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[Illustration: MAP OF THE DELUGED CONEMAUGH DISTRICT.]
HISTORY
OF
THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD.
INCLUDING
ALL THE FEARFUL RECORD; THE BREAKING OF THE SOUTH FORK DAM;
THE SWEEPING OUT OF THE CONEMAUGH VALLEY; THE OVER-THROW
OF JOHNSTOWN; THE MASSING OF THE WRECK AT
THE RAILROAD BRIDGE; ESCAPES, RESCUES, SEARCHES
FOR SURVIVORS AND THE DEAD; RELIEF
ORGANIZATIONS, STUPENDOUS CHARITIES,
ETC., ETC.
WITH FULL ACCOUNTS ALSO OF THE
DESTRUCTION ON THE SUSQUEHANNA AND JUNIATA RIVERS, AND THE
BALD EAGLE CREEK.
BY
WILLIS FLETCHER JOHNSON.
_ILLUSTRATED._
EDGEWOOD PUBLISHING CO.,
1889.
Copyright, 1889, by
WILLIS FLETCHER JOHNSON.
PREFACE.
The summer of 1889 will ever be memorable for its appalling disasters by
flood and flame. In that period fell the heaviest blow of the nineteenth
century--a blow scarcely paralleled in the histories of civilized lands.
Central Pennsylvania, a centre of industry, thrift and comfort, was
desolated by floods unprecedented in the records of the great waters. On
both sides of the Alleghenies these ravages were felt in terrific power,
but on the western slope their terrors were infinitely multiplied by the
bursting of the South Fork Reservoir, letting out millions of tons of
water, which, rushing madly down the rapid descent of the Conemaugh
Valley, washed out all its busy villages and hurled itself in a deadly
torrent on the happy borough of Johnstown. The frightful aggravations
which followed the coming of this torrent have waked the deepest
sympathies of this nation and of the world, and the history is demanded
in permanent form, for those of the present day, and for the generation
to come.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
The Conemaugh Valley in Springtime--Johnstown and its
Suburbs--Founded a Hundred Years ago--The Cambria Iron
Works--History of a Famous Industry--American Manufacturing
Enterprise Exemplified--Making Bessemer Steel--Social and
Educational Features--The Busiest City of its Size in the
State, 15
CHAPTER II.
Conemaugh Lake--Remains of an Old-time Canal System--Used for
the Pleasure of Sportsmen--The Hunting and Fishing
Club--Popular Distrust Growing into Indifference--The Old
Cry of "Wolf!"--Building a Dam of Straw and Mud--Neglect
Ripening into Fitness for a Catastrophe, 31
CHAPTER III.
Dawning of the Fatal Day--Darkness and Rain--Rumors of
Evil--The Warning Voice Unheeded--A Whirlwind of Watery
Death--Fate of a Faithful Telegrapher--What an Eye-Witness
Saw--A Solid Wall of Water Rushing Down the Valley, 42
CHAPTER IV.
The Pathway of the Torrent--Human Beings Swept away like
Chaff--The Twilight of Terror--The Wreck of East
Conemaugh--Annihilation of Woodvale--Locomotives Tossed
about like Cockle-shells by the mighty Maelstrom, 51
CHAPTER V.
"Johnstown is Annihilated"--Appearance of the Wreck--An Awful
Sabbath Spectacle--A Sea of Mud and Corpses--The City in a
Gigantic Whirlpool--Strange Tokens of the Fury of the
Flood--Scene from the Bridge--Sixty Acres of Débris--A
Carnival of Slaughter, 66
CHAPTER VI.
Pictures of the Flood Drawn by Eye-witnesses--A Score of
Locomotives Swallowed up--Railroad Cars Swept
away--Engineers who would not Abandon their Posts--Awful
Scenes from a Car Window--A Race for Life--Victims of the
Flood, 81
CHAPTER VII.
Some Heroes of the Flood--The Ride of Collins Graves at
Williamsburg Recalled--John G. Parke's Heroic
Warning--Gallant Self-Sacrifice of Daniel Peyton--Mrs. Ogle,
the Intrepid Telegraph Operator--Wholesale Life Saving by
Miss Nina Speck, 97
CHAPTER VIII.
Stories of Suffering--A Family Swept away at a Stroke--Beside
a Sister's Corpse--A Bride Driven Mad--The Unidentified
Dead--Courage in the Face of Death--Thanking God his Child
had not Suffered--One Saved out of a Household of
Thirteen--Five Saved out of Fifty-Five, 108
CHAPTER IX.
