Ed's Miraculous Rescue of the Girl from the River

While conducting business in Chicago, Ed, who was a Mormon, spotted an old man and woman crying on the river bank. Their daughter had capsized in a boat and was clinging to a log far out in the river. Ed swam out to the girl, instructed her to hold the neck of his shirt, and successfully brought her to safety, rejecting the father's offer of reward and the daughter's hand.

Fuller account of this event (in the witness’s own words):

He went to Chicago on business—of course, it wuzn't a great, big city like it is now—and one day when he wuz walking by the river he come across a rather old man and his wife a-crying and taking on awful. Far out in the river, clinging to a log, wuz a young woman who had been capsized while boat-riding with a friend. I don’t remember what became of her partner, but there she wuz more dead than alive and her parents on the bank powerless to help her because of the strong current. Ed says: ‘I'll bring her out.’ So he stripped off his outside clothes and he swam out to that girl and he says: ‘Now you must do just what I tell you to, or you'll drown us both; you just take hold of the neck of my shirt, like this—gripping the back of the neck—‘and cling as tight as you can and I'll get you to shore.’ Well, he got her out and she soon got over her dreadful experience. The father was so grateful that he offered Ed a large sum of money, and the girl, who was very pretty, offered him her hand in marriage, but Ed refused both, saying he had only done his duty.