Lyman H Rugg
Dollar Weekly Times, Thursday, 13 September 1955, Cincinnati Oh, page 3
SAD ACCIDENT
It is our sad duty to announce the death by drowning this morning
of Mr. L H Rugg, an old resident and highly respectable citizen of Newport. He
was crossing from Newport to this city on the ferry boat Bee, and
at the moment the bow of the boat struck the ferry wharf at the foot of Ludlow
street, he was precipitated backwards into the river, between the two boats,
striking the back of his head against the wharf. He had been engaged in
conversation with Mr. David Hukill, on the forward deck of the ferry boat and
was walking backward when he fell overboard, evidently supposing the boat to
have made her landing against the wharf.
It is believed that the fall against the wharf boat knocked him insensible. Mr. Hukill succeeded in grasping him by his hair, but was forced to let go on account of the approach of the boat to the wharf. Another gentleman who had caught him with the hooked end of a cane, was likewise compelled from the same cause to loose his hold.
The deceased then floated down stream, sinking and rising alternately several times until he reached Capt. Hill's new boat, about twenty years distant, when a ladder was thrown overboard to assist him. Taking no notice of it, he sand and was seen no more. Every effort was made to rescue him, but in vain.
Mr. Rugg was aged about fifty years and was well known and highly esteem in this community. At the time of his death, he was employed as the agent of the Pennsylvania Central Railroad Company. Among his intimate associates he was familiarly known as "Deacon Rugg". His life was an adventurous one. In 1849 he immigrated to California, and after a three year career, returned to his family having met with success in accumulating property.
Returning from California by way of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, however, he narrowly escaped a watery grave, being on board the steamer John Adams at the time she sunk in 1852 and was only rescued by being dragged through a hole cut into the hurricane roof.
He left a family in Newport, consisting of a wife, three daughters and a son. Besides there are two married daughters, Mrs. Blinn, residing in Jamestown, opposite the Seventeenth Ward and one living in New Orleans.