Stories of Railroad Men and Travelers who were in the Midst of
the Catastrophe--A Train's Race with the Wave--Houses
Crushed like Eggshells--Relics of the Dead in the Tree
tops--A Night of Horrors--Fire and Flood Commingled--Lives
Lost for the Sake of a Pair of Shoes, 119
CHAPTER X.
Scenes in a House of Refuge--Stealing from the Dead--A
Thousand Bodies seen Passing over the Bridge--"Kill us or
Rescue us!"--Thrilling Escapes and Agonizing
Losses--Children Born amid the Flood--A Night in Alma
Hall--Saved through Fear, 137
CHAPTER XI.
The Flight to the Mountains--Saving a Mother and her Babe--The
Hillsides Black with Refugees--An Engineer's Story--How the
Dam gave away--Great Trees Snapped off like Pipe-stems by
the Torrent, 147
CHAPTER XII.
A Desperate Voyage--Scenes like those after a Great
Battle--Mother and Babe Dead together--Praying as they
Drifted to Destruction--Children Telling the Story of
Death--Significant Greetings between Friends--Prepared for
any News, 154
CHAPTER XIII.
Salutations in the City of the Dead--Crowds at the
Morgues--Endless Trains of Wagons with Ghastly
Freight--Registering the Survivors--Minds Unsettled by the
Tragedy--Horrible Fragments of Humanity Scattered through
Piles of Rubbish, 161
CHAPTER XIV.
Recognizing the Dead--Food and Clothing for Destitute
Survivors--Looking for the Lost--The Bereaved Burying their
Dead--Drowned Close by a Place of Safety--A Heroic
Editor--One who would not be Comforted, 171
CHAPTER XV.
A Bird'seye View of the Ruined City--Conspicuous Features of
the Disaster--The Railroad Lines--Stones and Iron Tossed
about like Driftwood--An Army Officer's Valuable Services in
Restoring and Maintaining Order, 179
CHAPTER XVI.
Clearing a Road up the Creek--Fantastic Forms of Ruin--An
Abandoned Locomotive with no Rail to Run on--Iron Beams Bent
like Willow Twigs--Night in the Valley--Scenes and Sounds of
an Inferno, 188
CHAPTER XVII.
Sights that Greeted Visitors--Wreckage Along the Valley--Ruins
of the Cambria Iron Works--A Carnival of Drink--Violence and
Robbery--Camping on the Hillsides--Rich and Poor alike
Benefit, 198
CHAPTER XVIII.
The First Train Load of Anxious Seekers--Hoping against
Hope--Many Instances of Heroism--Victims Seen Drifting down
beyond the Reach of Help--Unavailing Efforts to Rescue the
Prey of the Flood, 207
CHAPTER XIX.
Newspaper Correspondents Making their Way in--The Railroads
Helpless--Hiring a Special Train--Making Desperate
Speed--First faces of the Flood--Through to Johnstown at
Last, 216
CHAPTER XX.
The Work of the Reporters--Strange Chronicles of Heroism and
of Woe--Deadly Work of the Telegraph Wires--A Baby's Strange
Voyage--Prayer wonderfully Answered--Steam against Torrent,
228
CHAPTER XXI.
Human Ghouls and Vampires on the Scene--A Short Shrift for
Marauders--Vigilance Committees Enforcing Order--Plunderers
of the Dead Relentlessly Dispatched--Outbursts of Righteous
Indignation, 238
CHAPTER XXII
The Cry for Help and the Nation's Answer--President Harrison's
Eloquent and Effective Appeal--Governor Beaver's Message--A
Proclamation by the Governor of New York--Action of the
Commissioner of Pensions--Help from over the Sea, 249
CHAPTER XXIII.
The American Heart and Purse Opened Wide--A Flood of Gold
against the Flood of Water--Contributions from every Part
of the Country, in Sums Large and Small, 265
CHAPTER XXIV.
Benefactions of Philadelphia--Organization of Charity--Train
loads of Food and Clothing--Generous spirit of Convicts in
the Penitentiary--Contributions from over the Sea--Queen
Victoria's sympathy--Letter from Florence Nightingale, 281
CHAPTER XXV.
Raising a Great Relief Fund in New York--Where the Money
came from--Churches, Theatres and Prisons join in the good
work--More than One Hundred Thousand Dollars a Day--A few
Names from the Great Roll of Honor, 292
CHAPTER XXVI.
Breaking up the Ruins and Burying the Dead--Innumerable
Funerals--The Use of Dynamite--The Holocaust at the
Bridge--The Cambria Iron Works--Pulling out Trees with
Locomotives, 299
CHAPTER XXVII.
