An heroic wife.
--The heroic conduct, on the burnt steamer
Pacific, of
Mrs. J. W
McDonald, who was traveling with her husband who was lying very low at the time with consumption, was a subject of general admiration.
The announcement of the conflagration was too much for his delicate nerves, and the poor man swooned and died under the excitement.
The wife refused to leave the corpse of her husband to the merciless, flurry element, but stood bravely by his death-bed until the flames licked the panels of the stateroom in which the corpse lay. In vain she offered almost fabulous sums to any one who would convey the body to the shore; and in her sheer desperation, she caught up the lifeless form and bore it to the guards of the boat.
It fell from her grasp, however, and was destroyed, it is presumed, with the boat.
Mrs. McDonald remained in
Uniontown, after the disaster, in the hope of gathering up the ashes of her deceased husband.