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July 14, 1908

PUSHKAREFF'S WILL IS FILED.

Russian Houseboat Dweller Left Per-

sonal Property Worth $2,500.

Application for letters of administration of the estate of Nicholas Pushkareff, the Russian caviar dealer who recently died in a houseboat on the Missouri river, were filed yesterday in the probate court. Dr. M. W. Pickard is named as the administrator, and Mrs. Titiana Pushkareff, the wife of the deceased Russian, is named as the sole heir to the estate. Bond was furnished by Dr. Pickard in the sum of $3,000. The estate left by Pushkareff consists of personal property valued at $2,500.

At the time of his death it was thought that Pushkareff was a rich man, but subsequent events have proved otherwise. He came to Kansas City about one year ago, and always seemed plentifully supplied with money, although he lived in the houseboat for the greater part of the time, and his wants were few. Dr. Pickard was Pushkareff's closest friend in America. In Russia Pushkareff was prominent. He had traveled extensively, was well read and intended making America his permanent home.

Labels: boats, doctors, immigrants, Missouri river, probate

June 21, 1908

CAVIARE MAN

LEFT FORTUNE.

N. N. PUSHKAREFF LIVED IN A

HOUSEBOAT ON RIVER.

NO ONE SUSPECTED WEALTH.

FAMILY COMING TO AMERICA,

IGNORANT OF HIS WEALTH.

Sudden Demise Reveals Fact That
He Had Saved $15,000 -- His

Boat's Cabin Finished

in Mahogany.

Although N. N. Pushkareff, a Russian, up until his death a few weeks ago is in the vicinity of his little houseboat near Harlem, was always considered among his associates a man of little means, it has developed that the man had a balance of $15,000 to his credit in a local bank and possessed considerable property in various sections of the city.

After his death his body was encased in a casket priced by the undertaker at $700 and placed in a vault pending the arrival of his family at present en route from their home to this country, none of the members of which is aware of the husband and father's death.

Pushkareff, when a comparatively young man, left his home in Russia to seek his fortune in this country, declaring at the time that he would not return nor send for his family until he had accumulated $25,000.

Arriving in America, accompanied by his eldest son, whom he had brought with him, the two launched in the caviare business in the East. Later they came to this section and several years ago located permanently in this city. Since then Pushkareff prospered and saved the money beyond the knowledge of his son.

Several weeks ago, although he had not realized his ambition in accumulating $25,000, he determined to send to the old country where his wife and children patiently waited him and ask them to come. The family immediately began preparations for the journey. Since then the husband and father died from heart failure, his body being found in his characteristic garb, rags, with a short distance of the little houseboat on the north side of the river.

Upon the coroner's investigation into the man's death considerable money was found on his clothing and in the little houseboat, the interior of which was furnished wholly in mahogany and ebony furniture, and at the bidding of friends the body was placed in one of the most expensive caskets in the city, and later stored in a vault to await the arrival of the wife with instructions as to its disposition. It is probable the body will be shipped to Russia.

Pushkareff, although few knew it, was a member of several of the more important fraternities in the city. He is said to have been an ardent Elk and spent much of his time at the Elks' Club, although there were none who knew him there as Pushkareff the Caviare man. At times he is said to have spent much money.

After his death the little houseboat, which was anchored to the river bottoms, narrowly escaped becoming swamped when the flood came, and had it not been for Dr. Elliott Smith of this city, it undoubtedly would have gone to the bottom. Dr. Smith rescued the craft and took it to the Blue river, where it is now moored.

The boat, although small, is said to be a marvel of beauty within and represents a lavish expenditure of money. Finished in mahogany and ebony, the interior is otherwise decorated in a costly yet peculiar manner. During the owner's life no one was known to have entered the boat save himself. The doors were always locked, and the man would not permit anybody approaching, much less examining it. Nothing within the little craft has been molested and neither will it be until after the arrival of the family of the deceased.

Pushkareff's son did not live on the houseboat with him, but boarded in the city, where he attended school.

Labels: boats, death, Harlem, immigrants, lodges, probate

June 16, 1908

TWO LIVES LOST

IN BLUE RIVER.

