Remains Found in Lakebed May Belong to 1904 Clemson grad

[nanabillie]

http://www.wspa.com/spa/news/local/article/human_remains_found_in_lakebed_


(http://www.wspa.com/spa/news/local/article/human_remains_found_in_lakebed_)
From News Channel 7 Coverage Partners
The Anderson Independent-Mail
Published: October 16, 2008

The following story originally appeared on the Anderson Independent-Mail
(http://www.wspa.com/spa/news/local/article/human_remains_found_in_lakebed_may_belong_to_1904_ clemson_grad/9926/)Web site (http://www.independentmail.com/) on Thursday: (http://www.wspa.com/spa/news/local/article/human_remains_found_in_lakebed_may_belong_to_1904_ clemson_grad/9926/)


CLEMSON — During the weekend of Sept. 20 a man and his son were searching the dry lakebed of Smith Mountain Lake in Giles County, Va. looking for anything of interest when they found human remains.
The lake, which is featured in the movie “Dirty Dancing,” had not been completely dry in more than 100 years.
<snip>

The cigarette case has the monogram “SCF” or “SGF” on the lid in a scrawlingmay_belong_to_1904_clemson_grad/9926/ (http://www.wspa.com/spa/news/local/article/human_remains_found_in_lakebed_may_belong_to_1904_ clemson_grad/9926/)
Complete story at link

[Nut44x4]

wow....this is quite interesting!

[Nut44x4]

Identity of Mountain Lake mystery man found?
Two Virginia Tech graduates who do geneology research as a hobby believe they have uncovered the identity of the man whose remains were found in Mountain Lake a month ago today.

Brothers Jim and John Dalmas are convinced the remains belong to Samuel Ira Felder, a New York man who would have been 37 when we fell to the bottom of the Giles County lake.

According to a South Carolina newspaper article dated July 26, 1921, a deep sea diver arrived at Mountain Lake that day to search for the body of "S.I. Felder of Troy, N.Y., who fell overboard and drowned late Saturday night while boating with a party of friends."

U.S. Census records show that Samuel Ira Felder was born May 10, 1884. A native of Orangeburg, S.C., he attended Clemson University. He graduated from there in 1904 - matching up with the date engraved on a Clemson class ring found Sept. 20 in the dried-up lake bed alongside the remains.

After graduating from Clemson, records show, Felder went to New York City, where he worked as an engineer for a telephone company.

A 1920 census shows Felder married to a woman named Catherine. A census from 10 years later shows Catherine Felder still living in New York, but now widowed. The couple had no children.

Giles County Investigator Tommy Gautier said he still isn't ready to say he's 100 percent sure the remains belonged to Felder.

But Jim and John Dalmas, who found the census and other records, including Felder's World War I registration card, are.

"I would put it in the slam dunk category," Jim Dalmas, a 1960 graduate of Virginia Tech, said this morning. "The two of us are convinced that it is Samuel Ira Felder - no ifs, ands or buts."

Last week, Clemson confirmed that the ring was from the university, which was known in 1904 as the Clemson Agricultural and Mechanical College.

The first and last initials found on an engraved belt buckle and cigarette case found near the remains were S and F. The middle initial was unclear - officials first thought it was a C, then a G.

There were three men in the 1904 Clemson class with the initials SF. They were Samuel James Farris, Strother T. Ford, and Felder.

The Dalmas brothers found records showing that Ford died in 1970 - too late to match up with the remains found in the lake.

Investigators believed the person died in the 1920s. Coins found with the body dated from 1907 to 1920.
http://blogs.roanoke.com/rtblogs/newrivernotebook/2008/10/20/identity-of-mountain-lake-mystery-man-found/

[Nut44x4]

a bit of Mountain Lake history....

http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/190913

Mountain Lake: coming back, maybe

Mountain Puddle is more like Mountain Pond now, perhaps working its way back to being a lake

Mountain Lake is back.

