THE ARRIVAL OF FRIENDS.
There was a succession of arrivals of people: each day brought a
different class; first the officials of the road; next the crowds of
curious men and women from the village and surrounding country; then
the representatives of the press from the distant cities, Chicago and
New York; then the long swelling wave of the sorrowing friends. From
farther and farther away this wave swept in. At last the two sides of
the continent were reached. Two oceans had sent their echoes to moan
over the graves of those who had left their shores. The coast of Maine
and the Golden Gate had felt the shock.
First were those from the nearer cities. These had either bidden
good-bye a few hours before or were waiting at the depot for the
arrival of their friends.
New Year’s day was nigh. A gentleman was at Cleveland on his way to
California. His wife was on her way to meet him. Two children were with
her on this train. They expected to spend New Year’s together in that
city. She had telegraphed that she was coming. He was at the depot
awaiting her arrival. The train was late but he waited there. At last
the tidings came and he took the train with the officials and arrived
in the night. The two children were dead and the wife was awfully
burned. She was now lingering between life and death. The New Year
would find her dead and the man bereft of wife and children.
Another had been waiting for a wife and child. He came and found them
dead. The dread reality was worse than the worst of fears. But the
morning came. The friends at Cleveland hastened to the cars at an early
hour thinking to take them and reach the spot by 9 o’clock, but at the
hour assigned the train delayed. Those who were warned of the wreck
by the morning papers also went to the depot, but they could not go.
Women, whose husbands were on the fatal train, were there and became
anxious to start, but the train delayed.
The fathers, whose sons were wounded, became uneasy at the delay.
Business men, who knew that their partners were among the lost,
wondered at the long delay. Mothers, whose little children were among
the dead, also were sick at heart; but the train delayed. The suspense
became too much to bear; the train delayed. The agony increased; some
fainted in their seats, and were taken to the air; the feeling became
intense; that busy depot became a house of weeping; sorrow was depicted
on every face. Sympathy moved the hearts of strangers; those gloomy
walls became a prison to the heart; those heavy columns and lofty
arches seemed draped with mourning; the iron roof seemed filled with
bars; it was a castle of despair. Even the stir and confusion of the
place mocked the grief. Never was that place so full of sorrow; the
train delayed. Some returned to their homes and again came down. The
city was moved; the fact became known upon the streets; excitement even
entered the business circles, yet the train delayed.
A young man lay in the Culver House; his face was deathly pale, his
breathing labored. He was slowly dying. The father was in that train,
delayed, and became very anxious; he was wealthy and offered money.
Yes, the expense of the train he was willing to pay, but the train
delayed.
At last, when patience was almost exhausted, and the feeling was so
intense, and the night began to darken, the train moved out. The
suspense was relieved, but the time was still too long, and the
distance great. They arrive at last. The son is dead. He breathed his
last among the wounded. Strangers were there to lay him out, but the
friends could only bury him.
The arrival brought the whole reality to view. No one could tell the
horror, it must be seen to be known. The search for friends must be
carried on in the night. That horrid morgue was dark and covered
with gloom; the scene of the wreck was also covered with the evening
shades. Most of the bodies had, by this time, been removed; those which
remained were deeply buried beneath the ruins. The valley was lonely
and sad. The death itself, which had come down with one fell swoop,
had ascended, leaving only the ashes of the burned, the dust of death
which had been gathered by hands of iron, eaten by the tongues of fire,
and the night winds were making them their sport. O! how the heart went
down into that lonely valley, where so many perished. The night was
full of tears; it was the second night. From one end of the land to the
other, the fact was known; the greatest railroad accident on record had
occurred. In that fall, so many went down! From the distant east to the
distant west, the lightning had flashed their names. It was a stroke
that spanned the heavens, and revealed how black they were.
This sorrow was continued. Day after day brought new scenes. Each
train brought in new groups of friends. All were moved by a common
feeling, but their sorrow was visible. In that dreadful morgue there
were scenes which can never be described; God only knows what agony
was in the hearts of many. The sorrowing company trooped in and out,
and varied every hour; men and women, fathers and mothers, brothers
and sisters, husbands and wives, and even the children of the lost.
Some already were dressed in mourning. Others had come in haste and
stopped for nothing. The friends of the deceased from different places
would meet at this spot drawn together from a distance by the common
bereavement. Different circles had been bereft by each one of those who
had so suddenly died. Often two or three would come looking for the
same person. A different state of feeling concentrated at each separate
spot. The morgue, the office, and the wreck, all had their circles
and their scenes. Citizens and friends as they came, visited each in
succession. The search for relics on the ice; the search for bodies in
the morgue; and the sending of messages in the busy office, brought
different feelings to those sensitive hearts. There was a language in
each place which spoke more than words.
In the hotels at the upper town, there were also many exciting scenes.
As the friends gathered from near and far, they passed from place to
place, watching for some trace of the lost. Some became so overwhelmed
by the great calamity that they were obliged to go home, and send
others who were less afflicted to continue the search. Fathers were
almost crushed by the fearful blow, and went in and out of the gloomy
morgue and upon the cheerless ice, and into the busy depot, sick at
heart, and depressed, and would return to their hotels, weary with
the search, and lonely amid the throngs, for the sons or daughters on
whom they doted, had gone forever. A young man came alone, and sought
his mother for four long and weary days, but could find no trace.
Each night he returned to the hotel with every lineament of his face
expressive of the grief which was in his heart, and would sit down
among the throngs of strangers, desolate and bereaved.
Brothers and friends came, seeking, but finding not, and with tearful
eyes would return at night, their sorrow growing deeper as their search
was vain. Whoever expressed a sympathizing word to those bereaved and
stricken ones, knew how deeply the arrow had reached, and how the
soul was riven, but there were none who knew it all. To God’s eye and
that alone, was the grief revealed, and in His bottle were the tears
preserved. There were times when it seemed as if the grief were too
much to look upon.
A woman was seen to pass through the morgue. Her hard, care-worn
face and humble dress showed her to be acquainted with poverty and
accustomed to toil. But her husband was gone, and as the horrid
scenes came before her gaze, and the awful death was known, she
fairly staggered in her steps. Her glaring eye and strange, wild look
betokened a mind almost deranged. Yet, the pity did not end, for
another would come, so broken and so weak, and so subdued, in the
widow’s garb, and then the trembling father, and even mother, stricken
and bowed and almost heartbroken, so that it would seem as if there was
no end to grief.
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