Overwhelming of Johnstown, Pa., by the Waters from Conemaugh Lake--One of
the Most Peculiar Happenings in History--Actual Number of Deaths Will
Never Be Known--About Twenty-Five Hundred Bodies Found.
On Friday, May 31, 1889, at 12:45 p. m., the stones in the center of the
dam which confined the waters of Conemaugh Lake began to sink because of
leaks in the masonry; at 1 o'clock the dam broke and the flood rushed
fiercely down the beautiful Conemaugh Valley to Johnstown, two and a half
miles directly to the southwest--but thirteen miles by way of the winding
valley--and within a few minutes nearly 2,300 men, women and children
(this many, it is known, perished, although it is probable the loss of
life was much greater) were lying dead in the wreckage of the city;
millions of dollars' worth of property were destroyed and thousands of
people beggared--and all because the members of the fishing club which
controlled the lake were too penurious to have the leaks in the dam
repaired. The coroner's verdict was to the effect that the club was to
blame for the disaster.
Hundreds of business buildings and residences were destroyed, and less
than a score of the structures composing the town were uninjured; complete
paralysis followed, and many said, as in the case of Galveston, the city
would not be rebuilt; hundreds were crazed by their sufferings and never
regained their reason; thieves swarmed to the place and looted the bodies
of the dead until the arrival of several thousand State troops put an end
to the carnival of crime; the impoverished survivors were cared for until
they could get upon their feet again, relief pouring in from everywhere in
the shape of hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and thousands of
carloads of supplies of all sorts; the business men plucked up courage and
went to work with a will when the apathy succeeding the calamity had worn
off, and to-day Johnstown is greater than ever, and has added to both her
wealth and population.
Conemaugh Lake is three and one-half miles in length, one and one-quarter
miles in width, and in some places one hundred feet in depth, located on a
mountain three hundred feet above the level of Johnstown, its waters being
held within bounds by a huge earth dam nearly one thousand feet long,
ninety feet thick and one hundred and twenty feet in height, the top
having a breadth of over twenty feet. It was once a reservoir and a feeder
for the Pennsylvania Canal. It had been widened and deepened and was the
property of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, an organization of
rich and influential citizens of Pittsburg. It was a constant menace to
the residents of the Conemaugh Valley, but engineers of the Pennsylvania
Railroad regularly inspected it once a month and pronounced it safe.
The club leased the lake in 1881 from the Pennsylvania Railroad Company.
It paid no attention to the fears of the people of Johnstown, but merely
quoted the opinions of experts to the effect that nothing short of an
extraordinary convulsion of nature could affect the protecting dam.
Johnstown's geographical situation is one that renders it peculiarly
liable to terrible loss of life in the event of such a casualty as that
reported. It is a town built in a basin of the mountains and girt about by
streams, all of which finally find their way into the Allegheny River, and
thence into the Ohio. On one side of the town flows the Conemaugh River, a
stream which during the dry periods of the summer drought can be readily
crossed in many places by stepping from stone to stone, but which
speedily becomes a raging mountain torrent, when swollen by the spring
freshets or heavy summer rains.
On the other side of the town is the Stony Creek, which gathers up its own
share of the mountain rains and whirls them along toward Pittsburg. The
awful flood caused by the sudden outpouring of the contents of the
reservoir, together with the torrents of rain that had already swollen
these streams to triple their usual violence, is supposed to be the cause
of the sudden submersion of Johnstown and the drowning of so many of its
citizens. The water, unable to find its way rapidly enough through its
usual channels, piled up in overwhelming masses, carrying before it
everything that obstructed its onward rush upon the town.
Johnstown, the center of the great disaster, is on the main line of the
Pennsylvania Railroad, 276 miles from Philadelphia. It is the headquarters
of the great Cambria Iron Company, and its acres of ironworks fill the
narrow basin in which the city is situated. The rolling mill and Bessemer
steel works employ 6,000 men. The mountains rise quite abruptly almost on
all sides, and the railroad track, which follows the turbulent course of
the Conemaugh River, is above the level of the iron works. The summit of
the Allegheny Mountains is reached at Gallatizin, about twenty-four miles
east of Johnstown.
The people of Johnstown had been warned of the impending flood as early as
1 o'clock in the afternoon, but not a person living near the reservoir
knew that the dam had given way until the flood swept the houses off their
foundations and tore the timbers apart. Escape from the torrent was
impossible. The Pennsylvania Railroad hastily made up trains to get as
many people away as possible, and thus saved many lives.
Four miles below the dam lay the town of South Fork, where the South Fork
itself empties into the Conemaugh River. The town contained about 2,000
inhabitants. It has not been heard from, but it is said that four-fifths
of it has been swept away.
Four miles further down, on the Conemaugh River, which runs parallel with
the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad, was the town of Mineral Point.
It had 800 inhabitants, 90 per cent of the houses being on a flat and
close to the river. Few of them escaped.
Six miles further down was the town of Conemaugh, and here alone was there
a topographical possibility of the spreading of the flood and the breaking
of its force. It contained 2,500 inhabitants and was wholly devastated.
Woodvale, with 2,000 people, lay a mile below Conemaugh, in the flat, and
one mile further down were Johnstown and its cluster of sister towns,
Cambria City, Conemaugh borough, with a total population of 30,000.
On made ground, and stretching along right at the river verge, were the
immense iron works of the Cambria Iron and Steel Company, which had
$5,000,000 invested in the plant.
The great damage to Johnstown was largely due to the rebound of the flood
after it swept across. The wave spread against the stream of Stony Creek
and passed over Kernsville to a depth of thirty feet in some places. It
was related that the lumber boom had broken on Stony Creek, and the rush
of tide down stream, coming in contact with the spreading wave, increased
the extent of the disaster in this section. In Kernsville, as well as in
Hornerstown, across the river, the opinion was expressed that so many
lives would not have been lost had the people not believed from their
experience with former floods that there was positively no danger beyond
the filling of cellars or the overflow of the shores of the river. After
rushing down the mountains from the South Fork dam, the pressure of water
was so great that it forced its way against the natural channel not only
over Kernsville and Hornerstown, but all the way up to Grubbtown, on Stony
Creek.
By the terrible flood communication by rail and wire was nearly all cut
off.
The exact number of the victims of this dreadful disaster probably will
never be known. Bodies were found beyond Pittsburg, which in all
probability were carried to that place from Johnstown and its suburbs. The
terrible holocaust at the barricade of wrecks at the bridge of the
Pennsylvania Railroad below Johnstown, where hundreds of men, women and
children who were saved from the waves were burned to death, caused a
terrible loss of life. The loss of property was about $10,000,000.
KNEW THE DAM WAS WEAK.
On the Monday after the catastrophe there came to Johnstown a man who had
scarcely more than a dozen rags to cover his nakedness. His name was
Herbert Webber, and he was employed by the South Fork Club as a sort of
guard. He supported himself mostly by hunting and fishing on the club's
preserves. By almost super-human efforts he succeeded in working his way
through the forest and across flood, in order to ascertain for himself the
terrible results of the deluge which he saw start from the Sportsman's
Club's lake. Webber said that he had been employed in various capacities
about the preserve for a considerable time.