Well, it's coming back.

At least it seems to be.

The Giles County tourist attraction, one of only two natural lakes in Virginia, has this odd habit of draining and refilling. Last summer it did the draining. Now it seems to be doing the refilling.

"It's back to about where it was last August," said Buzz Scanland, manager of Mountain Lake Hotel.

In August, Scanland said the lake, which usually covers about 50 acres, had one-tenth of that under water.

Four small snows so far this winter -- none more than 112 inches -- have made a big difference, he said. October's Mountain Puddle is more like Mountain Pond now, working its way back to something worthy of being called a lake.

This ebb-and-fill routine has probably been going on since the lake formed about 6,000 years ago. Bruce Parker, a retired Virginia Tech biologist who has studied the lake for years, said this round of draining may be the most extreme since 1910. Or maybe 1885. Parker thinks the lake has dried up at least six times in the past 4,500 years, sometimes for decades at a time.

Christopher Gist, apparently the first person to write about Mountain Lake, said it was three-quarters of a mile long and a quarter-mile wide in 1751. By 1768, there was no lake on Salt Pond Mountain at all, only a salt marsh where settlers grazed their cattle.

The lake is fed by runoff from the surrounding ridge tops and by five streams. But it also drains out through fissures in the rock below. In wet times, that creates a sort of balance, with water going out no faster than it comes in.

But in drought years, the lake shrinks. That happened in 2002 and in 2006. The 2002 draining reversed itself fairly quickly. But the 2006 decline continued deep into 2008, until there wasn't any real lake left.

There's been a hotel on Mountain Lake's edge more or less continuously since 1855. The stone structure that stands there now was built in the 1930s. It's been a challenge to keep tourists coming to a lakeside resort that's losing its lake. Scanland said business was off 20 percent to 25 percent last year.

He and the rest of the resort's staff are working on plans to provide visitors with other attractions: more hikes, more nature-related activities, more trips to nearby attractions such as the Cascades. And there's entertainment every evening during the May-October season.

The hotel is still getting business from the continuing popularity of "Dirty Dancing," the 1987 movie shot at the resort. A British reality television show, "Dirty Dancing: The Time of Your Life," has shot two seasons at Mountain Lake, and it may come back for a third. The show's fans have discovered the resort. The stage show, "Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story on Stage," has generated interest, too.

Emily Woodall, managing director of the Mountain Lake Conservancy, said next summer's visitors can take part in programs built around the lake's history and its drain-and-fill cycles and the mystery Mountain Lake revealed with its latest recession.

In September, Timmy and Chris Dalton were looking for old bottles on the lake bed when they found a pair of shoes, a wallet, a pocketknife and what they thought was a turtle shell. It was part of a human skull. The Daltons also found a 1904 class ring, a belt buckle, a 1910 dime and a tooth. Law enforcement investigators found more bones, more change and a silver cigarette case. Both the case and the buckle were monogrammed with an elaborate cursive "SCF."

Authorities believe all that belonged to Samuel Ira Felder, a 1904 graduate of Clemson University who drowned in Mountain Lake in 1921.

Scanland has a much smaller mystery in an envelope in his desk drawer: a wedding ring inscribed with a date, June 22, 1949, and "DKW to WFO."

That turned up on the dry lake bottom, too.

It's still a long walk from the boat dock by the hotel to the growing bowl of water that forms the deepest part of the lake. On Monday, an ice coating gave a ghostly glow to trees stretching from the bowl's rim to the ridges that top the mountain. Thin lines of rock and scrub and snow circled the bowl, marking water levels that have been and might be again, the way rings mark the growth of a tree.

Higher up the lake bank that was a lake bed, a rivulet of water skittering under and among rocks on its way to the growing ice-rimmed pond made a racket as snowflakes -- very small and very occasional -- drifted down to do their part in a meandering reclamation project.

Scanland thinks that little pond could be half a lake by May.

