In the summer of 1909, the waterways around Michigan and Ontario were busy with steamers, river traffic, and the constant danger that came with life on the water. For sailors, passengers, and dockside workers, a single slip could turn fatal in an instant.
This grim report from Walkerville, Michigan, began with a terrible discovery: the mutilated remains of a man pulled from the river. At first, those who saw the body believed it might be Walter Kelly, who had recently drowned at St. Clair Flats after being drawn into the paddle box of the steamer State of New York alongside his companion, Miss Mary Leitch. The condition of the remains seemed to fit that horrifying possibility.
But identification in such cases was uncertain and painful. When Kelly’s friends viewed the body at the morgue in Windsor, they could not recognize it as his. The mystery was solved the following morning when the remains were identified as Thomas P. McDonald, first mate of the steamer Douglas, who had fallen overboard days earlier.
The discovery of one of his legs elsewhere in the river added another dreadful detail to the story. It is a short newspaper account, but it captures the harsh reality of river travel in the steamboat era.
Mangled Body In River
WALKERVILLE, Michigan. — The mangled body of a man taken from the river above Walkerville, Thursday, with the arms and legs missing, and the trunk and head badly mutilated, was at first thought to be that of Walter Kelly, drowned at St. Clair Flats, Monday, after he and his companion, Miss Mary Leitch, had both been drawn into the paddle box of the steamer State of New York.
It was thought that the condition of the body might have resulted from the action of the powerful paddles on the steamer, but friends of Kelly looked at the body in Cheyne’s morgue, Windsor, and failed to identify it.
Friday morning the body was identified as that of Thomas P. McDonald, first mate of the steamer Douglas, who fell overboard at the Flats, on June 29. The remains were taken to Algonac during the day. One of the legs was picked up in the river at the foot of Adair Street, Friday morning.
The mutilated body was washed up on the shore close to W. Pope’s residence in Sandwich East.
Source: The Detroit Times. Detroit, Mich. July 9, 1909.