He had repeatedly, he declared, called the attention of the members of the
club to the various leakages at the dam, but he received the stereotyped
reply that the masonry was all right; that it had been "built to stand for
centuries," and that such a thing as its giving way was among the
impossibilities. But Webber did not hesitate to continue his warnings.
Finally, according to his own statement, he was instructed to "shut up or
he would be bounced." He was given to understand that the officers of the
club were tired of his croakings and that the less he said about the dam
from thence on the better it would be for him.
Webber then laid his complaint before the Mayor of Johnstown, not more
than a month before the catastrophe. He told him that the spring freshets
were due, and that, if they should be very heavy, the dam would certainly
give way. Webber says the Mayor promised to send an expert to examine the
dam then, and if necessary to appeal to the State. Somehow the expert was
not chosen, the appeal was not made at Harrisburg, and the calamity
ensued.
For three days previous to the final outburst, Webber said, the water of
the lake forced itself through the interstices of the masonry, so that the
front of the dam resembled a large watering pot. The force of the water
was so great that one of these jets squirted full thirty feet horizontally
from the stone wall. All this time, too, the feeders of the lake,
particularly three of them, more nearly resembled torrents than mountain
streams and were supplying the dammed up body of water with quite
3,000,000 gallons of water hourly.
At 11 o'clock Friday morning, May 31, Webber said he was attending to a
camp about a mile back from the dam, when he noticed that the surface of
the lake seemed to be lowering. He doubted his eyes, and made a mark on
the shore, and then found that his suspicions were undoubtedly well
founded. He ran across the country to the dam, and there he saw the water
of the lake welling out from beneath the foundation stones of the dam.
Absolutely helpless, he was compelled to stand there and watch the gradual
development of what was to be the most disastrous flood of this continent.
According to his reckoning it was 12:45 when the stones in the centre of
the dam began to sink because of the undermining, and within eight minutes
a gap of twenty feet was made in the lower half of the wall face, through
which the water poured as though forced by machinery of stupendous power.
By 1 o'clock the toppling masonry, which before had partaken somewhat of
the form of an arch, fell in, and then the remainder of the wall opened
outward like twin-gates, and the great storage lake was foaming and
thundering down the valley of the Conemaugh.
Webber became so awestruck at the catastrophe that he was unable to leave
the spot until the lake had fallen so low that it showed bottom fifty feet
below him. How long a time elapsed he did not know before he recovered
sufficient power of observation to notice this, but he did not think more
than five minutes passed. Webber said that had the dam been repaired after
the spring freshet of 1888 the disaster would not have occurred. Had it
been given ordinary attention in the spring of 1887 the probabilities are
thousands of lives would not have been lost. To have put the dam in
excellent condition would not have cost $5,000.
EXPERT SAID THE DAM WAS NOT STRONG.
A. M. Wellington, one of the most noted engineering experts in the United
States, said of the dam after the flood:
"No engineer of known and good standing could possibly have been engaged
in the reconstruction of the old dam after it had been neglected in disuse
for twenty odd years, and the old dam was a very inferior piece of work,
and of a kind wholly unwarranted by good engineering practices of its day,
thirty years ago.
"Both the original dam and the reconstructed one were built of earth only,
with no heart wall and rip-rapped only, on the slopes. True, the earth is
of a sticky, clayey quality; the best of earth for adhesiveness, and the
old dam was made in watered layers, well rammed down, as is still shown in
the wrecked dam. But the new end was probably not rammed down at all; the
earth was simply dumped in like an ordinary railway filling. Much of the
old dam still stands, while the new work contiguous to it was carried
away.
"It has been an acknowledged principle of dam building for forty years,
and the invariable practice to build a central wall either of puddle or
solid masonry, but there was neither in the old nor in the new dam. It is
doubtful if there is another dam of the height of fifty feet in the United
States which lacks this central wall.
"Ignorance or carelessness is shown in the reconstruction, for the middle
of the new dam was nearly two feet lower in the middle than at the ends.
It should have been crowned in the middle by all the rules and practice of
engineering.
"Had the break begun at the ends, the cut of the water would have been
gradual and little or no harm would have resulted. And had the dam been
cut at once at the ends when the water began running over the center, the
suddenness of the break might have been checked, the wall crumbling away
at least more slowly and gradually and possibly prolonged so that little
harm would have been done.
"There was an overflow through the rocks in the old dam, which provided
that the water must rise seven feet above the ordinary level before it
would pass over the crest of the dam. But, owing to the raising of the
ends of the dam in 1881, without raising the crest, only five and a half
feet of water was necessary to run water over the middle of the dam. And
this spillway, narrow at best, had been further contracted by a close
grating to prevent the fish from escaping from the lake, while the
original discharge pipe at the foot of the dam was permanently closed when
the dam was constructed. Indeed, the maximum discharge was reduced in all
directions. The safety valve to that dangerous dam was almost screwed down
tight.
"There seems to have been no leakage through the dam, its destruction
resulting from its running over at the top. The estimates for the original
dam call for half earth and rock, but there is no indication of it in the
broken dam. The riprap was merely a skin on each face, with loose spawls
mixed with the earth. The dam was 72 feet high, 2 inches slope to a foot
inside, 1-1/2 inches to a foot outside slope and 20 feet thick at the top.
The fact that the dam was a reconstructed one, after twenty years disuse,
made it especially hard on the old dam to withstand the pressure of the
water."
EVERYTHING OVER IN A FEW MINUTES.
All was over in a few moments' time. The flood rushed down the valley when
released from its prison, swept earth, trees, houses and human beings
before it, depositing the vast debris in front of the railroad bridge,
which formed an impassable barrier to the passage of everything except the
vast agent of destruction--the flood--which overflowed it and passed on to
wreak fresh vengeance below.
One of the most terrible sights was the gorge at the railroad bridge. This
gorge consisted of debris of all kinds welded into an almost solid mass.
Here were the charred timbers of houses and the charred and mutilated
remains of human beings. The fire at this point, which lasted until June 3
and had still some of its vitality left on the 5th, was one of the
incidents of the Johnstown disaster that will become historic. The story
has not been and cannot be fully told. One could not look at it without a
shock to his sensibilities. So tangled and unyielding was the mass that
even dynamite had little effect upon it. One deplorable effect, however,
was to dismember the few parts of human bodies wedged in the mass that the
ruthless flood left whole.
From the western end of the railroad bridge the view was but a prelude to
the views that were to follow. Looking across the gorge the first object
the eye caught in the ruined town is the Melville school, standing as a
guardian over the dead--a solitary sentinel left on the field after the
battle. Still further on and near the center of the town were the offices
and stores of the Cambria Iron Company. Beyond and around both buildings
were sand flats, mud flats until the 29th of May, the almost navigable
water of the flood itself until the 2d of June, the most populous and busy
part of the city until the 31st of May. Part of the ground was covered by
a part of the shops of the Cambria Company. Not a vestige of these
remained.