Although water has been accumulating on one end of Mountain Lake (shown in background), the lake bed remains a pasture in front of Mountain Lake Hotel and its gazebo, where boaters used to be able to dock.


http://www.roanoke.com/dtiphotos/2827717.jpg

[Nut44x4]

S.C. woman believes remains are her great-uncle's
Emily Jackson saw a newspaper report about the mystery at Mountain Lake.

In the graveyard of a small church in Orangeburg County, S.C., there is a marker for Samuel Ira Felder, who went by the name "Si."

Buried next to it are the cremated remains of his wife, Katharine, who never remarried after her husband drowned in Mountain Lake on July 23, 1921.

Emily Dickens Jackson plans to visit the grave site this weekend. Jackson, 59, is the closest living relative of Felder, who had no children.

Her grandfather was Keating Norris Felder, Si Felder's younger brother. Her mother, Virginia Felder Dickens, was the only child of any of Felder's five siblings.

Like many others, Jackson is convinced the remains found last month in the bed of the dried-up lake belong to her long lost great-uncle.

"I'm sure it's him," Jackson said by telephone Monday from her home in Mount Pleasant, S.C. "That was his ring."

Jackson said she has spoken with an investigator at the Giles County Sheriff's Office and has a male relative in mind who could undergo DNA testing if investigators want to see if the relative's DNA matches that from the remains.

Jackson was at her family's hunting cabin in Holly Hill, S.C., on Friday when she learned about an article that had run in the Thursday edition of The (Orangeburg, S.C.) Times and Democrat newspaper.

The article, a reprint of a recent Roanoke Times article, described how Felder's class ring and other items engraved with his initials were found Sept. 20 near human remains.

"I knew that my granddaddy had a brother that had drowned," Jackson said. But she never knew where and only vaguely recalled that his body had never been found.

When she returned home Sunday from Holly Hill, Jackson pulled out several old photos of Si Felder. She also found several documents about his drowning.

"I come from a line of people who don't throw anything away," Jackson said.

In a briefcase full of old family papers, Jackson found an envelope that held Si and Katharine Felder's marriage certificate, dated Sept. 18, 1912; letters to and from Mountain Lake Hotel about the drowning; and sworn statements given 87 years ago by the people who witnessed it.

In a letter dated Aug. 8, 1921, two weeks after Si Felder fell overboard while boating on the lake with his wife and friends, Harry Hart Felder wrote hotel staff and guests. One of Si Felder's younger brothers, Harry Felder had gone to the lake after his brother's reported drowning.

In the letter, he thanked people for helping in the search.

"You have done service which will never be forgotten," it read.

The next month, Harry Felder got a letter from a manager at Mountain Lake Hotel. The man, whose name was illegible, wrote that he had made daily trips around the lake in a boat to search for any sign of Si Felder.

Having found none, he mailed Si Felder's clothing to Rufus Bowman in Salem, the man Si Felder was visiting when he went to Mountain Lake.

Bowman's affidavit was one of those contained in the envelope.

In it, he told authorities that he and Felder were among those in a rowboat on the lake when, "without apparent cause or outcry," Felder fell into the lake.

A letter written by Harry Felder and apparently sent to Si Felder's insurance company said Si Felder laughed as he fell, apparently not realizing the danger he was in. It was thought that perhaps the shock of the cold water took his breath away, causing him to drown. He did not die of heart failure, as some suspected, Harry Felder wrote.

A deep sea diver repeatedly searched the lake, he wrote, but was unable to see clearly more than 10 to 15 feet. The lake bottom held several crevices and fallen trees, he wrote.

Jackson said she remembers most of Si Felder's brothers and his sister, and recalls receiving Christmas gifts from his wife, Katharine, who lived in New York.

She lived near her grandfather, Keating Felder, when she was growing up and was very close with him.

"I adored them," she said of her grandparents, "and I know it must have caused them great anguish" when Si Felder drowned and his body never resurfaced.

