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A CURIOUS ACCIDENT.

         In the latter part of 1842, Mr. Joseph Olds, one of the old settlers of 1836, met with an accident that resulted in his death. A year or two previous to the occurrence of which we are writing, Mr. Olds plowed up an old gun-barrel, which, from appearance, says our informant, might have been in the ground for fifty or one hundred years. He took the old relic to his house, where it was kept more as a curiosity than an article of use. One day, when Mr. Olds was confined to his house, in consequence of rain and snow (in December, 1842) he concluded to overhaul the old “shooter,” and see if he could remove the breech-pin. After working at it some time, he put it in the fire, for the purpose of loosening the rust, ignorant of the fact that it contained an old charge. When it reached a red heat an explosion ensued, the entire charge entering his thigh, near the hip joint, passing through the thigh and inflecting an ugly wound, and one from which he died in a few days.

“SALLY ACKER.”

         In October, 1843, William M. Knott and two or three other young men, who contemplated going South to work or hunt during the Winter, in the Arkansas country, conceived the idea of building a boat or yawl, on “Goose Pond,” in which to make the trip. The necessary material was secured and the making of the boat commenced and completed. There was not water enough in “Goose Creek,” now filled up and built over with fine houses (as is Goose Pond), to float the vessel out into Rock Creek, and thence to Cedar River, at Rochester, so they hauled it by wagon to Rochester. There the craft was committed to the current of Cedar River, and the boys went on board and started on their Arkansas trip.

         When they reached Keokuk they were tired of their bargain and concluded on a change of programme. They took passage, by steamboat, for St. Louis, and had their “Goose Pond” craft towed astern. At St. Louis, they hired to take a keel boat to Randolph, Tenn., for which they were to receive $20.00, with the privilege of taking “Sally Acker” along. After delivering the keel boat at Randolph, and receiving their $20.00, they launched “Sally Acker” on the broad bosom of the Mississippi and floated down to Vicksburg, where . . .

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. . . they left their Tipton-made craft in the hands of an agent, to be sold. The boat was sold, but the agent pocketed the money and “skipped out” for his home in Indiana.

         The boys went to work chopping cord wood, in the vicinity of Vicksburg, but never saw “Sally Acker” after they left her at the Vicksburg wharf. We will not attempt to commit to these pages all the incidents of that (to them) eventful trip, but will return to Tipton, and the name under which their craft was christened.

         Knott was then a young man, and (ahem!) not bad looking; and, as a consequence, was quite a beau among the girls. Among the others to whom he had paid some attention was a young lady by the name of Sally Acker, “fat, fair,” and, if not “forty,” at least 250 pounds avoirdupois. When the boat was completed and ready for the trial trip, some of the Tipton wags procured some black paint, and labeled it “Sally Acker.” The boys, if they had been so disposed, did not have time to erase the name, and so the boat that was built in the “Goose Pond” dock yard went on its way as “Sally Acker.”

         The affair was then—as it is now, when spoken of—the subject of a good many jokes at Knott’s expense; but he enjoyed the “fun,” as he still does, as heartily as Mose Bunker or any other of the boys of thirty-five years ago.