INCIDENTS AT JOHNSTOWN.
“They shall sleep
Where death may deal not again forever,
Where change may come not till all change end.
From the graves they have made they shall rise up never,
Who have left naught living to ravage and rend.
Earth, stones and thorns, of the wild ground growing,
While the sun and the rain live, these shall be,
Till a last wind’s breath, upon all these blowing,
Roll the sea.”
* * * * *
And till in his triumph, where all things falter,
Stretched out on the spoils that his own hand spread,
Like a god self-slain on his own strange altar,
Death lies dead.”
The Johnstown flood has no parallel in suddenness and destructiveness,
save in the convulsions of the earthquake and volcano, agencies which
will be noticed shortly, but which have never wrought such serious havoc
in our own land as elsewhere. But the most deplorable feature of this
terrible calamity is, that it might easily have been averted. It was due
entirely to the culpable carelessness of a club of wealthy
pleasure-seekers. It would be senseless to prate of “mysteries of
Providence” in this connection.
Nothing can give so clear an idea of the exact character of the terrible
flood--totally different from the overflow of a river--than the personal
narratives of survivors. A chapter devoted to these will be of interest,
and serve also to illustrate the breaking up of family and social ties
that are an inevitable consequent of great calamities of every kind.
The flood was slightly less sudden at Johnstown proper than higher up
the valley. Yet, to the inhabitants, in every part of the city, it was
almost instantaneous. All narrators agree in the statement that they
were taken completely by surprise. Few of them, whether by sound of
whistle, or sight of cloud, or of coming torrent, had so much as a
minute’s warning. Mr. Rose seems to have had the longest notice of any.
He reckons less than three minutes after he looked from his window and
saw the flood a mile above, before his house fell, and himself and
family were struggling beneath the water. His carriage-house was broken,
perhaps three minutes in advance of his dwelling. The water which
overthrew it was a sort of advance guard preceding the main body. This
partial division of forces was doubtless due to the two great bends in
the river, which have already been described, or rather to one of them,
since one would have nearly the effect of two. The upper bend was two
miles round, while the railroad cut across the neck was only
seventy-five feet. The smaller portion of water pouring through the cut
got nearly two miles the start of the main body, which had to flow round
the bend. The water which got the start at the first cut had to flow
round the second bend, not being high enough to command the short way
through the second cut. Practically, therefore, the distribution of
water made at two bends and cuts was only a little more than that which
was made at one. Had there been no bends and railroad cuts between
Conemaugh Lake and Johnstown; had the flood been confined for the entire
distance to a single channel, then the towns below would have recognized
no previous swell whatever; a single gigantic wall of water would have
struck Johnstown as distinctly as it struck South Point; the
inhabitants, in most cases, would not have had time even to reach their
[Illustration: MILL CREEK.]
upper stories; the wave, even more than it did, would have crushed as
with the single blow of a mighty hammer, and the number of survivors who
could tell a tale of wonderful deliverance would have been
correspondingly diminished. The lesson of these facts is for those who
dwell below dams or reservoirs. If there be nothing in the nature of the
channel to distribute the water, and the rupture be instantaneous, the
destruction of life and property will be awful to contemplate.
At the Gautier Works, the flood, while extending over all the valley,
was yet parted into three principal divisions. One of these, following
the course of the Conemaugh, rushed down against the foot of the hill,
just above the Stone Bridge, and would have instantly swept away that
magnificently solid structure, had it not stood parallel to, rather than
at right angles with the torrent; another turning to the left, swept
across Conemaugh Borough and the upper wards of Johnstown, destroying
hundreds of stone buildings, the German Lutheran church, and the Hulbert
House; while the third swept straight down through the middle of the
city, demolishing the Y. M. C. A. Hall, the Municipal buildings, and
scores of the finest residences. This last, turned into a reverse
current by the damming of the water at the bridge, was presently rolled
back, to ensure the destruction of whatever had escaped in its downward
course.
