grave import

Obituary

The mystery of the disappearance of Ferris Bloomer, the former contractor, who dropped out of sight several weeks ago following his departure on a fishing trip, was unfolded early Sunday morning by the finding of his dead body floating in the river about eight miles below Burlington on the Illinois side of the stream. He had apparently come to the surface only Saturday night as the place where the body was picked up was less than three miles from where it is thought he went down.
The finding of the body came as the result of the curiosity of Frank Hoover, a woodchopper, working with a gang at the foot of Big Island, who walking down to the bank of the river early Sunday morning, saw an object floating some distance out in the river. He went into camp and told some of his companions about the floater but they did not believe it was a body. After eating breakfast, Hoover took a row boat and pulled out to the object which proved to be the body of the dead man. It was towed to shore and a man was sent to Gerber’s cabin, some distance upstream, where there is a telephone and notified Coroner Kaufman, of Oquawka, who is the official for Henderson county, Ill., and also relatives of the missing man in this city. Coroner Kaufman made the trip in an auto, while a party from Burlington, consisting of Frank Bloomer a son of the dead man, Jonah Smith, L. Rot, and Coroner Bert Prugh, went to the scene in a launch. The body was then brought up to Gerber’s cabin an inquest held at eleven o’clock, Jonah Smith, UL Marsden, Thomas Howel, Lawrence S. Gieger, and Charles Gerber acting as a few witnesses and returned a verdict that the deceased came to his death by drowning, being accidental.
The body was then brought to this city and taken to Prugh’s undertaking parlors.
The place at which the body was found, proved that it had lain on the bottom of the river since the drowning. A number of fishing lines wrapped around it probably caused the hooks to catch on some object on the bottom of the channel and kept it from rising. The current at this place is three miles an hour, and if it had not been held down by something the probabilities are that the body would have been found before this. A searching party, Frank Bloomer, J. Smith, Kenneth Homan, and P. Lagomarcino have made a number of trips down the river as far as Dallas in an effort to find some trace of the missing man. The first clue to his death was the finding of his skiff near Dallas City on the Monday following his disappearance while two poles which he carried away on his last fishing trip were also picked up. The party carefully looked into every place in Big Island chute where the man could possibly be but no trace of him could be discovered until Sunday morning. A reward of twenty-five dollars had been offered for the finding of the body and this was turned over to Hoover.
Ferris Bloomer was sixty-eight years of age and had lived here sixty-one years, having come directly to this city from New York where he was born in 1845. He took up the carpenter trade early in life and became one of the best-known contractors of the period following the rebellion. He superintended the erection of Prospect Hill and Sunnyside schools and built the Hope chapel now the Harrison Avenue ME church. He was also identified with the erection of a number of the finest private residences in this city.
Of late years he has been retired but lost none of the popularity which had marked his earlier years. He retained remarkable physical vitality and was as spry as any man of his years could be. He had a great love of fishing and it was on a trip of this kind that he met with an accident of some sort which caused his death.
He is survived by the widow and the following children: Frank E., Warren B., and Mrs. JW Thompson, all of this city; Harry, of Omaha, and Mrs. Ida McCray, of Benson, Nebraska. Three children died a number of years ago.
The funeral services were held from Prugh’s chapel yesterday afternoon at 2:30. The services were in charge of the Woodmen of the World of which the deceased was a member. Dr. TF Cooke and Jonah Smith, who were intimately acquainted with Mr. Bloomer gave short talks on the good qualities of the dead man and spoke of the uncertainty of this sort. A large concourse of citizens paid their last respects to the dead man, many old-time friends being among the number