Summary
Kenneth Gallagher and Bertrand McDonough, both described as nine-year-old boys from Saint James, Beaver Island, were rescued after drifting on a raft made of three cedar ties. The July 1909 report says they went too far from shore, were caught by an off-shore wind that became a gale, and spent Friday and Friday night on the water before the tug Violet rescued them Saturday.
Evidence and limits
The report is retrospective and says the episode occurred “last week.” The June 25–26 dates are therefore calendrical reconstruction from the July 3 issue’s Friday/Saturday sequence, not dates printed as numerals in the article. The article does not give the boys’ parents, later lives, the exact launch or rescue coordinates, or the names of the other tugs that went out.
The boys are represented with event qualifiers so their identities are not silently merged with other Gallagher or McDonough records on the basis of surname alone.
Open questions
- Can parish, census, school, or later island records identify either boy beyond this report?
- Where exactly did the raft leave shore and where did the Violet find it?
- Which other tugs joined the search?
See also
Sources
- Charlevoix County Herald, July 3, 1909, “Adrift on a Raft.”The report names Kenneth Gallagher and Bertrand McDonough as nine-year-old Saint James boys, describes their cedar-tie raft drifting through Friday night in a gale, and says the Violet rescued them Saturday.
- Charlevoix County Herald, July 3, 1909, raw issue OCR.The held raw OCR preserves the same named-person and rescue account independently of the normalized Markdown rendering.