Thousands of people, drifted from the towns above, were dead already, or
still struggling in the water; and to these were now quickly added many
thousands more. Of the people of Johnstown, it may be said that not a
soul had time to fly. We hear nothing at all about escapes to the hills.
At the scream of the warning whistle, some were startled, and looked up
the river. According to their place in the town, they saw, at the
distance of a mile, half a mile, or only a hundred yards away, an
ominous and inexplicable dark cloud, which might be smoke or spray,
hanging upon the surface of the water. They felt that something unusual
had taken place, but of its nature they were not well aware. Those who
saw it at the greatest distance had hardly time to scramble to the upper
stories of their dwellings, before, even there, they found themselves
struggling in the water; while the vast majority, on looking forth, saw
buildings, not a half block above them, already leaping from their
foundations. Simultaneous with the roar and rush of the torrent, came
the crash of houses, the shrieks and cries of men, women and children,
the revolution of everything as in a kaleidoscope, and then, driven with
the speed of a race-horse, houses, furniture, cars, locomotives,
railroad tracks, the Gautier plant, animals alive and dead, trees,
lumber and infinite wreckage were rushed onward to be jammed and piled
at the railroad bridge in a maze of ruin fifty feet high and covering
forty acres of ground. Here the laboring waters finding no ready exit,
were in part turned to the left up Stony Creek, and in part rolled
swiftly backward across the center of the city, bearing the drift on
their bosom, and in some instances dropping shattered houses within a
square or two of their former places. The wreckage above the bridge,
entangling and holding fast, hundreds, if not thousands, as well of the
living as the dead, presently caught fire, thus adding, through all the
long awful night, to the horrors of flood, the fiercer horrors of flame.
From the roaring conflagration, a sickly, baleful gleam was thrown
through a mile radius of surrounding gloom; but like the Miltonic fires
of perdition, from those flames
“No light, but rather darkness visible,
Served only to discover sights of woe.”
Some say they saw hundreds throw themselves backward into the flames,
to perish, and the record of the morgues, showing how often a charred
arm or leg or half a body was interred, prove that upon many, dead or
alive, the fire did its awful work, while in many cases, doubtless, it
was done so effectually that not a remnant could be found.
As the night drew on, St. John’s Roman Catholic church which had
successfully withstood the angry waters, was seen to be on fire, driving
out the miserable creatures that had taken refuge in it, and with its
fierce heat scorching those on the surrounding drift, till they were
fain to relax their hold and drop into the water. Those flames, as they
climbed the beautiful spire and seized the emblem of Christianity on its
lofty top, seemed to mock the confidence of those who in their last
extremity were still clinging to the cross. In the tower of the Lutheran
church, near to Stony Creek, the town clock was still sustained far
above the raging waters. The flood had struck the city at four, and as
the hour of five drew on, when drifting corpses were now everywhere, and
thousands clinging to the wreck lay at the mercy of the flood or flame,
the mechanism of the clock serenely moving brought the hands to mark the
hour, and slowly five times the ponderous hammer smote the massive bell,
tolling the knell of thousands which that hour had rushed into eternity.
On the ears of the living, the sound of those slowly beating strokes
fell with a horrible sensation; for at the end of another hour would be
tolled a dirge for them. There was something terrible in the calmness of
that clock, faithfully telling the flight of Father Time, reckless
whether he had brought joy or woe to mortal men.
But not engulfing flood, nor burning temple, nor holocaust of victims at
the bridge could shake the steadfast confidence of many in their God.