ALFRED G. BUCHANAN AND MISS

NITA EWIN DROWNED.

THEIR CANOE STRUCK A SNAG.

YOUNG MAN TRIES TO RESCUE

HIS COMPANION.

His Efforts Rendered Futile by the

Struggles of His Companion.

They Go Down to Death

Together.

MISS NITA EWIN AND ALBERT BUCHANAN.
BLUE RIVER CLAIMS TWO MORE VICTIMS.

While boating on the Blue river in Sheffield yesterday afternoon, Alfred G. Buchanan and Miss Nita Ewin were drowned. The canoe in which they were rowing caught on a hidden snag and turned turtle. Both Mr. Buchanan and Miss Ewin lived in Independence. Each was about 20 years of age. Miss Ewin was the daughter of Mrs. Bertie Ewin, a widow, of 412 North Liberty street, while young Buchanan was the son of J. F. Buchanan, an abstracter and loan agent in Independence.

The young couple secured a canoe at the Blue River shortly after noon yesterday, saying that they would return in a short time. They immediately paddled off toward the mouth of the Blue. The accident occurred just above the Belt line bridge.

Witnesses say the boat struck a hidden snag or the limbs of a big tree that overhung the river. Both the occupants of the boat were thrown out by the shock and the boat itself capsized. The two young people struggled in the water for a short time and then went down. Mr. Buchanan was an expert swimmer but, according to those who witnessed the accident from a distance, he was hindered in his efforts to save himself and the young woman by the struggles of the latter.

Two Missouri Pacific firemen stationed with their engines near the scene of the accident saw the young people drown. They left their engines and immediately began to dive or the bodies. Their efforts were fruitless.

The police department was then notified and Lieutenant M. J. Kennedy of the Sheffield station led a rescue party consisting of Marion Bollinger, owner of the boat, and a fisherman. Both bodies were drawn from the water by hooks nearly an hour and a half later.

Mr. Bollinger found the body of the young man first and the fisherman found the body of the young woman. Lieutenant Kennedy had telephoned the father of the young man and he was present when the bodies were removed. Dr. A. C. Mulvaney and Dr. Connelly Anderson, who had been called by Lieutenant Kennedy, tried to resuscitate the two but failed. It was 6 o'clock before the bodies were sent to Independence in an ambulance.

Miss Ewin was the only daughter of Mrs. Bertie Ewin. Seven members of the family have died in the last five years. Alfred is the second son of J. F. Buchanan.

Labels: Belt line, Blue river, boats, death, doctors, drowning, Independence, police, railroad, sheffield

June 13, 1908

KINDNESS TO ANIMALS.

Chief Bowden Floats the "Humane Boat."

Chief of Police D. E. Bowden showed his kindness toward dumb animals by assigning one boat and its crew to rescue cats and dogs which were left behind by their ownders during the high water. Twenty-one dogs and thirty-seven cats in all were rescued by the "humane boat." They were found in all conceivable places, some on the tops of outhouses, others floating on drift wood, while several cats were taken from the branches of small trees in Shawnee park.

Labels: animals, boats, flood, Police Chief Bowden

June 12, 1908

POLICE WILL PATROL

RIVER IN LAUNCHES.

Mounted Men Guard Flooded Whole-

sale District -- Peril of the

East Bottoms.

Chief of Police Daniel Ahern and Captain Walter Whitsett yesterday afternoon drove through the flooded East and West bottoms. Complaint had been made that sightseers and others had been breaking into unprotected houses and stealing.

Last night mounted men were stationed all over the West bottoms with orders to patrol the flooded district carefully. If the water goes any higher police will be placed in launches to patrol. Now an officer on horseback can reach the most important part of the wholesale district.

It was also reported to the police that in the trees near Harlem many dead cattle, horses and hogs have become lodged. The citizens in that vicinity fear the result if the animals are left there after the flood goes down. Today police in motor boats will be sent over the river to dislodge any dead stock and see that it gets into the current.