Caring for the Sufferers--Noble Work of Miss Clara Barton
and the Red Cross Society--A Peep into a Hospital--Finding
Homes for the Orphans--Johnstown Generous in its Woe--A
Benevolent Eating House, 309
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Recovering from the Blow--The Voice of the Locomotive Heard
again--Scenes Day by Day amid the Ruins and at the
Morgue--Strange Salvage from the Flood--A Family of
Little Children, 319
CHAPTER XXIX.
The City Filled with Life Again--Work and Bustle on Every
Hand--Railroad Trains Coming In--Pathetic Meetings of
Friends--Persistent Use of Dynamite to Break Up the
Masses of Wreckage--The Daily Record of Work Amid the
Dead, 341
CHAPTER XXX.
Scenes at the Relief Stations--The Grand Army of the
Republic in Command--Imposing Scenes at the Railroad
Station--Cars Loaded with Goods for the Relief of the
Destitute, 353
CHAPTER XXXI.
General Hastings' Headquarters--Duties of the Military
Staff--A Flood of Telegrams of Inquiry Pouring In--Getting
the Post-office to Work Again--Wholesale Embalming--The
Morgue in the Presbyterian Church--The Record of the
Unknown Dead--A Commemorative Newspaper Club, 358
CHAPTER XXXII.
A Cross between a Military and a Mining Camp--Work of the
Army Engineers--Equipping Constables--Pressure on the
Telegraph Lines--Photographers not Encouraged--Sight-seers
Turned Away--Strange Uses for Coffins, 370
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Sunday Amid the Ruins--Services in One Church and in the
Open Air--The Miracle at the Church of the Immaculate
Conception--Few Women and Children Seen--Disastrous
Work of Dynamite--A Happy Family in the Wreck, 378
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Plans for the Future of Johnstown--The City to be Rebuilt
on a Finer Scale than Ever Before--A Real Estate Boom
Looked For--Enlarging the Conemaugh--Views of
Capitalists, 387
CHAPTER XXXV.
Well-known People who Narrowly Escaped the Flood--Mrs.
Halford's Experience--Mrs. Childs Storm bound--Tales
Related by Travelers--A Theatrical Company's Plight, 393
CHAPTER XXXVI.
The Ubiquitous Reporter Getting There--Desperate Traveling
through a Storm-swept Country--Special Trains and Special
Teams--Climbing Across the Mountains--Rest for the Weary
in a Hay Mow, 402
CHAPTER XXXVII.
The Reporter's Life at Johnstown--Nothing to Eat, but Much
to Do--Kindly Remembrances of a Kindly Friend--Driven
from Bed by Rats--Three Hours of Sleep in Seventy-two--A
Picturesque Group, 410
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Williamsport's Great Losses--Flooded with Thirty-four Feet
of Water--Hundreds of Millions of Feet of Lumber Swept
Away--Loss of Life--Incidents of Rescue and of Death--The
Story of Garret Crouse and his Gray Horse, 421
CHAPTER XXXIX.
The Juniata Valley Ravaged by the Storm--Losses at Tyrone,
Huntingdon and Lewistown--Destruction at Lock Haven--A
Baby's Voyage Down Stream--Romantic Story of a Wedding, 435
CHAPTER XL.
The Floods along the Potomac--The National Capital
Submerged--A Terrible Record in Maryland--Gettysburg
a Sufferer--Tidings of Devastation from Many Points in
Several States, 444
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
MAP OF THE DELUGED CONEMAUGH DISTRICT, 1
JOHNSTOWN AS LEFT BY THE FLOOD, 19
RUINS OF JOHNSTOWN VIEWED FROM PROSPECT HILL, 37
GENERAL VIEW OF THE RUINS, LOOKING UP STONY CREEK, 55
RUINS, SHOWING THE PATH OF THE FLOOD, 73
TYPICAL SCENE IN JOHNSTOWN, 91
JOHNSTOWN--VIEW CORNER OF MAIN AND CLINTON STREETS, 109
VIEW ON CLINTON STREET, JOHNSTOWN, 127
MAIN AND CLINTON STREETS, LOOKING SOUTHWEST, 145
RUINS, CORNER OF CLINTON AND MAIN STREETS, 163
RUINS, FROM SITE OF THE HULBURT HOUSE, 181
THE DÉBRIS ABOVE THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD BRIDGE, 199
RUINS OF THE CAMBRIA IRON WORKS, 217
RUINS OF THE CAMBRIA IRON COMPANY'S STORE, 235
THIRD STREET, WILLIAMSPORT, PA., DURING THE FLOOD, 253
WRECK OF THE IRON BRIDGE AT WILLIAMSPORT, PA., 271
WRECK OF THE LUMBER YARDS AT WILLIAMSPORT, PA., 289
250,000,000 FEET OF LOGS AFLOAT IN THE SUSQUEHANNA, 307
LAST TRAINS IN AND OUT OF HARRISBURG, 325
COLUMBIA, PA., UNDER THE FLOOD, 343
PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE AT SIXTH STREET, WASHINGTON, D. C., 361
SEVENTH STREET, WASHINGTON, D. C., IN THE FLOOD, 379
FOURTEENTH STREET, WASHINGTON, D. C., IN THE FLOOD, 397
THE FLOOD IN WASHINGTON, D. C., OPPOSITE HARRIS'S THEATRE, 415
CHAPTER I.