When the great storm of Friday came, the dam was again a source of
uneasiness, and early in the morning the people of Johnstown were warned
that the dam was weakening. They had heard the same warning too often,
however, to be impressed, and many jeered at their informants. Some of
those that jeered were before nightfall scattered along the banks of the
Conemaugh, cold in death, or met their fate in the blazing pile of wrecked
houses wedged together at the big stone bridge. Only a few heeded the
warning, and these made their way to the hillside, where they were safe.
Early in the day the flood caused by the heavy rains swept through the
streets of Johnstown. Every little mountain stream was swollen by the
rains; rivulets became creeks and creeks were turned into rivers. The
Conemaugh, with a bed too narrow to hold its greatly increased body of
water, overflowed its banks, and the damage caused by this overflow alone
would have been large. But there was more to come, and the results were so
appalling that there lived not a human being who was likely to anticipate
them.
At 1 o'clock in the afternoon the resistless flood tore away the huge
lumber boom on Stony creek. This was the real beginning of the end. The
enormous mass of logs was hurled down upon the doomed town. The lines of
the two water courses were by this time obliterated, and Stony creek and
the Conemaugh river were raging seas. The great logs levelled everything
before them, crushing frame houses like eggshells and going on unchecked
until the big seven-arch stone bridge over the Conemaugh river just below
Johnstown was reached.
Had the logs passed this bridge Johnstown might have been spared much of
its horror. There were already dead and dying, and homes had already been
swept away, but the dead could only be counted by dozens and not yet by
thousands. Wedged fast at the bridge, the logs formed an impenetrable
barrier. People had moved to the second floor of their houses and hoped
that the flood might subside. There was no longer a chance to get away,
and had they known what was in store for them the contemplation of their
fate would have been enough to make them stark mad. Only a few hours had
elapsed from the time of the breaking of the lumber boom when the waters
of Conemaugh lake rushed down upon them. The scoffers realized their
folly. The dam had given way, and the immense body of water which had
rested in a basin five miles long, two miles wide and seventy feet deep
was let loose to begin its work of destruction.
The towering wall of water swooped down upon Johnstown with a force that
carried everything before it. Had it been able to pass through the big
stone bridge a portion of Johnstown might have been saved. The rampart of
logs, however, checked the torrent and half the houses of the town were
lifted from their foundations and hurled against it. This backed the water
up into the town, and as there had to be an outlet somewhere, the river
made a new channel through the heart of the lower part of the city. Again
and again did the flood hurl itself against the bridge, and each wave
carried with it houses, furniture and human beings. The bridge stood firm,
but the railway embankment gave way, and some fifty people were carried
down to their deaths in the new break. Through this new outlet the waters
were diverted in the direction of the Cambria Iron Works, a mile below,
and in a moment the great buildings of a plant valued at $5,000,000 were
engulfed and laid low. Here had gathered a number of iron workers, who
felt that they were out of the reach of the flood, and almost before they
realized their peril they were swept away into the seething torrent.
It was now night, and darkness added to the terror of the situation. Then
came flames to make the calamity all the more appalling. Hundreds of
buildings had been piled up against the stone bridge. The inmates of but
few of them had had time to escape. Just how many people were imprisoned
in that mass of wreckage may never be known, but the number was estimated
at between 1,000 and 2,000. The wreckage was piled to a height of fifty
feet, and suddenly flames began leaping up from the summit. A stove had
set fire to that part of the wreck above the water, and the scene that was
then witnessed is beyond description. Shrieks and prayers from the unhappy
beings imprisoned in the wrecked houses pierced the air, but little could
be done. Men, women and children, held down by timbers, watched with
indescribable agony the flames creep slowly toward them until the heat
scorched their faces, and then they were slowly roasted to death.
Those who were held fast in the wreck by an arm or a leg begged piteously
that the imprisoned limb be cut off. Some succeeded in getting loose with
mangled limbs, and one man cut off his arm that he might get away. Those
who were able worked like demons to save the unfortunates from the flames,
but hundreds were burned to death.
Meanwhile Johnstown had been literally wiped from the face of the earth,
Cambria City was swept away and Conemaugh borough was a thing of the past.
The little village of Millville, with a population of one thousand, had
nothing left of it but the school-house and the stone buildings of the
Cambria Iron Company. Woodvale was gone and South Fork wrecked. Hundreds
of people were drowned in their homes, hundreds were swept away in their
dwellings and met death in the debris that was whirled madly about on the
surface of the flood; hundreds, as has been said, were burned, and
hundreds who sought safety on floating driftwood were overwhelmed by the
flood or washed to death against obstructions. The instances of heroism
and self-sacrifice were never excelled, perhaps not equalled, on a
battle-field. Men rather than save themselves alone died nobly with their
families, and mothers willingly gave up their lives rather than abandon
their children.
"At 3 o'clock in the afternoon," said Electrician Bender, of the Western
Union at Pittsburg, "the girl operator at Johnstown was cheerfully ticking
away; she soon had to abandon the office on the first floor because the
water was three feet deep there. She said she was wiring from the second
story and the water was gaining steadily. She was frightened, and said
that many houses around were flooded. This was evidently before the dam
broke, for our man here said something encouraging to her, and she was
talking back as only a cheerful girl operator can when the receiver's
skilled ears caught a sound of the wire made by no human hand. The wires
had grounded or the house had been swept away in the flood, no one knows
which now. At 3 o'clock the girl was there and at 3:07 we might as well
have asked the grave to answer us."
Edward Deck, a young railroad man of Lockport, saw an old man floating
down the river on a tree trunk, with agonized face and streaming gray
hair. Deck plunged into the torrent and brought the old man safely ashore.
Scarcely had he done so, when the upper story of a house floated by on
which Mrs. Adams, of Cambria, and her two children were both seen. Deck
plunged in again, and while breaking through the tin roof of the house cut
an artery in his left wrist, but though weakened with loss of blood, he
succeeded in saving both mother and children.
J. W. Esch, a brave railroad employe, saved sixteen lives at Nineveh.
At Bolivar a man, woman and child were seen floating down in a lot of
drift. The mass of debris commenced to part, and by desperate efforts the
husband and father succeeded in getting his wife and little one on a
floating tree. Just then the tree washed under the bridge and a rope was
thrown out. It fell upon the man's shoulders. He saw at a glance that he
could not save his dear ones, so he threw the means of safety to one side
and gripped in his arms those who were with him. A moment later the tree
struck a floating house. It turned over, and in a second the three persons
were in the seething waters, being carried to their death.
C. W. Hoppenstall, of Lincoln avenue, East End, Pittsburg, distinguished
himself by his bravery. He was a messenger on the mail train which had to
turn back at Sang Hollow. As the train passed a point where the water was
full of struggling persons, a woman and child floated in near shore. The
train was stopped and Hoppenstall undressed, jumped into the water, and in
two trips saved both mother and child.
The special train pulled in at Bolivar at 11.30 o'clock and trainmen were
notified that further progress was impossible. The greatest excitement
prevailed at this place, and parties of citizens were all the time
endeavoring to save the poor unfortunates that were being hurled to
eternity on the rushing torrent.
