Cook, Merton P. died 1926

COOK, ECKEL

Posted By: Diana Henry Diedrich (email)
Date: 3/19/2013 at 09:48:19

Merton P. Cook Meets with a Tragic Death
Son of Mr. and Mrs. Bert Cook Killed When Caught in Ferry Cable at Keller, Washington

Postville friends will sympathize with Mr. and Mrs. J. A. Cook, of Keller, Washington, in the loss of their son, whose tragic death is related in the following excerpt from the San Poil (Wash.) Eagle of May 6th.

Merton P. Cook, Ferryman, met instant death on the Clark ferry, seven o’clock last Sunday morning when his body came in contact with the cable wheel which, apparently, was running wild.
Mr. Cook slept on the boat that night and had crossed several cars after dawn. He was alone at the time of the accident, and no one knows just what happened, but it is quite possible that the boat had just left the Ferry county shore and Mr. Cook had let out the north end cable in preparing to cross the stream, and then turned to do something else, perhaps to lower the keel or to wind up the south end cable, discovering that the south end cable, discovering that the cable wheel he had just left had broken loose and, of course, it would be running at great speed before he could get to it. In his rush to stop the wheel he either missed the foot brake or his knee gave away throwing his body on the wheel. It is also probable that his body was pinned or deposited on the framework supporting the wood awning over the ferry wheels, where the ferry wheels, where the wheel sawed a great hole in his left side, tearing out the ribs, lung and liver. The body probably brought the wheel, it dropped its victim on the floor of the ferry, and resumed its speed until the some sixty feet of cable was spent.

Aroused by the peculiar action of the boat Albert Eckel saw, from his bed on the porch of the Eckel home, the wheel running wild and knew something serious had happened. The boat was then two-thirds of its way across, and drifted to shore.

Cook’s body was found lying between the two wheels horribly mutilated. The force was so great that one of the spokes of the wheel, projected for hand holds and about one and a half inches thick, was broken off entirely and several broken over.

~Postville Herald, May 13, 1926 Pg1
~Transcriber is not related & has no other information