T. Melvin Marshall, 33, pottery worker, helped to save Mary A. Elson, 75; Levi Van Sickle, 69, retired farmer; William Slaughter, 41, mail carrier, and others from drowning, Coshocton, Ohio, March 25-26, 1913. Although other boatmen had refused to go to the vicinity in which the endangered persons lived when offered money to do so, Marshall and a brother, at night, set out in a boat and rowed over a half-mile through the floodwaters of the Muskingum River, to the Elson house. Their course was across the main current, which was 500 feet wide and flowed with a speed of 12 m.p.h. Several houses in the vicinity had been swept away, and there was debris in the current. The men reached the house and took seven persons into the boat, from a second-story window. They rowed over a quarter-mile across the main current to a landing place and then returned for others who were in the house. After landing these persons they rowed to the Van Sickle house, close to the Elson house, and took Van Sickle and six other persons into the boat. Just as they were taking the last person from a second-story window, the corner of the house shifted. Marshall lost his hold on the house when the boat was jolted by the last person getting into it, and the current carried the boat about 200 feet before the men could regain control of it. Five minutes later the house was swept away. The men reached their starting point in safety and then made a fourth trip, going to the Slaughter house beside the Elson house. They took Slaughter, his wife, and three children into the boat and took them to the place where they had previously landed. 10356-940
10356 – 940
10356-940