The tidal wave struck Bolivar just after dark and in five minutes the
Conemaugh rose from six to forty feet and the waters spread out over the
whole country. Soon houses began floating down, and clinging to the debris
were men, women and children, shrieking for aid. A large number of
citizens at once gathered on the county bridge and they were reinforced by
a number from Garfield, a town on the opposite side of the river. They
brought a number of ropes and these were thrown into the boiling waters as
persons drifted by in efforts to save some poor beings. For half an hour
all efforts were fruitless until at last, when the rescuers were about
giving up all hope, a little boy astride a shingle roof managed to catch
hold of one of the ropes. He caught it under his left arm and was thrown
violently against an abutment, but managed to keep hold and was
successfully pulled on to the bridge, amid the cheers of the onlookers.
His name was Hessler and his rescuer was a train hand named Carney. The
lad was taken to the town of Garfield and cared for in the home of J. P.
Robinson. The boy was about 16 years old.
His story of the frightful calamity is as follows: "With my father, I was
spending the day at my grandfather's house in Cambria City. In the house
at the time were Theodore, Edward and John Kintz, and John Kintz, Jr.,
Miss Mary Kintz, Mrs. Mary Kintz, wife of John Kintz, Jr., Miss Tracy
Kintz, Miss Rachel Smith, John Hirsch, four children, my father and
myself. Shortly after 5 o'clock there was a noise of roaring waters and
screams of people. We looked out the door and saw persons running. My
father told us not to mind, as the waters would not rise further. But soon
we saw houses being swept away and then we ran to the floor above. The
house was three stories, and we were at last forced to the top one. In my
fright I jumped on the bed. It was an old-fashioned one with heavy posts.
The water kept rising and my bed was soon afloat. Gradually it was lifted
up. The air in the room grew close and the house was moving. Still the bed
kept rising and pressed the ceiling. At last the post pushed the plaster.
It yielded and a section of the roof gave way. Then suddenly I found
myself on the roof and was being carried down stream. After a little this
roof commenced to part and I was afraid I was going to be drowned, but
just then another house with a single roof floated by and I managed to
crawl on it and floated down until nearly dead with cold, when I was
saved. After I was freed from the house I did not see my father. My
grandfather was on a tree, but he must have been drowned, as the waters
were rising fast. John Kintz, Jr., was also on a tree. Miss Mary Kintz and
Mrs. Mary Kintz I saw drowned. Miss Smith was also drowned. John Hirsch
was in a tree, but the four children were drowned. The scenes were
terrible. Live bodies and corpses were floating down with me and away from
me. I would hear persons shriek and then they would disappear. All along
the line were people who were trying to save us, but they could do nothing
and only a few were caught."
The boy's story is but one incident and shows what happened to one family.
God only knows what has happened to the hundreds who were in the path of
the rushing water. It is impossible to get anything in the way of news,
save meagre details.
An eye-witness at Bolivar Block Station tells a story of unparalleled
horror which occurred at the lower bridge which crosses the Conemaugh at
this point. A young man and two women were seen coming down the river on a
part of a floor. At the upper bridge a rope was thrown them. This they all
failed to catch. Between the two bridges the man was noticed to point
towards the elder woman, who, it is supposed, was his mother. He was then
seen to instruct the women how to catch the rope which, was being lowered
from the other bridge. Down came the raft with a rush. The brave man stood
with his arms around the two women. As they swept under the bridge he
reached up and seized the rope. He was jerked violently away from the two
women, who failed to get a hold on the life line. Seeing that they would
not be rescued he dropped the rope and fell back on the raft, which
floated on down. The current washed the frail craft in towards the bank.
The young man was enabled to seize hold of a branch of a tree. The young
man aided the two women to get up into the tree. He held on with his hands
and rested his feet on a pile of driftwood. A piece of floating debris
struck the drift, sweeping it away. The man hung with his body immersed in
the water. A pile of drift soon collected and he was enabled to get
another secure footing. Up the river there was a sudden crash and a
section of the bridge was swept away and floated down the stream, striking
the tree and washing it away. All three were thrown into the water and
were drowned before the eyes of the horrified spectators just opposite the
town of Bolivar.
Early in the evening a woman with her two children were seen to pass under
the bridge at Bolivar, clinging to the roof of a coalhouse. A rope was
lowered to her, but she shook her head and refused to desert the children.
It was rumored that all three were saved at Cokeville, a few miles below
Bolivar. A later report from Lockport says that the residents succeeded in
rescuing five people from the flood, two women and three men. One man
succeeded in getting out of the water unaided. They were kindly taken care
of by the people of the town.
A little girl passed under the bridge just before dark. She was kneeling
on a part of a floor and had her hands clasped as if in prayer. Every
effort was made to save her, but they all proved futile. A railroader who
was standing by remarked that the piteous appearance of the little waif
brought tears to his eyes. All night long the crowd stood about the ruins
of the bridge, which had been swept away at Bolivar. The water rushed past
with a roar, carrying with it parts of houses, furniture and trees. The
flood had evidently spent its force up the valley. No more living persons
were being carried past. Watchers with lanterns remained along the banks
until day-break, when the first view of the awful devastation of the flood
was witnessed.
CRAZED BY THEIR SUFFERINGS.
When the great waves of death swept through Johnstown, the people who had
any chance of escape ran hither and thither in every direction. They did
not have any definite idea where they were going, only that a crest of
foaming waters as high as the housetops was roaring down upon them through
the Conemaugh, and that they must get out of the way of that. Some in
their terror dived into the cellars of their houses, though this was
certain death. Others got up on the roofs of their houses and clambered
over the adjoining roofs to places of safety. But the majority made for
the hills, which girt the town like giants. Of the people who went to the
hills the water caught some in its whirl. The others clung to trees and
roots and pieces of debris which had temporarily lodged near the banks,
and managed to save themselves. These people either stayed out on the
hills wet and in many instances naked, all night, or they managed to find
farmhouses which sheltered them. There was a fear of going back to the
vicinity of the town. Even the people whose houses the water did not reach
abandoned their homes and began to think of all of Johnstown as a city
buried beneath the water.
When these people came back to Johnstown on the day after the wreck of the
town they had to put up in sheds, barns, and in houses which had been but
partially ruined. They had to sleep without any covering in their wet
clothes, and it took the liveliest kind of skirmishing to get anything to
eat. Pretty soon a citizens' committee was established, and nearly all the
male survivors of the flood were immediately sworn in as deputy sheriffs.
They adorned themselves with tin stars, which they cut out of pieces of
sheet metal in the ruins, and sheets of tin with stars cut out of them are
turning up continually, to the surprise of the Pittsburg workmen who are
endeavoring to get the town in shape. The women and children were housed,
as far as possible, in the few houses still standing, and some idea of the
extent of the wreck of the town may be gathered from the fact that of 300
prominent buildings only sixteen were uninjured.
For the first day or so people were dazed by what had happened, and for
that matter they are dazed still. They went about helpless, making vague
inquiries for their friends and hardly feeling the desire to eat anything.
