I had found some interesting documents pertaining to Spencer DeMumbrie, but it is going to take a bit to transcribe them. So I decided to share this newspaper article that mentions his river landing! It appeared on page three of the November 26, 1868 edition of the Memphis Daily Avalanche. All typos are left intact in the transcription.
A MYSTERY UNBOTTLED.
Letter to the Avalanche Found Floating in a Bottle on the Mississippi.
A Memphian Corks up His Sorrows and Prepares to Leave the World.
On the 16th of November a bottle, well corked, was found floating down the Mississippi river at Demumbrie Landing, about one hundred and fifty miles below Memphis. The bottle contained a note written on a smooth bristol board card and signed J. S. Jones, whoever that is or was. The tenor of the note is that he was about to throw himself overboard and trust to the hospitality of catfish and mud-turtles. Whether he carried his intention out and now sleeps in a watery grave
“With scarce a shred to tell of human form,
Or fragment for the seabird or the worm.”
or reconsidered the motion he made to jump over, or laid it on the table, is purely conjectural. At the time of writing the note its author must have had a steady hand, for the chirography is smoothe and business-like. If we could call spirits from the vasty deep we would ask them if any such man as Jones found his way to the locker on the 12th of October; as it is, we do not know any one named J. S. Jones who ever lived in Memphis. One presumption is that somebody bottled up the card and cast it upon the waters as a practical joke, to see if it would come back after many days in the newspapers. Another presumption is that some man, temporarily disgusted with life, wrote the note and threw it overboard from some boat, but failed to follow the bottle any further than the guards. Possibly he had followed the bottle to much before that time to feel like trusting himself all alone in so much water. Here is the note, verbatim:
October 12 1868
Good bye. Should this ever be picked up the finder will confer a great favor by allowing it to be published, so as my friends may know what as become of the poor, miserable creature that I am. Send it to the Memphis AVALANCHE, as that is my dear home, and all that are near and dear to me live there. The cause of this rash act will never be known. I often wish I had gone with our lost cause, which I done my all to sustain. Now for the deep waters of the Mississippi.
J. S. Jones
When we read the concluding sentence we almost hear a heavy splash in the water, and see a struggling form which repents of rashness, alas, too late, go down, and see the waves close over him in the distance and forever. If such a person ever lived in Memphis, his friends can see the card just as it was taken from the bottle by a citizen of Demumbrie’s Landing, Mississippi, by calling at the AVALANCHE office. The card was slightly damaged by the water, but the writing is as plain as when first traced.
I have a sneaking suspicion that this was made up by the newspaper to sell more copies. No doubt a bottled note was probably found at DeMumbrie’s Landing, however…I bet the newspaper wrote it, bottled it, and cast it in the water, just waiting to see it return so they could then write about it.