She said she is grateful to Timmy Dalton, who found the class ring and other items in the lake bed and turned them over to the Giles County Sheriff's Office, and to investigators and other people who worked to uncover the mystery of who the items belonged to.

"My grandfather would have been absolutely so relieved and thankful" to learn his brother's remains likely have finally been found, Jackson said.

"I just regret there are not people who knew him that are alive."

Si Felder (right) drowned in Mountain Lake on July 23, 1921, while on an outing.
http://www.roanoke.com/dtiphotos/2614149.jpg
Si Felder's Clemson yearbook entry
http://www.roanoke.com/news/images/1021_sifelder_230x255.jpg

More links at the site
http://www.roanoke.com/news/nrv/wb/182018

[Nut44x4]

Articles detail 1921 drowning of man in Mountain Lake >>

Samuel Felder fell overboard as he boated with friends on Mountain Lake late one Saturday evening in 1921, according to Roanoke Times stories from that year.

According to an article that ran in the July 26, 1921, edition of the newspaper, Felder was seated in the stern of the boat while a friend rowed. Felder "suddenly fell backward into the water, and did not rise to the surface, a fact which led to the conclusion that he may have been dead when he sank," the article said.

The water was about 60 feet deep in the spot where Felder went overboard just before 11 p.m., the paper said. A deep sea diver was called in from Norfolk to search for the body but never found it.

Two Virginia Tech graduates who do genealogy research as a hobby believe Felder is the man whose remains were found in the lake a month ago today. After learning that Clemson University confirmed three men with the initials S.F. graduated from the school in 1904 -- matching up with the date engraved on a Clemson class ring found Sept. 20 in the dried-up lake bed alongside the remains -- Jim and John Dalmas began researching those three men.

Felder, whose full name was Samuel Ira Felder, would have been 37 when he fell to the bottom of the Giles County lake.

According to a South Carolina newspaper article the Dalmas brothers found dated July 27, 1921, a deep sea diver arrived at Mountain Lake the day before to search for the body of "S.I. Felder of Troy, N.Y., who fell overboard and drowned late Saturday night while boating with a party of friends."

The discovery of that article prompted The Roanoke Times to search archives from that date.

Roanoke Times stories said Felder and his wife had gone to Salem from New York to visit their friends, Mr. and Mrs. Rufus Bowman.

"The party were boating in the moonlight on the lake," one article said. Felder was in a canoe with his wife, Al Bowman and Nancy Logan when he fell into the water, it said.

The other people "saw him fall from the bow of the boat into the lake. He seemed to choke and struggle for an instant and then he was engulfed by the moonlit waves," the article said.

The rest of the party was fishing at the other end of the lake when they heard calls for help.

"They hastened alongside but all too late, for Mr. Felder was never again seem to come up," the article said. Another article said it was assumed that Felder suffered from heart failure.

U.S. Census records show that Samuel Ira Felder was born May 10, 1884. A native of Orangeburg, S.C., he attended Clemson University.

After graduating from Clemson in 1904, records show, Felder went to New York City, where he worked as an engineer for a telephone company.

A 1920 census shows Felder married to a woman named Catherine. A census from 10 years later shows Catherine Felder still living in New York, but now widowed. The couple had no children.

Last week, Clemson, which was contacted by the Giles County Sheriff's Office, confirmed that the ring was from the university. It was known in 1904 as the Clemson Agricultural and Mechanical College.

The first and last initials found on an engraved belt buckle and cigarette case found near the remains were S and F. The middle initial was unclear - officials first thought it was a C, then a G.
http://blogs.roanoke.com/rtblogs/newrivernotebook/2008/10/20/articles-detail-1921-drowning-of-man-in-mountain-lake/

[packy]

Quite a story here about how they found a newpaper article telling about the drowning and how they are trying to find descendants of any of his siblings. I hope they can confirm this. http://www.collegiatetimes.com/stories/12385