Finally the need of creature comforts overpowered them, and they woke up
to the fact that they were faint and sick. This was to some extent changed
by the arrival of tents and by the systematic military care for the
suffering.
THE BRIDGE WHERE HUNDREDS LOST THEIR LIVES.
The "fatal bridge," as it is now called, and which wreaked such awful
destruction, is described by a writer in this way:
"The bridge whose 'resistance of the torrent' was the matter of so much
talk, was a noble four-track structure, just completed, fifty feet wide on
top, 32 feet high above the water line, consisting of seven skew spans of
fifty-eight feet each. It still remains wholly uninjured, except that it
is badly spalled on the upper side by blows from the wreckage, but that
it so remains is due solely to the accident of its position, and not to
its strength, although it was and is still the embodiment of solidity.
"Had the torrent struck it, it would have swept it away as if it had been
built of card-board, leaving no track behind; but fortunately (or
unfortunately) its axis was exactly parallel with the path of the flood,
which hence struck the face of the mountain full, and compressed the whole
of its spoils gathered in a fourteen-mile course into one inextricable
mass, with the force of tens of thousands of tons moving at nearly sixty
miles per hour.
"Its spoils consisted of (1) every tree the flood had touched in its whole
course, with trifling exceptions, including hundreds of large trees, all
of which were stripped of their bark and small limbs almost at once; (2)
all the houses in a thickly settled town three miles long and one-fourth
to one-half mile wide; (3) half the human beings and all the horses, cows,
cats, dogs, and rats that were in the houses; (4) many hundreds of miles
of telegraph wire that was on strong poles in use, and many times more
than this that was in stock in the mills; (5) perhaps 50 miles of track
and track material, rails and all; (6) locomotives, pig-iron, brick,
stone, boilers, steam engines, heavy machinery, and other spoil of a large
manufacturing town.
"All this was accumulated in one inextricable mass, which almost
immediately caught fire from some stove which the waters had not touched.
Hundreds if not thousands of human beings, dead and alive, were caught in
it, many by the lower part of the body only. Eye-witnesses describe the
groans and cries which came from that vast holocaust for nearly the whole
night as something almost unbearable to listen to, yet which could not be
escaped. Hundreds, undoubtedly, suffered a slow death by fire; yet we
cannot doubt that the vast majority of the men, women, and children in
that fearful jam, which covered fully thirty acres, and perhaps more, were
already dead when the fire began.
"Johnstown proper is in a large basin formed by the junction of the
Conemaugh and the almost equally large Stony creek, flowing into the
Conemaugh from the south, just above the bridge. The bridge being
hermetically sealed, it and the adjacent embankment formed a second dam
about thirty feet high, Johnstown serving as a bed of a reservoir which we
should judge to be nearly large enough to hold the entire contents of the
reservoir above, except that it was already filled knee-deep or more by an
unusually heavy but annual spring flood.
"One offshoot of the main torrent was deflected southward by the Gautier
Works, and went tearing through the heart of the more southerly portion of
the town, and still another similar branch was split off from the main
torrent further down; but in the main, the direct force of the torrent did
not strike this southerly portion of the town.
"It struck first against the jam, and thus lost most of its fierce energy,
flowing thence southward in a heavy stream, which tossed about houses in
the most fantastic way, so that this part of the town looks much like a
child's toy-village poured out of a box hap-hazard; the houses are not
torn to pieces generally.
"About half the loss of life was in this district, for all Johnstown
became speedily a lake twenty or more feet deep, and stayed so all night;
and it was here, and not in the direct path of the flood, that all the
'rescuing' of people from roofs and floating timbers occurred.
"Nothing of the kind was possible in the flood itself. Likewise, after the
break in the embankment had occurred, and the flood began to recede from
Johnstown, it was from this district chiefly that people were carried off
down stream on floating wreckage. All that came within the direct path of
the flood was fast within the jam.
"The existence of this temporary Johnstown reservoir naturally broke the
continuity of the flood discharge, and transformed it into something not
greatly different from an ordinary but very heavy freshet. Cambria City,
just below the bridge, was badly wrecked, with the loss of hundreds of
lives; but in the main, from Johnstown down, the flood ceased to be very
destructive. It took out almost every bridge it came to, for fifty miles,
and washed away tracks, and did other minor damage, but the Johnstown
'reservoir' saved hundreds of lives below it by equalizing the flow."
THE DAY EXPRESS DISASTER.
John Barr, the conductor in charge of the Pullman parlor car on the first
section of the day express, which was caught in the flood at Conemaugh,
told a thrilling story of his experience.
His train, with two others, had been run onto a siding on high ground at
Conemaugh Station, opposite the big round-house. He saw the water coming
and describes it as having the appearance of a mountain moving toward him.
He immediately ran to his car and shouted to his passengers to run for
their lives. John Davis, connected with a large rolling mill near
Lancaster, was traveling from Colorado with his invalid wife and two
children, aged 4 and 6. Mr. Davis was engaged in getting his wife off the
car, and Conductor Barr grabbed up the two children, and, with one under
each arm, started for the hills, with the water right at his heels. He
ran a distance of about 200 yards and barely managed to deposit his
precious burden on safe ground before the flood swept past him.
Mr. Barr said it would never be known how many persons lost their lives
from the ill-fated train. The one passenger coach which was carried away
had some people in it; how many nobody knows. At least twenty were
drowned. A freight train was between the day express and the flood on an
adjoining track, and this served to in a measure protect his train.
Some idea of the terrible force of the flood may be gained from Mr. Barr's
statement that the engines in the round-house, thirty-seven in number,
swept past him standing half way out of the water, their forty tons of
weight not being sufficient to take them beneath the surface. The baggage
car was lifted clear out of the water and landed on the other side of the
river.
A Miss Wayne, who was traveling from Pittsburg to Altoona, had a wonderful
escape. She was caught in the swirl and almost all of her clothing torn
from her person, and she was providentially thrown by the angry waters
clear of the rushing flood.
Miss Wayne said that while she lay more dead than alive on the river bank,
she saw the Hungarians rifle the bodies of dead passengers and cut off
their fingers for the purpose of obtaining the rings on the hands of the
corpses. Miss Wayne was provided with a suit of men's clothing and rode
into Altoona thus arrayed.
Miss Maloney, of Woodbury, N. J., a passenger on the parlor car, started
to leave the car, and then, fearing to venture out into the flood,
returned to the inside of the car. When the water subsided the crew rushed
to the car, expecting to find Miss Maloney dead, but the water had not
gone high enough to drown her and she was all right, though greatly
frightened.
She displayed a rare amount of forethought in the face of danger, having
tied securely around her waist a piece of her clothing on which her name
was written in indelible ink. She fully expected that she would be
drowned, and did this in order that her body, if found, might be
identified.
When the water was still high Conductor Barr made an attempt to get back
to his car from the hill, but after wading up to his arm-pits in the water
he was forced to return to safe ground.
THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD'S LAST TRAIN.