One little boy, when his mother and the rest were clinging in the drift
at the
[Illustration: AT THE STONE BRIDGE.]
bridge, asked, “Mamma, where is that God that Mr. Beale and Mr. Moore
told us about, and said that he would save us?” but another little boy,
despairing of temporal deliverance, was heard closing his prayer with
the beautiful words of the 23rd Psalm: “Though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of Death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy
rod and thy staff, they comfort me.” A son asked his mother, “Will we
die?” She answered, “I can not tell; but one thing I _do_ know, that God
does all things well, and if he wants us to-night, he will take us; if
not, he will find a way for our escape. We will go and sit down and see
what the Lord will do.” A pastor, just escaped with his family to the
third story, and waist-deep in water, before he could reach it,
instantly opened and read from the family Bible, which he had caught up
in his flight: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in
trouble; therefore, will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and
though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the
waters thereof roar and be troubled; though the mountains shake with the
swelling thereof.” One of the sweetest singers in the city had retreated
with her family to the attic; the house was lifted and apparently moving
to destruction, when, to soothe her children and her husband, she calmly
sang, “Jesus, lover of my soul.” While she continued to sing, the end of
a large tree, having great roots, was driven through the house,
anchoring it firmly just in the edge of Stony Creek River. A man who was
carried over the Stone Bridge, saw a lady on a piece of wreckage
shooting down the valley of death, and heard her singing those same
immortal words of Charles Wesley; written by him at night, by a feeble
spark, in a spring-house, where he was hiding from a raging mob:
“Jesus, lover of my soul,
Let me to thy bosom fly,
While the raging waters roll,
While the tempest still is high.”
A venerable man was seen upon his knees, with clasped hands, gazing
steadfastly at the cross above St. John’s Roman Catholic church; while
another, converted the previous winter, full of faith, and always
rejoicing in hope, was last seen kneeling upon the roof of his house,
riding with the torrent, and shouting, “Glory to God.”
The narratives of the survivors, whether from the upper, middle, or
lower portions of the city, all alike serve to show that the suddenness
of the doom could only be equalled by its awful horror.
The Hulbert House, built of brick, and one of the finest hotels in
Johnstown, stood in the upper portion of the city. There were about
sixty persons in it at the time of the catastrophe, and of these, the
lives of forty-nine were lost. Many of these were in the office, when an
unusual whistling of engines was heard. Imagining a fire had broken out
in the midst of the flood, they all ran to the upper stories, except the
proprietor, the clerk, and one guest. Two or three minutes later, the
clerk walked to the window, and looked across the Conemaugh in the
direction of Prospect Hill, and seeing what he mistook for a great cloud
of dust, exclaimed, “My God, the hill is falling!” At that, the
proprietor ran to the door, and looking up the street, realized at once
the situation. Directing the other two to hasten upstairs and spread the
alarm, he ran to the kitchen to warn the girls; then fleeing to the
fourth floor, he reached it just as the building fell. One of the few
survivors declares that the catastrophe overtook nearly all the guests
no further advanced than to the foot of the stairway on the third floor,
and as yet unapprized of the nature of their danger.
Rev. D. M. Miller, pastor of the Presbyterian church in East Conemaugh,
had his home in Johnstown. To him and his family the deluge came without
a moment’s warning. They were in an upper room, fearing, suspecting
nothing, till they saw houses not half a square away starting from their
places, reeling and crackling onward over fences, telephone poles and
fruit-trees, and jostling against each other. Before they could fly in
any direction, they were waist-deep in water. Beneath the lower sash
which was raised, Mr. Miller sprang out upon some floating timbers,
urging his wife to follow. She, however, mounted the bed, which being
instantly forced up to the ceiling she was almost smothered. The water
had closed the opening beneath the sash, and up to her neck in water she
now set herself desperately to effect an opening at the top of the
window, but she only tore her hands in the vain attempt to wrench away
the slat. Mr. Miller, by this time recovering from his first plunge,
with one hand caught hold of the spout beneath the eaves, and with the
other, battered through two panes of glass, cutting himself badly.
Drawing up one foot, with it he now kicked out the sash, when his wife
dived out under the lintel, expecting to reach footing on the roof of a
small porch below. The porch, however, was gone, and she disappeared
deep beneath the turbid flood. A moment later, by some violent
ebullition of the water, she was thrown to the surface, and at once laid
hold on the spout. Meanwhile, the house was drifting rapidly toward
Stony Creek. When the vast number of houses adrift struck the hill
beyond the stream there was a fearful rebound; many houses were crushed
to splinters, many were upset, and scores of clinging wretches were
mangled, killed, or plunged into the water and drowned. The current,
arrested by the hill, divided; a part turned to the left up Stony
Creek, carrying many houses nearly a mile; part turned to the right, to
add its freightage of life and ruin to the already tremendous gorge
above the bridge, while between these currents a central portion was
rolled back in the direction whence it came. On this portion Mr.
