Northern Peninsula Region

St. Anthony District

Mr Joseph Moore, of St. Anthony, writing to his father in St. John's gives particulars of a terrible accident which happened at *Ireland's Eye, Hare Bay on the 20th January. On that date, he says "an avalanche of snow swept down from a high cliff and buried under its enormous weight, the house of Levi Andrews, distant about 60 or 70 feet from the foot of the cliff. Nine persons were in the house at the time of the accident, five on the loft and four in the kitchen. Mrs Andrews was going out in the porch at the time, and six days after her lifeless body was found under fourteen feet of snow. The head was smashed in and her neck and arms broken. The eldest daughter was found lying across the stove rigid in death, and the stove was smashed in atoms. Five days after being rescued, one of the sons died from his injuries.

At the time of the terrible affair, George Reid was upon the loft fixing a trap, and at the time of present writing is unable to lift his arms to his head, but he is getting better. One of the girls** rescued had one of her legs broken, and suffered considerable pain. It was an awful site to behold the disfigured bodies and the house broken up like so much tinder wood. I was up all one day shoveling snow, there were forty others at the same work. The three bodies were laid out together on a board and were buried on the 28th. It was one of the saddest spectacles ever witnessed in this vicinity and threw a gloom over the community. There was never as much snow as there is this winter but very little frost."

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