The last train to which the Susquehanna River permitted the use of the
tracks of the Pennsylvania Railroad between Harrisburg and Lancaster
rolled into Broad Street Station, at Philadelphia, at 9:35 p. m. on
Saturday, June 1. It was a nondescript train. The last car was a vestibule
Pullman which had never stopped at so many way stations before in its
aristocratic life, and which had been cut off the stalled Chicago limited
at Harrisburg to be taken back to New York. The rest of the train had
started from Harrisburg at 3:40 as the day express and at Lancaster had
been changed into the York and Columbia "tub."
No train's name ever fitted it better. The tub had swam through seven
miles of water on its way, water differing in depth from three inches to
three feet.
The seven miles of water covered the track between Harrisburg and
Highspire. When the newspaper train touched with the morning dailies and
to some extent with the men who make them, dashed drippingly into
Harrisburg at half-past 7 in the morning it had only encountered
three-fourths of a mile of water.
No reports of a great increase in the Susquehanna's output had reached
beleaguered Harrisburg during the day, and the express started out with
two engines, 1095 and 1105, towing it and a fair chance of reaching
Philadelphia on time. The original three-quarters of a mile of
overflow--caused by the back water of Paxton creek--was passed without
incident.
The water was about up to the bottom steps of the car platforms and the
pilot of the leading engine threw to each side a fine billow of yellow
water, sending a swell like that of a tramp steamer passing Gloucester, in
among the floating outhouses and submerged slag heaps of the suburbs of
Harrisburg and bringing cheers from thousands who watched the train's
advance from their second-story windows and forgot the condition of their
first-floor furniture in the excitement of watching the amphibious prowess
of the day express.
"We've seen the worst of it," said the elderly, kindly conductor to a
couple of excited women passengers as the last of the three-fourths of a
mile of billows was thrown from the pilot of 1095. "We've seen the worst
of it, but the train will have to wait here a little while--the fires are
almost out."
So 1095 and 1102 stood puffing and panting for a while on the high track
while the afternoon sunlight dried their dripping flanks and the baffled
Susquehanna rolled its burden of driftwood sullenly southward on their
right. Then the day express rolled on again. The dry ground was just about
long enough to give the train an impetus for another header into the
Susquehanna's overflow.
It was into the Susquehanna itself that the header seemed to be taken this
time. It was no longer a question of an overflow creek in a railroad cut.
The billows from the prow of 1095 swept not in among overturned outhouses
and submerged slag heaps, but out on the broad coffee-colored bosom of the
river to be broken into a thousand chop waves among the churning
driftwood. The people in the second-story windows forgot to cheer. The
people in the coaches forgot to joke on the men's part and to fret on the
women's. It was curious and it was ticklish.
The train was running slowly, very slowly. The wheels were out of sight.
The water was swirling among the trucks and lapping at the platforms. The
only sign of land locomotion about the day express was an audible one, a
watery pounding and rumbling of the wheels on the hidden tracks.
The day express looked like a long broad river serpent wriggling on its
belly down along the green river bank. Gradually there was a simultaneous
though not concerted movement among the passengers. They began crowding
toward the platforms and looking toward the land side. Suddenly a brakeman
broke the queer silence, in a voice which had just the least crescendo of
excitement in it.
"If you people don't keep quiet we can't do anything!" he shouted.
The demand was a little absurd, the direction of a land coxswain to "trim
ship." Still, it had its uses. It relieved the tension which everybody
felt and nobody acknowledged. The passengers retired from the platforms.
Joking began again among the men and fretting among the women. There
hadn't been much fun in looking toward the land side anyway. What had
appeared to be a recession of the waters when looked at from above was
merely a swelling of the stream from the overflow of the canal which
parallels the road for several miles at that point.
All at once the train, which had been moving more slowly for each of a
good ten minutes, stopped short. It seemed as if 1095's sharp nose had
scented danger like a sensitive horse, and, panting, refused to go
further.
Then the engine crews were seen by the passengers to leap from their cabs
thigh deep in the water and begin hauling at some sub-aquean obstacle.
"Driftwood," said the same brakeman who had commanded quiet.
So it was. A train stopped by driftwood! It was floating all about and
threatened to impede the progress of the day express altogether. Fence
rails from far up country farms, planks from dismantled signal stations,
platforms along the line, railroad ties innumerable, branches and even
small trunks of trees floated against the wheels with disjected stacks of
green wheat and other ruined crops upon the ever-rising flood of the
river.
There had been high dry land in sight just beyond Highspire Station, but
as sure as guns were iron and floods were floods the land was
disappearing. The river's rise was steady. The inhabitants of the drowned
lands who appeared to take the drowning easily, though no such a drowning
had been known to them in a quarter of a century, had been in large
numbers keeping company of the train for the last two miles in skiffs and
punts. They rowed close to the cars and towed away the larger drift. They
were not entirely on life-saving service. There was a bit of the wreckage
in their composition. They towed the trunk and ties into their front yards
and anchored them to their window-blinds.
Finally the straining backs of the engine crews gave one mighty tug at the
hidden obstacle. A huge platform plank floated loose from 1095, and 1095
shrieked triumph. The wheels began to churn the brown water with
yellowish white and 1095 and 1102 ran up on the dry ground like the eagle
in the sun, to whom the Irish poet compared the Irish troops at Fontenoy.
As they did so the clatter of a light advancing train was heard from the
east, and a sound of cheering. A single engine drawing two crowded cars
shot around the bend, and ran with a light heart into the torrent out of
which the day express had just emerged.
"They'll never get through," was the unanimous comment of the day express
passengers, and their verdict seemed to be confirmed officially by the
brakeman who had been excited.
He stood in the door of the car and shouted: "This train will stop at all
stations between Lancaster and Bryn Mawr. There will be no more trains
between Harrisburg and Lancaster to-night."
Afterwards he added: "As this is the last train it will have to take the
place of the 'tub.'"
THE FIRST RUSH OF THE DEATH WAVE.
A man who was above the danger line on the right bluff above the town, and
who saw the first rush of the death wave, says that it was preceded by a
peculiar phenomena, which he thinks was the explosion of the gas mains. He
says that a few minutes before the wall of the water had reached the city
there was a tremendous explosion somewhere in the upper part of the place.
He said that he saw the fragments of the buildings rise in the air, and
the next moment saw two lines of flame down through the city in different
directions, and frame buildings were apparently being torn to pieces and
wrecked. The next minute the water came, and he remembers nothing further.
There really was an explosion of gas that wrecked a church in the upper
part of the city just at the time of the flood. If there was also an
explosion of the gas main, the cause of the fire at the bridge is
explained. Light frame buildings set on fire by the explosion were picked
up bodily and tossed on top of the water into the wreck at the bridge
without the fire being extinguished.
Mrs. Fredericks, an aged woman, was rescued alive from the attic in her
house. The house had floated from what was formerly Vine street to the
foot of the mountains. Mrs. Fredericks says her experience was terrible.
She said she saw hundreds of men, women and children floating down the
torrent to meet their death, some praying, while others had actually
become raving maniacs.
THE REAL HORRORS OF THE DISASTER.