Miller’s house was carried, till wandering round and having described
two-thirds of a complete circle, by the subsidence of the water it found
rest at last not more than a hundred yards from its original position.
During much of this journey the pastor and his wife, up to their necks
in water, and battered and bruised incessantly by the terrible drift,
were clinging to the spout. At last two of their neighbors being in some
manner, incomprehensible to themselves, thrown upon the roof and sitting
on the comb, after a time espied beneath the eaves the heads of the
unfortunate couple. To creep down to the edge of the steep roof,
slippery through incessant rain and recover the pastor and his wife was
an undertaking fraught with extreme peril, yet these men, as did
hundreds more in this awful hour, freely risked their lives in the
effort to save others. A little later a woman and a boy were recovered,
and brought to the same roof, on the comb of which six persons now sat
until nightfall, when the house having ceased from its wanderings, they
managed to creep into the attic. This being unfinished, there was no
floor on which even the sick could lie; so, in the dark, in their torn
and wet and filthy garments, through all the long, dreary hours of an
endless night, through the forenoon of the following day, and until the
middle of the afternoon, on a narrow board, they sat together until the
rescuers came. Then there was a laborious clambering over broken houses
and great piles of wreck, a tramp of half a mile through mud and water,
when they found at last rest and refuge and friends. Twenty-eight hours
they
[Illustration: DESPERATE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE, JOHNSTOWN.]
had passed without a wink of sleep or a morsel of food, while their
wounds and bruises were such as for a time to render doubtful their
recovery.
Mr. Calliver, a machinist, had his dwelling in one of the upper wards of
the city. His wife, an invalid, had not walked for seven years. He was
watching the flood, and telling his neighbors that the worst was already
past, when, looking up the river, he saw houses bounding from their
places and skurrying towards him. He shouted to his family at once to
flee to the attic, but, before they could reach it they were knee-deep
in water. The house was floated, and borne swiftly away, but fortunately
did not turn over. It drifted out of the main current, struck upon
something, and was held fast, while other buildings were drifted onward.
Union street school house was near, and to this place, late in the
afternoon, by clambering over the accumulated drift, it became possible
to escape. Here they found themselves in the company of nearly two
hundred others rescued in various ways. Some were crippled, some were
shivering with cold, and all had lost their nearest and dearest friends.
Many were in awful suspense concerning the fate of loved ones. A
sleepless, endless night dragged its slow hours along, and when at last
Mr. Calliver, watching anxiously from the roof, saw the first gleam in
the east, he cried out in an ecstasy, “It is morning! it is morning!”
After deliverance came, being curious to know what it was that had so
opportunely arrested his floating house, he made examination, and found
that, of several open cars that had drifted into the neighborhood, one
had dropped endwise into a cellar, and his house driven upon the end
that was elevated had been penetrated with the shaft of the brake-wheel,
and securely held in that place.
Rev. David J. Beale, D.D., pastor of the Presbyterian church, to whose
authentic and thrillingly interesting book “Through the Johnstown
Flood,” we are principally indebted for our statement of facts, and to
which the reader is referred for a fuller account, records an
experience, which, like those already narrated, serves to show that the
visitation was as sudden as it was awful. His first intimation of the
coming ruin was a roar, increasing like that of an approaching train,
and a moment later the torrent had struck his residence. Urging in
advance of him his family and two neighbors who were present, he rushed
up stairs, and reaching the second floor found himself already
waist-deep in water. At that instant, a man was shot by the force of the
current through the window, and to the sudden interrogatories, “Who are
you? Where did you come from?” breathless and strangling, he could only
answer, “Woodvale.” He had been carried on a floating roof a mile and a
quarter, and as it violently struck the parsonage, he was pitched from
his hold and dashed through the window. In another minute the whole
company were in the third story, witnesses, blanched and mute, of the
awful scene of destruction and death.
