tug takes woman

The wife of Estel Thomas, foreman of a Tug River Lumber Company mill, and her three-year-old child were sleeping in their home in the Dry Fork of Tug River when the stream flooded the house with three feet of water. They were still inside, when “a huge drift came by, striking the structure which forced it from its foundation and over the bank.”

It was reported that the woman cried piteously for help as the structure floated down by the town of Davy “and that hundreds of people stood lining the banks, helplessly watching as the house struck the railroad bridge and sank from view”.

Real article from my hometown newspaper, circa 1902.