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From: "Monica Schirmer Eshelman" <>
Subject: [MOANDREW] Stagg Parks interesting story
Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2008 22:06:45 -0500


Though I can't find a tie with these people to Andrew Co., the article did say "of this place." I wonder if the editor, Charles F. Holly, himself, might have been the room-mate mentioned in the ship story.

Monica

Savannah Sentinel, Saturday, August 28, 1852, p. 2




"Married-- On the 28th inst., by the Rev. B. R. Prather, Dr. Arad Parks, to Miss Emeline T. Stagg; all of this place.



"On the 16th day of June 1850, the now happy bridegroom seeking a home in the West, took passage at Buffalo N. T. on the ill-fated Griffith. It was a new and magnificent steamer, crowded with passengers and promising a speedy voyage. Before the break of day, next morning, however, whilst yet three miles from shore, the boat caught fire The Doctor's room-mate aroused him from a sound sleep, to a sense of their perilous condition. Together they removed their baggage forword [sic], and prepared, in time to meet the worst. The scene which ensued baffles description! The flames flashed up on every side, the distant shore loomed darkly in the distance, almost too far for hope to reach, while three hundred and forty human beings, were either blazing in the fiery elements, or seeking a doubtful safety inn the watery one. Dr. Parks, cool and collected, amid the terrible calamity of the awful hour, exerted himself-- when the very officers of the boat stood paralyzed-- to calm and to comfort the women and children, if not to save them. And when the Griffith struck, near a mile from land, and the faithful pilot had perished like a hero, at his post, and the Captain, as the last act of despair, had thrown his wife and family, overboard, immediately following and perishing with them himself, and scarcely any were left, on the wreck, while hundreds were vainly struggling in the teeming waters beneath, our friend with characteristic deliberation, sought an opening in the human eddies, dove under the waters, swam out of the reach of the drowning, and made for land. A straggling unfortunate seized a leg, and unless it is freed they sink and drown together! To attempt its release by force, were utterly vain-- for nothing can equal the grasp of the drowning! What does he do? He does what few, under similar circumstances would have thought of-- he reasons, and reasons with such eloquent persuasion, that the unfortunate victim of this terrific disaster, unable to swim voluntarily, abandons his hold, sinks to rise no more, while the phylosophic [sic] Doctor, with a "Stagg" in his eye, reaches shore in safety-- in time, to help his room-mate also up the wistful beach. More than three hundred human beings were that day trenched on that wild-lake shore, the wild weeds of the sea heir winding sheet, and its surges signing their mournful requiem; while they two were saved (together with only twenty-eight others) and came westward together-- the one seeking his home on the banks of the Missouri, and the other "hunting a Stagg," on the banks of the Ohio!



"The 'Stagg is now Parked' and we heartily wish our lucky room-mate, the huntsman's luck, to 'bag the game'-- may he live a thousand years and his shadow never be less."


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