THE FREMONT COUNTY HERALD
August 16, 1904
"A RIVERTON BOY DROWNED"
"Wesley Bass Meets Death Saturday While Bathing, in the Nishnabotna River. The Body Recovered"

Wesley Bass, aged fourteen, while swimming in the Nishna river just west of Riverton Saturday, was drowned in about twelve feet of water, and body was not recovered until Monday morning, and then so badly decomposed that burial at once was imperative.

Young Bass, was a fourteen year old boy, who had been sent here to the family of Dr. S. C. Hatton for adoption. The legal steps for the adoption had not been completed at the time of his death.

Saturday afternoon, he in company with thirty-five other young fellows, went to the river for a swim. He was noticed to plunge into the river, but no one remembers having seen him after that.   When the boys dressed to go home a suit of clothes remained on the bank without a claimant. A hurried roll call revealed the absence of young Bass, and it was at once surmised that he had drowned.

All of Saturday evening, night and Sunday was spent in a search for the body, but without success until eight o'clock Monday morning when the body was found about a mile below where the boys had gone swimming.

The dead boy leaves six or seven brothers and sisters besides a father, but had no relatives in this section.

  Source:(Rootsweb.com message board for Fremont county, posted by Walter Farwell,  Posted: 4 Feb 2005)