Fulton Journal
June 25, 1875
A deep gloom spread over our city on Sunday afternoon last, its black pall resting over us yet, as it will for many a day to come. Just as our citizens had gathered around the noonday meal, and the quietness of the Sabbath reigned without, and peace within, the startling cry rang thro' the streets that two of the most esteemed young men of the place had been swallowed up by the relentless current of the Mississippi, and that two others had narrowly escaped the same fate. So sudden and startling was it that many at first doubted its authenticity, and we were among that number. We could not believe that two strong, noble, generous young men, one having passed into manhood's estate, and the other just entering upon it, and whom we had noticed the evening before in the full tide of health, had been so suddenly and without warning snatched from our midst. But it was so. Eben Andrews, son-in-law of B. Robinson; Charles Kahl,Jr.,clerk in Mr. Robinson's store; Herman H. Hobein, hardware and tin merchant, and Wm. Allen, workman and clerk in his employ, had gone down to the river early in the forenoon, entered a small sail boat, coursed up and down the stream a few times, and then two came back--the others had crossed a darker river than the Father of Waters, and would thenceforth never return to greet kith or kin. These two were Herman H. Hobein and Charles Kahl, Jr., and in their untimely death the city mourns.