Near the Kelly mills in the East bottoms twenty-five or thirty men are at work night and day watching to see that the water does not break through the dike formed by the embankment of the Kansas City Southern railway.

"That is really the key to the East bottoms," Captain Whitsett said. "If the water once gets through there it means lots more trouble, especially for truck gardens, Currents would be quickly formed and all of that loose rich soil would go down the river as it did in 1903."

Wednesday night and last night fifteen or twenty families, by special permission, slept on the hillsides below North Terrace park. In the day the people go down and watch their property.

William Mensing, 10 East Fourth street, called at police headquarters last night and offered five or six furnished rooms for the benefit of the flood sufferers. In 1903 Mensing had a rooming house at Fourth and Main streets. While his rooms could have been rented at good prices, Mensing gave up a dozen or more to poor families and even took two families into his home.

"These rooms I have are not for men who can hustle for themselves," he said last night. "As before, I prefer to let women and children occupy them."

Mayor Thomas T. Crittenden, Jr., chairman of the police board, informed the department yesterday that tents could be secured at the Third regiment. They are to be used for poor and needy families if the worst comes.

Today two gasoline launches will be placed in commission for use of the police. They will be expected to patrol the river below the Hannibal bridge and render aid to people on both sides of the river if the emergency calls for it.

The crowd on the Intercity viaduct last night -- most of the people were sightseers -- was so great that Captain Whitsett stationed four men under Sergeant Robert Greely at the entrance. Their business was to be on the lookout for crooks and to keep the people moving. Three patrolmen were placed at the Mulberry street pay station to keep order and see that no one used the "center rush" method to get through the crowd without paying.

Last night several police were patrolling the river bank from the foot of Grand avenue east. It had been reported that thieves had been breaking into wholesale houses through windows, loading their boats and landing further down the river

The police were asked last night to be on the lookout for Antonio Travesse, 6 years old, an Italian boy living at 410 Holmes street. His father, Carlos, greatly excited, reported the missing boy. He said that when last seen his baby was going toward the river.

Harlem could not be reached by telephone last night. In the afternoon it was said that the water there had flooded the only remaining stores. Last night's report from there was that the river was getting lower, and that most of the wise citizens over there, who had passed through the terrible 1903 flood, will save all of their household goods and stocks of merchandise. Some were moved to this city and some of the stocks are still there, very high up with the counters and shelves nailed down.

Labels: boats, Captain Whitsett, children, East bottoms, flood, Grand avenue, Hannibal bridge, Harlem, Holmes street, immigrants, Mayor Crittenden, military, Mulberry street, Police Chief Ahern, West bottoms

May 24, 1908

FROM LONDON IN ONE WEEK.

Letters Posted There on May 16 Re-

ceived Here Last Night.

All previous mail records between the British Isles, the Continent and Kansas City have been broken. Letters bearing the London postmark of Saturday, May 16, were received in the postoffice here last night at 10:30 o'clock. In the same consignment were letters bearing the stamp of Lucerne, Switzerland, of May 14; of Glasgow, Scotland, May 15, and other points in England, Ireland and Scotland of May 16, last Saturday, or just one week from the time they were posted.

This quick time is due to the swift run of the great steamer Lusitania, which made the port of New York Friday morning after a run of four days and twenty hours from the last point of land in the British Isles. The letters received here last night came over on her. There was no doubt at all about that, because many of them were stamped: "Via S. S. Lusitania." One week from London to Kansas City, and Foreman B. F. Kingery, in the distributing department of the postoffice, said last night the letters would have reached here a few hours earlier if they had not been "worked over," that is, sorted out and remailed, in New York.

Labels: boats, post office

May 23, 1908

MAIL FROM BRITISH

ISLES IN ONE WEEK.

LUSITANIA'S FAST TIME MAKES

THIS RECORD POSSIBLE.

Pouches Which Left London Last

Saturday Are Due Here

at 6 o'clock Today --

A New Record.

Considerable interest is manifested in the postoffice over the chances of getting the Lusitania's mails in at 5:30 tonight. If this is done, it will be the first time one Saturday's British post has got this far West by the following Saturday.