They recognized many acquaintances and friends riding on to death. They
saw two little children, almost nude, clinging to one roof; four young
ladies, in agonized embrace, clinging to another; houses for squares
north and west torn from their places, and the whole drawn onward, to be
crushed and jammed in the gorge below. Meanwhile, Capt. A. N. Hart, his
wife and two children, were seen struggling in the wreckage which had
drifted near the parsonage, and Mr. Beale, descending into the water in
the second story, assisted them to enter through the window. Their
arrival in the garret increased to fifteen the number of persons there
collected.
The parsonage now began to show evident signs of giving way, and it was
decided to abandon it. After an unsuccessful attempt to gain the roof,
the whole party were safely passed by means of a rope from the highest
window to a floating roof below. They had hoped to reach the church,
which still stood secure, a short distance away; but, on making the
attempt, they found themselves confronted with fifty feet of water which
could not be crossed. They now began a perilous journey over wreckage to
Alma Hall, half a square away. This was a four-story building, the
largest and strongest in the city. Their way lay over logs and roofs and
houses, fixed or moving box cars, and various debris which often
concealed them from one another. One of the young ladies, crossing open
water on a scantling, fell and disappeared, all but her floating hair,
by which she was caught and recovered. About dark they gained the hall,
and found no less than two hundred and sixty fortunate unfortunates like
themselves, rescued in wondrous ways from ghastly death.
Then followed the long night of sleepless horror, unillumined, save from
the burning church, and from the horrible holocaust at the bridge. The
suppressed moans of those with bruised bodies and broken limbs, the
crying of little children, cold and wet and hungry, and without a place
to lay their heads, the anxiety for loved ones, the mourning for them
that were certainly lost, the momentary dread lest the building should
give way and yet overwhelm all with sudden death, conspired to make it a
night never to be forgotten. Morning came at last, and then, as the sun
rose above the hills, might have been seen a curious and mournful
procession. Descending through a window, they walked and jumped, and
crawled and clambered over several blocks, filled with broken buildings,
cars, trees, furniture, bridges and dead bodies, till they reached the
hill.
What a spectacle of human misery was there presented!
[Illustration: THE GORGE AT THE BRIDGE.]
Fully three thousand people were gathered, weary, wet, cold, haggard,
hungry, homeless, shoeless, hatless, coatless, ragged, muddy, many
almost naked, gazing in mute despair, in awful anguish that could shed
no tear (for no tears were shed) upon miles of wreck, containing by the
thousand the dead bodies of husbands, wives, parents, children, lovers,
and precious friends. Could humanity be called to suffer more?
Mr. Horace W. Rose, Esq., a prominent attorney about fifty years of age,
had spent his life in Johnstown, and remembered distinctly all the great
floods it had experienced. The highest he had seen was in 1887, and he
had little fear that ever he would see another higher. He was not
alarmed when the water entered the lower story of his dwelling, but as
he saw it advance above the wash board, and with its foul freight stain
the beautiful paper recently put upon the wall, he was not without a
feeling of sadness. He conversed pleasantly with his neighbors, and
twitted their children with invitations to come across the way and make
a friendly visit. Fifteen minutes before the catastrophe he was engaged
in shooting rats, and continued the occupation until hearing a loud
crash, he ran to the back part of his house, and saw that the water had
broken down his carriage-house and was driving the carriage into the
yard. At the same moment he heard cries, the alarm of a bell, and the
loud screams of a steam whistle. Feeling that something awful must have
happened, he ran to the third floor, followed by all his family, and
looking out through a window, which permitted a view of nearly a mile up
the Conemaugh, the awful fact was at once apparent. “I saw stretching
from hill to hill, a great mass of timber, trees, roofs and debris of
every sort, rapidly advancing, wrecking and carrying everything before
it. It was then about the midst of what was known as the Gautier Works,
a department of the Cambria Iron Works, which covered perhaps ten or
eleven acres of ground. A dense cloud hung over the line of the rolling
debris, which I then supposed was the steam and soot which had arisen
from hundreds of fires in the Gautier Works as the waves rolled over
them. I stood and looked as the resistless tide moved on, and saw brick
buildings crushed in an instant pass out of sight, while frame tenements
were quickly crushed to atoms.
