Death In The River
A White Man Drowned While Bathing in the Etowah.
While Nearly Midway the Stream He is Attacked With Cramp and Sinks Under the Water.

C. E. McFee, a young white man who has been employed for several weeks by the Etowah Iron Company, met his death in the Etowah river last Saturday a little after noon.

McFee, with several companions, went in bathing just after the noon lunch, and, with the others, had swam across the river and started back, when he was attacked with cramp. He called for help, but before any one could lend him any assistance he sank for the last time under the water.

John Pollock, the foreman under whom McFee worked, said of the accident: “I was eating dinner about 12 o’clock, noon, when I heard some of my men who were down at the river call. I ran down as quick as I could and found one of their number, a man named McFee, had been drowned. I got there eight or ten minutes after he had sunk last. I then had the men look for the body, and in about one hour and ten minutes after I got there, or one hour and twenty three minutes after he had sank for the last time, the body was recovered. The men went into swim where Mansfield’s branch empties into the Etowah river. The body was found about 150 feet below that. He had been working here for about six weeks or so, driving a team.”

Mr. George B. Morgan, a fellow workman, and with whom McFee boarded, witnessed the unfortunate drowning. He gives his statement of the occurrence: [A long description of the drowning follows….]…The body was drawn into the boat and brought to the right bank of the river and remained there until the undertaker came, about 4 o’clock. It was then carried to the undertaker’s, where it was prepared for burial, afterwards carried to my house where it remained until Sunday at three o’clock in the afternoon, when it was taken to Oak Hill cemetery and interred.”

Hitup and Tom Maddox were the ones who found the body, bringing it up after diving the fourth time.

McFee was a stranger here, very little being known about him. He appeared to be about thirty years of age and claimed Virginia as his home. It is said he once ran a restaurant in Marietta and has resided in Florida. It has been impossible to find where his relatives live that they might be apprised of the sad event.