"No one will ever know the real horrors of this accident unless he saw the
burning people and debris beside the stone bridge," remarked the Rev.
Father Trautwein. "The horrible nature of the affair cannot be realized by
any person who did not witness the scene. As soon as possible after the
first great crash occurred I hastened to the bridge.
"A thousand persons were struggling in the ruins and imploring for God's
sake to release them. Frantic husbands and fathers stood at the edge of
the furnace that was slowly heating to a cherry heat and incinerating
human victims. Every one was anxious to save his own relatives, and raved,
cursed, and blasphemed until the air appeared to tremble. No system, no
organized effort to release the pent-up persons was made by those related
to them.
"Shrieking they would command: 'Go to that place, go get her out, for
God's sake get her out,' referring to some beloved one they wanted saved.
"Under the circumstances it was necessary to secure organization, and
thinking I was trying to thwart their efforts when I ordered another point
to be attacked by the rescuers, they advanced upon me, threatened to shoot
me or dash me into the raging river.
"One man who was trying to steer a float upon which his wife sat on a
mattress lost his hold, and in a moment the craft swept into a sea of
flame and never again appeared. The agony of that man was simply
heartrending. He raised his arms to heaven and screamed in his mental
anguish and only ceased that to tear his hair and moan like one
distracted. Every effort was made to save every person accessible, and we
have the satisfaction of knowing that fully 200 were saved from cremation.
One young woman was found under the dead body of a relative.
"A force of men attempted to extricate her and succeeded in releasing
every limb but one leg. For three hours they labored, and every moment the
flames crept nearer and nearer. I was on the point several times of
ordering the men to chop her leg off. It would have been much better to
save her life even at that loss than have her burn to death. Fortunately
it was not necessary; but the young lady's escape from mutilation or death
she will never realize."
The flood and fire claimed among its victims not only the living, but the
dead. A handsome coffin was found half burned in some charred wreckage
down near the point. Inside was found the body of a man shrouded for
burial, but so scorched about the head and face as to be unrecognizable.
The supposition is that the house in which the dead man had lain had been
crushed and the debris partly consumed by fire. The body is still at the
Fourth Ward school house, and unless reclaimed it will be buried in the
unknown field.
THE CLOCK STOPPED AT 5:20.
One of the queerest sights in the center of the town was a three-story
brick residence standing with one wall, the others having disappeared
completely, leaving the floors supported by the partitions. In one of the
upper rooms could be seen a mantel with a lambrequin on it and a clock
stopped at twenty minutes after five. In front of the clock was a lady's
fan, though from the marks on the wall paper the water had been over all
these things.
In the upper part of the town, where the back water from the flood went
into the valley with diminished force, there were many strange scenes.
There the houses were toppled over one after another in a row, and left
where they lay. One of them was turned completely over and stood with its
roof on the foundations of another house and its base in the air. The
owner came back, and getting into his house through the windows, walked
about on his ceiling.
Out of this house a woman and her two children escaped safely and were but
little hurt, although they were stood on their heads in the whirl.
Every house had its own story. From one a woman sent up in her garret
escaped by chopping a hole in the roof. From another a Hungarian named
Grevins leaped to the shore as it went whirling past and fell twenty-five
feet upon a pile of metal and escaped with a broken leg.
Another is said to have come all the way from very near the start of the
flood and to have circled around with the back water and finally landed on
the flats at the city site, where it is still pointed out.
THE SITUATION NINE DAYS AFTER.
A correspondent described the situation at Johnstown nine days after the
disaster in this way:
"So vast is the field of destruction that to get an adequate idea from any
point level with the town is simply impossible. It must be viewed from a
height. From the top of Kernsville Mountain, just at the east of the town,
the whole strange panorama can be seen.
"Looking down from the height many things about the flood that appear
inexplicable from below are perfectly plain. How so many houses happened
to be so queerly twisted, for instance, as if the water had a twirling
instead of a straight motion, was made perfectly clear.
"The town was built in an almost equilateral triangle, with one angle
pointed squarely up the Conemaugh Valley to the east, from which the flood
came. At the northerly angle was the junction of the Conemaugh and Stony
creeks. The southern angle pointed up the Stony Creek Valley. Now about
one-half of the triangle, formerly densely covered with buildings, is
swept as clear as a platter, except for three or four big brick buildings
that stand near the angle which points up the Conemaugh.
"The course of the flood, from the exact point where it issued from the
Conemaugh Valley to where it disappeared below in a turn in the river and
above by spreading itself over the flat district of five or six miles, is
clearly defined. The whole body of water issued straight from the valley
in a solid wave and tore across the village of Woodvale and so on to the
business part of Johnstown at the lower part of the triangle. Here a
cluster of solid brick blocks, aided by the conformation of the land
evidently divided the stream.
"The greater part turned to the north, swept up the brick block and then
mixed with the ruins of the villages above down to the stone arch bridge.
The other stream shot across the triangle, was turned southward by the
bluffs and went up the valley of Stony creek. The stone arch bridge in the
meantime acted as a dam and turned part of the current back toward the
south, where it finished the work of the triangle, turning again to the
northward and back to the stone arch bridge.
"The stream that went up Stony creek was turned back by the rising ground
and then was reinforced by the back water from the bridge again and
started south, where it reached a mile and a half and spent its force on a
little settlement called Grubbtown.
"The frequent turning of this stream, forced against the buildings and
then the bluffs, gave it a regular whirling motion from right to left, and
made a tremendous eddy, whose centrifugal force twisted everything it
touched. This accounts for the comparatively narrow path of the flood
through the southern part of the town, where its course through the
thickly clustered frame dwelling houses is as plain as a highway.
"The force of the stream diminished gradually as it went south, for at the
place where the currents separated every building is ground to pieces and
carried away, and at the end the houses were only turned a little on their
foundations. In the middle of the course they are turned over on their
sides or upside down. Further down they are not single, but great heaps of
ground lumber that look like nothing so much as enormous pith balls.
"To the north the work of the waters is of a different sort. It picked up
everything except the big buildings that divided the current and piled the
fragments down upon the stone bridge or swept them over and so on down the
river for miles.
"This left the great yellow, sandy and barren plain, so often spoken of in
the dispatches where stood the best buildings in Johnstown--the opera
house, the big hotel, many wholesale warehouses, shops and the finest
residences.
"In this plain there are now only the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad train, a
school house, the Morrell Company's store and an adjoining warehouse and
the few buildings of the triangle. One brick residence, badly shattered,
is also standing.
"These structures do not relieve the shocking picture of ruin spread out
below the mountains, but by contrast making it more striking. That part of
the town to the south where the flood tore the narrow path there used to
be a separate village which was called Kernsville. It is now known as the
South Side. Some of the queerest sights of the wreck are there, though few
persons have gone to see them.
"Many of the houses that are left, there scattered helter skelter, thrown
on their sides and standing on their roofs, were never in that
neighborhood nor anywhere near it before. They came down on the breast of
the wave from as far up as Franklin, were carried safely by the factories
and the bridges, by the big buildings at the dividing line, up and down on
the flood and finally settled in their new resting places little injured.
