Columbia, SC Drowning, Jul 1906

SEABOARD DETECTIVE DROWNS.

MR. GEO. F. FITZWATER, Head of Railroad’s Police Organization, Fell Between Two Tug Boats at Savannah – Was Guarding Company’s Property From Strikers.

Observer Bureau, 1209 Main Street, Columbia, S. C. July 22.

MR. J. M. HARRISON, the local detective of the Seaboard, received a telegram to-day summoning him to Savannah at once on account of the drowning there at 2:40 this morning of MR. GEORGE S. FITZWATER, the head detective of the Seaboard system, who had been in Savannah recently in charge of 25 armed assistants protecting the road’s interests in the strike there of the stevedores against the Coast Line and Georgia Railroad people.

MR. FITZWATER was a powerful man physically and a good swimmer and that he lost his life by drowning is a surprise, as well as a shock, to his Columbia friends. It seems that the Seaboard’s wharf is off on a little island from the wharves of the Coast Line and Georgia roads and MR. FIRZWATER has been using a tug to patrol his company’s property and prevent the strikers interfering with the stevedores at work there.

Persons arriving here this evening say FITZWATER, in attempting to step from one boat to another, fell into the water between and has not been seen since.

Charlotte Daily Observer, NC 23 Jul 1906
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Transcribed by Sue Yerby. Thank you, Sue!