De Los Dorrance

DORRANCE

Posted By: Rebecca Foster (email)
Date: 9/16/2014 at 12:16:18

CHAPTER OF CASUALTIES
AN OLD PILOT GONE.
SUDDEN DEATH OF A PILOT.

The old river pilot, De Los Dorrance, died suddenly in his bed, at the home of his brother Durbin in LeClaire at three o’clock this morning. He was about town last evening, apparently as well as ever, and went to bed without complaint of ailment. At quarter to 8 o’clock the other inmates of the house were aroused by his groans, and his sister-in-law went to his room to find him senseless with apoplexy or heart disease. A Doctor was summoned, but Dorrance died in a few minutes after his arrival.

De Los Dorrance was fifty-two years of age--came to LeClaire when he was a child, and has had his home there ever since. He has been a pilot on the upper Mississippi for more than thirty years-- and a portion of that period was in the wheel-house of the large packets. He was master and pilot of the steamer Jennie Gilchrist, in ‘82, (October 27, 1881) when she met with the disaster by the breaking down of her machinery, floating back against a pier of the government bridge with barge, and sinking below the city, nine persons losing their lives. After that Mr. Dorrance had little to do with river traffic. He was a single man--divorced from his wife 10 years since. He was a brother of De Forest Dorrance, the rapids pilot, and of Durbin Dorrance, pilot of the Bebstock.

Source: The Davenport Democrat, Davenport, Ia., 15 Jul 1885, p. 1.