LOST CROSSING RIVER.
Huge Cake of Ice Sinks Skiff in Potomac.
Harper’s Ferry, W. Va., Jan. 24– Three men were drowned early yesterday morning below Knott’s Island while crossing the Potomac river to their work at the Bakerton quarries.
They were William S. Grimm; his son, Raymond Grimm, and Richard Shaw, all of Dargan, Md.
There were about a dozen men in the party, who, with lanterns, were lighting their way to their way to their work. When they came to the river, where they had skiffs on which to cross, the victims, with another son of William Grimm’s, Jess, who was rescued, were the first to push out in their boat.
The channel had frozen during the night and the men used a long pole with which to break the ice and pull the boat along. Five men in a second boat followed directly after the first. When the boats were midstream, where there is an eddy that never freezes, a huge cake of ice bore down upon them, sinking the first boat and crushing in the side of the boat behind.
Jess Grimm was in the rear of the boat that was sunk and was rescued by those in the boat following. The men left on the bank jumped into their skiffs and rescued those in the damaged boat, who were working desperately to keep afloat by bailing.
