Charles F. Hull, 58, laborer, saved Harvey L. Buchanan, 6 months, from drowning, San Angelo, Texas, February 10, 1914. A buggy in which Harvey lay rolled into the South Concho River at a point where the water was 12 feet deep. Hull, on the opposite side of the river, heard the mother’s screams and saw the child in the water. Although the water was cold and he was weak and feeble from years of sickness, he removed his coat and shoes and swam toward the child. When halfway across the stream, he felt a cramp coming in his right leg, the knee cap of which had been injured. He stopped and trod water until the pain left, and then he continued to the child. A woman was holding the child at the surface by a slight hold on his clothes with a fishpole, but she could not get him to the bank. Hull grasped the clothes of the child and the end of the pole, and the woman pulled him to the steep bank. He had swum 220 feet and was almost exhausted. Harvey was unconscious, but he was revived. Hull was disabled 18 days as a result of his act.
12670 – 943
12670-943Obituary
Funeral services will be held at 4 o’clock this afternoon for Charles F. Hull, 83, Carnegie hero in 1914, at Vautrain Chapel by the Rev. K. P. Barton, Methodist presiding elder, and burial made in Fairmount Cemetery.
Four pallbearers had been selected last night. They were J.W. Patterson, John Willeke, Jr., O.M. Bennett, and Dee Townsend. Two others will be selected this morning.
Mr. Hull died at 5 o’clock Monday morning at the home of a son, John Hull, 1320 Kenwood, where he suffered a paralytic stroke Saturday.
Born May 12, 1856 at Nelsonville, O., Mr. Hull was awarded $1000 and a bronze medal by the Carnegie Hero Commission for saving the life of six-month-old Harvey L. Buchanan at Ben Ficklin, Feb. 10, 1914.
Mr. Hull, then 58, swam 200 feet across the cold waters of the South Concho River to rescue the infant, who had been left in a buggy that slipped into the 12-foot stream. Hearing the mother’s screams, Mr. Hull, weakened by illness, jumped into the river, outfought a cramp and swam to the child held to the surface by a woman, hooked the end of a fishing hook into the victim’s clothing. The Buchanan infant later moved with his parents to Turkey, Texas.
Member of the Methodist Church, Mr. Hull is survived by three sons, the Rev. Shan M. Hull, Edcouch, Tom Hull, Kansas City, and the son here, who is in the construction business. Mrs. Hull died and was buried here in 1911.
Mr. Hull came to Texas when he was 17 years old, staying first at Waxahachie. He married there, and subsequently resided at Wharton for five years, coming here in 1890. He established the first nickel store here on the site of the present San Angelo National Bank and at one time owned besides that place a dry goods store and also a grocery. In later years he had been associated with Mrs. Georgia Miller, a step-daughter, in the Popular Millinery Store. He wrote all the advertising copy for the establishment and became recognized throughout the area for the uniqueness of his message. Mrs. Miller died in 1936 and is buried here as is also a son, Bill Hull. The elder Mr. Hull was foreman of the volunteer fire department for a time in the days of the two-wheel carts which were pulled by hand. Bill Hull was a member of the department at the time of the Landon Hotel fire in 1903 and was so injured that he never recovered, dying about seven months afterward from complications that developed from bruises and internal injuries.