“Members of my family asked me if there was no escape. I answered, ‘No;
this means death to us all.’ My wife with blanched face said, ‘Won’t our
big strong house stand?’ I replied deliberately: ‘No, Maggie; no
building can stand this awful jam, and we are all lost.’
“The press of the heaving, surging mass rolled steadily on, and in less
than three minutes, as nearly as I can estimate time, from the moment I
saw the front of the angry torrent it was upon us. The great Municipal
building above me fell with a crash. The stately dwelling of my
neighbor, John Dibert, was broken to atoms. I walked rapidly to the
southeast window, and saw the front of the brick dwelling above and
adjoining mine, crushed to rubbish. Several persons were floating
directly down Main street, in front of me; a large frame building
directly opposite me careened, at the attic windows of which I saw a
number of ladies, one of whom held an infant in her arms; there was a
crash, a sensation of falling, a consciousness that I was in the water,
and all was dark. A moment later, I felt the press of a heavy shock, a
sense of excruciating pain, involving my right breast, shoulder and arm.
The thought came upon me that I was being crushed to death, that I could
not long endure the agony I then suffered, and that death would come
soon. I watched for the change, expecting in a moment to know the
reality of eternity. I heard the moan of my eldest son, who was at my
side when the crash came.
“I felt myself struggling, with my left hand clutching at something, I
know not what. I heard the voice of my youngest son, as I thought,
imploring me to aid him. I told him I was powerless to succor him. A
moment later I realized that he was endeavoring to have me reach a
higher elevation, when I told him my whole right side was crushed; he
came to my relief and aided me in getting upon a fragment of the slate
roof. A moment after, a little boy whom I had sheltered, appeared and
informed me that my wife was drowned; he had barely made this
announcement when I saw my only daughter, June, rise up out of the water
among the debris to perhaps her waist, and immediately sink out of
sight. As she sank, I saw my wife rise out of the water to about her
waist, and almost immediately sink out of sight; a moment after, they
rose together, and I saw my son Winter, a lad of twenty years, a strong,
robust person, and heard him say, ‘Ma, hold on to me, and I can save
you.’ I was lying on my side, perhaps twenty or twenty-five feet distant
from where my wife, daughter and son were struggling, the skin torn from
the right side of my face, the blood flowing profusely from the wound,
the skin torn from the back of my left hand, my right collar-bone
broken, my shoulder-blade fractured, the ribs crushed in upon my lung,
my right arm from shoulder to wrist lying limp on my side, powerless to
give aid or assistance to my loved ones. At this moment a young man
seemed to shoot up and out of the debris at my side; I realized that he
was an acquaintance, but could not name him. I at once, however,
addressed him, saying, ‘Young man, won’t you go and help Winter save my
wife and daughter? I am helpless; my whole right side and arm are
crushed.’ He made no reply, but
[Illustration: THE BATTLE WITH THE WATERS.]
at once hastened across the debris, and aided in relieving my wife from
the timbers in which she was pinioned. Then he immediately disappeared
from my sight; but I afterward learned he was Harry Philips, who was
reared in Johnstown, was then practicing his profession of dentistry in
Pittsburg; was home on a visit, and in the house of Dr. L. T. Beam, and
was the only person who escaped with his life, while his mother, niece,
nephew and brother-in-law were lost in the flood. My eldest son had
disappeared. I believed I had heard his dying moan. All the other
inmates of my house at the time it was struck, were now floating on
different fragments of houses, and being rushed with fearful velocity in
a westerly course to and across the Stony Creek River.
