r Shoemaker, a clerk in the
Post-Office; a man upwards of 60 years of age, who last evening between
5 and 6 O’Clock, went in to bathe with four other persons— That he was
drowned in full sight of them, and without a suspicion by them that he
was even in any danger— They had observed him struggling in the water,
but as he was an excellent swimmer had supposed he was merely diving;
until after coming out they found he was missing— They then commenced an
ineffectual search for him which was continued late into the night— The
man said to me that he had never seen a more distressed person 880than Mrs Shoemaker last Evening—
While the two mast boat was dropping down the stream and the other boat
was preparing to go out with the drag, I stripped and went in to the
river; I had been not more than ten minutes swimming when the drag boat
started, and they were not five minutes from the shore when the body
floated immediately opposite the rock; less than one hundred yards from
the shore, at the very edge of the channel and where there were could
not be seven foot deep of water— I returned immediately to the shore and
dressed— a rope was tied round one of the arms; and the boat remained at
the spot, till a blanket had been sent for, which was spread under the
tree; the boat then returned to the shore drawing the body through the
water, and it was lifted from the water and brought and laid upon the
blanket and covered up. The only part of the body which had the
appearance of stiffness was the arms, both of which were raised at the
shoulder joints and crooked towards each other at the elbows; as if they
had been fixed by a spasm at the very moment when they were to expand to
keep the head above water— There was a dark flush of settled blood over
the face, like one excessively heated, and a few drops of thin blood and
water issued from one ear— There was nothing terrible or offensive in
the sight; but I returned home musing in sympathy with the distressed
Lady; and enquiring uncertainly whether I ought to renounce altogether
my practice of swimming in the river— My conclusion was that I ought
not—deeming it in this climate indispensable to my health—so that
whatever danger there may be in the exercise, and that there is much
danger, this incident offers melancholy and cumulative proof—there would
be yet greater danger in abstaining from it, or in substituting any
other effective exercise in its place— We are and always must be in the
hands of God, and to him are indebted for every breath we draw.
- Read— Captain with
- Polk—
Barbour— S.W. has despatched the
Letters to Genl. Gaines and to Governor Troup of Georgia, interdicting the survey of the
Indian Lands— He returned me Troup’s last Letter with its enclosures;
and with a very decided opinion that I ought not to answer it— He
afterwards sent me back the two Letters of Wade Hampton and T.
Cooper. He proposed to write to T. P. Andrews, expressing disapprobation at his letter to
Crowell suspending him from
the Agency, because it contained an unnecessary censure upon the
proceedings of the Legislature of Georgia—which I agreed to, and said I
had already thought of mentioning to him— Mr
Barbour proposes to take another leave of absence, unable to endure the
heat of this place.
He will go to-morrow—
Captain Read came again and introduced a young Mr
Hartley, an Officer on the British establishment in
Canada; grandson to a
brother of David
Hartley the British Plenipotentiary at the Peace of 1783.
and Coll Hartley, Member of Parliament for
Berkshire, whom I saw in London in the winter of that same year.
Southard— S.N.T. came and
introduced to me, Mr King the Navy Agent at Norfolk, Virginia.
Hawley—Revd.
Mr came with Mr Allen,
Minister of the Episcopal Church at the Navy-Yard, who applied for the
appointment of his brother, a
graduate of the Middlebury College in Vermont, as a Chaplain to go out
in the frigate Brandywine.
The excessive heat which has continued many days was this day first shortly tempered by a thunder gust about the middle of the day, which lasted two or three hours, and then cleared off with a dead calm and the thermometer about 85—
I have never experienced such a Summer