on the barge. The distance became
too great and she fell. She fell into the water without uttering
a cry and it is not known what then became of her as she was not seen after
that as the little boy went crying to his
mother, telling her of the accident.
Mrs. Beach rushed to the scene but could do
nothing. She did not see even a movement of the water and it is believed
that the body might have become wedged under one of the barges. The
screams of Mrs. Beach attracted a number of people who arrived shortly
after Mr. Beach did. Several spike hooks were secured and a search
of the water in the vicinity of where the girl fell in was made but with
no result. A boat was then secured and with a grappling hook the
bottom was dragged.
Miss Alzie Beach is the step-daughter of Hence
Beach and the daughter of Mrs. Beach by former marriage.
The little girl was an attendant at the Seventh
street school.
** Algie's brother that they reference must have been Sam (Beach), who
would have actually been 5 years old.
Henderson Daily Gleaner (Page 8) - May 9, 1907
Headline: BODY OF ALGIE BEACH IS FOUND IN RIVER NEAR FOOT OF
AUDUBON
STREET BY BEN REESOR, A FISHERMAN
Was drowned on Saturday Evening, April the Twentieth - Inquest is Held.
The body of Algie Beach, the eleven year old
daughtger of Mr. and Mrs. Hince Beach, who live on the wharfboat, was recovered
from the river Wendesday morning. The little girl was drowned off
a barge near the wharfboat on the evening of April 20 and for several days
the river was dragged and a diligent effort was made to raise the body,
but everything proved a failure.
The body was found floating down the river
and Bennie Reesor, a fisherman, picked it up near the shore at the foot
of Audubon street. Hince Beach, the step-father of the child, identified
the body and Coroner Hart Floyd, of Cairo, held the inquest.
The following verdict was rendered:
"We, the jury, find the body before us to be that of Miss Algie Beach and
that she came to her death by accidentally drowning off a barge at or near
the
wharfboat Henderson, Ky., on Saturday, April 20th, about the hour of
7 o'clock p.m., 1907. (Names of jury given.)
The funeral will be held Thursday morning at 9 o'clock from the establishment
of W.H. Klee, undertaker.
