THE MARION DAILY MIRROR — MARCH 31, 1908
Tom Conner Should Take All Prizes as a Nature Fakir ◇ Says That He Hesitated to Tell of Strange Experience for Fear He Would not be Believed ◇ Story Should Have Been Held Until Tomorrow.
Thunderopolis, C., March 31.—Thomas Conner, who had such a narrow escape from death yesterday, hesitated to tell your correspondent the thrilling details, because he thought some persons might not believe him. “I went to the mountain top,” said Mr. Connor, “to gather arbutus, and was so busy that I did not notice a storm gathering. I had not observed that the storm had driven the clouds into the valley and packed them so tightly that they formed a vast plateau.
“I stepped off the mountain and started to cross the valley on the top of the clouds. It was soft, but it sustained me until I got to a spot where there was a rift in the clouds. One step more and I would have tumbled off the edge of the clouds and fallen a mile to the earth below.
“By this time the sun was beginning to come out and the vast plain commenced to melt. At one time I sank to my waist in the white and only after the most strenuous efforts did I drag myself out and reach a cloud that was a trifle harder.
“Before I reached the mountain the whole field began to break up, and several times I was compelled to jump from cloud to cloud like Eliza crossing on the Ice. When at last I reached the mountainside, I was faint from exertion and terror.”
From— The Marion Daily Mirror. (Marion, Ohio). 31 March 1908. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.