"I think it will be managed," said Postmaster J. H. Harris yesterday, after consulting his schedules. "The Lusitania made the port of New York at 3 o'clock this morning, giving her five hours to transfer her mails. Those mails left for the West at 8 o'clock this morning. They are due in this postoffice at 5:50 Saturday afternoon. It will be a record for trans-Atlantic pouches."

American mails from England, Scotland, and Wales have an exciting time of it. They may not start from the big centers, such as London, Newcastle, Sheffield, Birmingham, Nottingham, where the curtains are made; Edinburgh or Glasgow till the very hour that the steamers are sailing from Liverpool, yet they catch the boat. While the ship is making her way down the Irish channel leisurely, so as to get off Cork harbor, for the Queenstown passengers, in daylight, as those passengers go out to the liner on board a small tender, the mails are rushed to Liverpool by fast trains, hurried directly over the comparatively narrow channel to Dublin, and then sent South as fast as trains can rush them.

In this manner they get to Queenstown before the tender shoves off to steam out to the big liner. On arriving at this side fast tugs meet the liner about ten miles down the bay from New York. The mails are thrown overboard to the tugs and these little vessels, able to make short cuts over shallow places and dodge in and about shipping, have the mails either in the general postoffice at New York or on the Western bound trains long before the liner is docked. In that way it is expected that mails which left London last Saturday at 6 o'clock in the evening may reach here tonight at about the same hour.

Labels: boats, post office, railroad

May 21, 1908

SEEKS MODEL FOR PARK ZOO.

Comptroller Pearson Will Visit Chi-

cago in Search of Ideas.

City Comptroller Pearson will leave for Chicago tonight on two missions. One is to get pointers from the Lincoln park zoo for a similar attraction to be installed at Swope park. He will be accompanied by Herbert Seddon, an architect who is to prepare the plans for the zoo buildings here. The other purpose of his trip is to pilot to the waters of the Blue and Missouri rivers a new gasoline launch, in which Pearson and others have an interest. The course to Kansas City will be through the Illinois, Mississippi and Missouri rivers.

Labels: architects, boats, Missouri river, Swope park

May 14, 1908

TENNESSEE HERE SATURDAY.

The Chester Will Have to Start Car-

rying Freight Soon, Also.

The Kansas City Transportation & Steamship Company announces that it will make a passenger rate of $5 between Kansas City and St. Louis this season, stateroom included, meals to be on the European plan. The fare last year was $7.50, including meals.

The Tennessee is sceduled to arrive here Saturday, and to leave on the down trip Monday. More than 100 tons of freight is now due at St. Louis, and i is probable that the Chester will have to be put into the trade next week.

Labels: boats, St Louis

August 31, 1907

WILL GO IN A PRIVATE CAR.

North End Children to Travel to Lex-

ington in Luxurious Style.

Owing to the failure of the steamer Tennessee to arrive on schedule time a change of mode of transportation of the fifty North end children by the Helping Hand to the battlefield of Lexington, Mo., for a week's vacation has been made necessary. The youngsters, through the liberality of William Voelker, are to ride to their destination in a private car that will leave the Grand Central depot at 5 o'clock this evening. The people of Lexington will assist in entertaining the visitors.

Labels: boats, children, Grand Central depot, Helping Hand, North end

August 23, 1907

ITALIAN BAND TO GO ALONG.

Professor Cantanzara's Musicians to

Accompany the Sieben Excursion.

Henry Sieven, wharfmaster of the port of Kansas City, and his excursion party, will set sail for St. Louis on the steamer Chester at 4 o'clock next Monday afternoon. The boat will heave anchor at the foot of Delaware street. Mr. Sieven said yesterday that he had received invitations from Lexington, Miami, Boonville, Jefferson City, Hermann, Washington and St. Charles, asking his tourists to visit their towns.

Prof. John Cananzara's Royal Italian band, which is to accompany the excursionists, serenaded the newspaper offices last night. There are twenty eight musicians in this organization and they play excellent music under the capable leadership of Prof. Cantanzara.

Labels: arts, boats, Delaware street, Jefferson City, St Louis