“They saw a stout roof on the edge of the debris and succeeded in
reaching it; an old lady on bended knees and holding with her hands,
floated by on a shutter, and Winter assisted her to gain the roof; the
current suddenly turned and swept them rapidly up Stony Creek, a
distance of half a mile; they came to rest above Morris street in the
Fifth Ward, and lay for a considerable time; some inexplicable force
then carried them across the river, and they lay for a while in the
mouth of Franklin street; the Catholic church was on fire, and the town
clock struck five; a cold and pitiless rain poured down upon them; the
current now changed and buildings and wreckage were borne rapidly down
the stream; as houses were broken to pieces, clinging wretches with wild
shrieks sank to watery graves; the two sons were separated from the
remainder of the family on the roof; it drifted once more down the
stream, was struck by a heavier building and pushed upon the bank; over
various drift they climbed till they reached a three-story brick which
stood intact; they entered it just as the town clock struck six--two
awful hours, and yet no member of the family lost. Happier far their
fate than that of many others. The two boys returned to their parents at
four o’clock the next day.”
These incidents will suffice. Thousands of the same sort might be given.
No wonder that many were crazed with grief. One woman, wife and mother,
sole survivor of a happy family, was found sitting in the wreck, holding
in her arms her family clock which she had found. She told her story
without a tear. Her mind was unbalanced. A man who had never been known
to touch liquor was found the day after the flood, reeling to the
bridge, drunk and raving, determined to drown himself. In agony at the
loss of all he held dear, he had taken to drink, that he might remember
his misery no more; but in vain: whisky could not destroy his terrible
memories. Talmage in a letter to the New York _World_, said: “Such an
avalanche of horrors never slipped upon any American city. Horrors piled
on horrors, woe augmenting woe; bankruptcy, orphanage, widowhood,
childlessness, obliterated homesteads, gorged cemeteries and scenes so
excruciating it is a marvel that any one could look upon them and escape
insanity * * * *
“Was the work of devastation as great as I supposed? Far worse. Types
can not tell it. Only the eye can make revelation. But the worst part of
it can not be seen. The heart-wreck caused by the sudden departure of so
many can be open only to one eye, and that the All-Seeing. Think of one
family of fourteen all dead except one, and that the wife and mother,
and she the witness of their drowning. I saw the grave trench in which
two hundred and sixty were buried, and the whole graveyard like a
national cemetery, in which the unrecognized dead have a particular
number placed above them and are recorded in the undertaker’s rooms
with a description of the body and clothes.”
On many a life a shadow has been cast that will never be lifted. Many a
heart will ache until it breaks. One who had lost wife and children and
was alone, whose verses and whose name the world has never heard, more
than thirty years ago wrote the following most touchingly beautiful
lines, which will find an echo in the hearts of thousands of survivors
of the Johnstown flood, as well as among countless millions of others in
every age of the world:
Down by the cedar sitting,
Lonely and sad and still,
Watching the shadows flitting
Over the distant hill.
Yearning for by-gone hours,
Never again to come;
Longing for beauteous flowers,
Never again to bloom.
Ever there flits before me
A shadowy form and face;
Ever it hovers o’er me,
Wearing a nameless grace.
Above my brow there lingers
A breath like summer air;
Unseen and loving fingers
Stray through my tangled hair.
Silence, slow creeping nigh me,
Out from the leafy shade,
Bringeth the dead hours by me,
And rests on the darkening glade.
O ye beloved of spring time,
Can ye come back no more?
Bending I trace your footsteps
Over the distant shore;
Down to the misty river,
Into the depths of death,
Seeking your presence ever,
Praying with sobbing breath,
“Can ye come back no more?”
Echoing clear from the unseen shore,
Answer sweet voices “No more, no more!”
O for the pearly gates
Of the golden nightless plain,
Where your gentle spirit waits
For the hour we meet again.
Out from the darkness, soft and plain,
Comes the glad echo, “_We meet again_.”