Popular.com

Birmingham, Alabama, December 4th, 1888.

The body of a small, neatly dressed girl, apparently eight or ten years of age, was found floating in the artificial

lake at one of the suburbs of Birmingham known as East Lake. East Lake is an

attractive creation of one of the many land companies that sprang into

existence during the late active real estate movement in the Birmingham District.

Distant northeast from the city about seven miles, it is connected with the same by a steam motor line,

and has been for some time a popular hot weather resort for the toilers of the district,

as well as a favorite residence suburb for people of moderate means.

Among other attractions offered by the place, an artificial pond of something like 30 acres in extent

has been created by the promoters of this enterprise.

It was in this placid little sheet of water, until then devoted to the innocent boating and toy yachting amusements of joyous youths and children, that the unfortunate girl appeared to have lost her life.

On that fateful Tuesday morning, two boys were rowing upon the lake when near the eastern bank they were attracted

by something floating on the water. Moving toward it, they were horrified to find that it was a human

body. Too frightened to do more, the lads made it once for shore and gave the alarm. Two local residents manned a boat and speedily

secured the corpse and had it reverently laid out in the summer pavilion.

A message was promptly dispatched to Birmingham for the coroner. Before the coroner could reach the spot,

a considerable concourse of people had assembled,

the news having spread rapidly throughout the neighborhood.

By the time Coroner Babbitt arrived, numbers of ladies had assembled around the lifeless body,

and tears fell thick and fast in sympathy for the little one's sad fate. After the good

ladies had wiped the water from the child's little face and brushed the hair back from the child's

...