Man leaves family on mountain as he goes to have his horses’ shoes sharpened. The woman and her children are later found frozen to the ground.
Horrible Suffering of a Family
On Saturday afternoon last, during the prevalence of a severe storm, a young man who had been sent from St. Clair to Hazelton, with a team, for the purpose of removing the family of Mr. Valentine Frantz, to the former place, found it necessary to unhitch his horses and leave the family on a mountain, to go home and have his horses’ shoes sharpened.
The persons composing family, left in that dangerous position, were Mrs. Frantz, five small children, and an elder daughter and her husband.
After the driver had been absent some time, the family left the wagon, for the purpose, if possible, of reaching their home; but the rain falling fast, and freezing as rapidly as it fell, impeding their progress.
Mrs. Frantz sunk to the ground a dozen times, in a distance of between one and two miles, yet she clung to and protected her babe with the fervor which characterizes a mother’s love.
At last Mrs. Frantz, overcome by cold and fatigue, could proceed no farther.
The young man placed her and four of the children on the ground in as sheltered a position as he could find, picked up the remaining child, a boy, in his arms, and proceeded home as rapidly as possible.
On reaching home he informed his friends of the occurrence, and they started in search of the unfortunate sufferers.
When discovered, Mrs. Frantz and the children were insensible. The mother was lying on her back, with her babe pressed tightly to her bosom, while her clothing was frozen to the ground.
One of the children, a little girl while attempting evidently, to crawl up the hill, had slipped, her clothing was all stripped from her person, and she was found exposed and frozen to the ground.
The children were taken to a place of shelter, but Mrs. Frantz was not removed until a wagon had been procured. The first inquiry from her lips, when restored to consciousness, was for her children.
The boy first taken home has died. It is thought that Mrs. Frantz will recover. The babe is well. There is, however some doubt of the recovery of the other children.
What the little family suffered in the long hours of that Saturday afternoon and night, exposed to the peltings of a pitiless storm, and to the chilling atmosphere of a winter day, on a bleak mountain, with the nearest house miles away, and their friends ignorant of their condition; what that mother must have suffered mentally, in their anxiety for her poor children, our readers can imagine. We will not attempt a description.
Source: The Alleghanian. (Ebensburg, Pa.), 26 Jan. 1860.