"A row of them, packed closely together and every one tipped over at about
the same angle, is only one of the queer freaks the water played.
"I got into one of these houses in my walk through the town to-day. The
lower story had been filled with water and everything in it had been torn
out. The carpet had been split into strips on the floor by the sheer force
of the rushing tide. Heaps of mud stood in the corners. There was no
vestige of furniture. The walls dripped with moisture.
"The ceiling was gone, the windows were out and the cold rain blew in and
the only thing that was left intact was one of those worked worsted
mottoes that you always expect to find in the homes of working people. It
still hung to the wall, and though much awry the glass and frame were
unbroken. The motto looked grimly and sadly sarcastic. It was:--
'There is no place like home.'
"A melancholy wreck of a home that motto looked down upon.
"I saw a wagon in the middle of a side street sticking tongue and all
straight up into the air, resting on its tail board, with the hind wheels
almost completely buried in the mud. I saw a house standing exactly in the
middle of Napoleon street, the side stove in by crashing against some
other house and in the hole the coffin of its owner was placed.
"Some scholar's library had been strewn over the street in the last stage
of the flood, for there was a trail of good books left half sticking in
the mud and reaching for over a block. One house had been lifted over two
others in some mysterious way and then had settled down between them and
there it stuck, high up in the air, so its former occupants might have got
into it again with ladders.
"Down at the lower end of the course of the stream, where its force was
greater, there was a house lying on one corner and held there by being
fastened in the deep mud. Through its side the trunk of a tree had been
driven like a lance, and there it stayed sticking out straight in the air.
"In the muck was the case and key board of a square piano, and far down
the river, near the debris about the stone bridge, were its legs. An
upright piano, with all its inside apparatus cleanly taken out, stood
straight up a little way off. What was once a set of costly furniture was
strewn all about it, and the house that had contained it was nowhere.
"The remarkable stories that have been told about people floating a mile
up the river and then back two or three times are easily credible after
seeing the evidences of the strange course the flood took in this part of
the town. People who stood near the ruins of Poplar Bridge saw four women
on a roof float up on the stream, turn a short distance above and come
back and go past again and once more return. Then they were seen to go far
down on the current to the lower part of the town and were rescued as they
passed the second-story window of a school house. A man who was imprisoned
in the attic of his house put his wife and two children on a roof that was
eddying past and stayed behind to die alone. They floated up the stream
and then came back and got upon the roof of the very house they had left,
and the whole family were saved.
"At Grubbtown there is a house which came all the way from Woodvale. On it
was a man who lived near Grubbtown, but was working at Woodvale when the
flood came. He was carried right past his own home, and coolly told the
people at the bridge to bid his wife good-bye for him. The house passed
the bridge three times, the man carrying on a conversation with the people
on the shore and giving directions for his burial if his body should be
found.
"The third time the house went up it grounded at Grubbtown, and in an hour
or two the man was safe at home. Three girls who went by on a roof crawled
into the branches of a tree, and had to stay there all night before they
could make anyone understand where they were. At one time scores of
floating houses were wedged in together near the ruins of Poplar street
bridge. Four brave men went out from the shore, and stepping from
house-roof to house-roof brought in twelve women and children.
"Some women crawled from roofs into the attics of houses. In their
struggles with the flood most of their clothes had been torn from them,
and rather than appear on the streets they stayed where they were until
hunger forced them to shout out of the window for help. At this stage of
the flood more persons were lost by being crushed to death than by
drowning. As they floated by on roofs or doors the toppling houses fell
over upon them and killed them.
"The workers began on the wreck on Main street just opposite the First
National Bank, one of the busiest parts of the city. A large number of
people were lost here, the houses being crushed on one side of the street
and being almost untouched on the other, a most remarkable thing
considering the terrific force of the flood. Twenty-one bodies were taken
out in the early morning and taken to the morgue. They were not much
injured, considering the weight of lumber above them.
"In many instances they were wedged in crevices. They were all in a good
state of preservation, and when they were embalmed they looked almost
lifelike. In this central part of the city examination is sure to result
in the unearthing of bodies in every corner. Cottages which are still
standing are banked up with lumber and driftwood, and it is like mining to
make any kind of a clear space.
"Thirteen bodies were taken from the burning debris at the Stone Bridge at
one time yesterday afternoon. None of the bodies were recognizable, and
they were put in coffins and buried immediately. They were so badly
decomposed that it was impossible to keep them until they could be
identified. During a blast at the bridge yesterday afternoon two bodies
were almost blown to pieces. The blasting has had the effect of opening
the channel under the central portion of the bridge.
"The order that was issued that all unidentified dead be buried is being
rapidly carried out. The Rev. Mr. Beall, who has charge of the morgue at
the Fourth Ward school house, which is the chief place, says that a large
force of men has been put at work digging graves, and at the close of the
afternoon the remains will be laid away as rapidly as it can be done.
"William Flynn has taken charge of the army of eleven hundred laborers who
are doing a wonderful amount of work. In an interview he told of the work
that has to be done, and the contractors' estimates show more than
anything the chaotic condition of this city. 'It will take ten thousand
men thirty days to clear the ground so that the streets are passable and
the work of rebuilding can be commenced,' said he, 'and I am at a loss to
know how the work is to be done. This enthusiasm will soon die out and the
volunteers will want to return home.
"'It would take all summer for my men alone to do what work is necessary.
Steps must be taken at once to furnish gangs of workmen, and I shall send
a communication to the Pittsburg Chamber of Commerce asking the different
manufacturers of the Ohio Valley to take turns for a month or so in
furnishing reliefs of workmen.
"'I shall ask that each establishment stop work for a week at a time and
send all hands in the charge of a foreman and timekeeper. We will board
and care for them here. These gangs should come for a week at a time, as
no organization can be affected if workmen arrive and leave when they
please.'
"A meeting was held here in the afternoon which resulted in the
appointment of James B. Scott, of Pittsburg, generalissimo.
"Mr. Scott in an interview said that he proposed to clear the town of all
wreckage and debris of all descriptions and turn the town site over to the
citizens when he has completed his work clean and free from obstructions
of all kinds.
"I was here when the gang came across one of the upper stories of a house.
It was merely a pile of boards apparently, but small pieces of a bureau
and a bed spring from which the clothes had been burned showed the nature
of the find. A faint odor of burned flesh prevailed exactly at this spot.
"'Dig here,' said the physician to the men. 'There is one body at least
quite close to the surface.' The men started in with a will. A large pile
of underclothes and household linen was brought up first. It was of fine
quality and evidently such as would be stored in the bedroom of a house
occupied by people quite well to do.
"Presently one of the men exposed a charred lump of flesh and lifted it up
on the end of a pitchfork. It was all that remained of some poor creature
who had met an awful death between water and fire.
"The trunk was put on a cloth, the ends were looped up, making a bag of
it, and the thing was taken to the river bank. It weighed probably thirty
pounds. A stake was driven in the ground to which a tag was attached
giving a description of the remains. This is done in many cases to the
burned bodies, and they lay covered with cloths upon the bank until men
came with coffins to remove them."