Springtime in the mountains. Graceful slopes and frowning precipices
robed in darkest green of hemlock and spruce. Open fields here and there
verdant with young grass and springing grain, or moist and brown beneath
the plow for the planting time. Hedgerow and underwood fragrant with
honeysuckle and wild blackberry bloom; violets and geraniums purpling
the forest floor. Conemaugh creek and Stony creek dash and plunge and
foam along their rocky channels to where they unite their waters and
form the Conemaugh river, hastening down to the Ohio, to the
Mississippi, to the Mexican Gulf. Trout and pickerel and bass flash
their bronze and silver armor in the sparkling shallows of the streams
and in the sombre and placid depths of the lake up yonder behind the old
mud dam. Along the valley of the Conemaugh are ranged villages, towns,
cities: Conemaugh, Johnstown, Cambria, Sang Hollow, Nineveh, and others,
happy and prosperous. Conemaugh nestles at the very foot of the
Alleghenies; all railroad trains eastward bound stop there to catch
their breath before beginning the long climb up to Altoona. Sang Hollow
nestles by the river amid almost tropical luxuriance of vegetation; yon
little wooded islet in mid-stream a favorite haunt of fishermen. Nineveh
is rich in bog iron and coal, and the whirr of the mill-wheel is heard.
Johnstown, between the two creeks at their junction, is the queen city
of the valley. On either side the creek, and beyond, the steep mountain
sides; behind, the narrow valley reaching twenty miles back to the lake;
before, the Conemaugh river just beginning its romantic course. Broken
hillsides streaked with torrents encompass it. Just a century ago was
Johnstown founded by one Joseph Johns, a German settler. Before then its
beauteous site was occupied by an Indian village, Kickenapawling. Below
this was the head of navigation on the Conemaugh. Hither came the
wagoners of the Alleghenies, with huge wains piled high with merchandise
from seaboard cities, and placed it on flat-bottomed boats and started
it down the river-way to the western markets. The merchandise came up
from Philadelphia and Baltimore by river, too; up the Susquehanna and
Juniata, to the eastern foot-hills, and there was a great portage from
the Juniata to the Conemaugh; the Kittanning Trail, then the Frankstown
Turnpike. Later came the great trunk railroad whose express trains now
go roaring down the valley.
Johnstown is--nay, Johnstown was!--a busy and industrious place. The
people of the town were the employees of the Cambria Iron and Steel
Company, their families, and small storekeepers. There was not one rich
man in the town. Three-quarters of the 28,000 people lived in small
frame tenement houses on the flats by the river around the works of the
Cambria Company. The Cambria Company owns almost all the land, and the
business and professional men and the superintendents of the company
live on the hills away up from the creeks. The creeks become the
Conemaugh river right at the end of the town, near where the big stone
Pennsylvania Railroad bridge crosses the river.
The borough of Johnstown was on the south bank of Conemaugh creek, and
the east bank of Stony creek, right in the fork. It had only about a
third of the population of the place. It had never been incorporated
with the surrounding villages, as the Cambria Company, which owned most
of the villages and only part of Johnstown, did not wish to have them
consolidated into one city.
Conemaugh was the largest village on the creek between the lake and
Johnstown. It is often spoken of as part of Johnstown, though its
railroad station is two or three miles up the creek from the Johnstown
station. The streets of the two towns run into each other, and the space
between the two stations is well built up along the creek. Part of the
Cambria Iron and Steel Company's works are at Conemaugh, and five or six
thousand of the workingmen and their families lived there. The business
was done in Johnstown borough, where almost all the stores of Johnstown
city were.
The works of the Cambria Company were strung along from here down into
Johnstown proper. They were slightly isolated to prevent a fire in one
spreading to the others, and because there was not much flat land to
build on. The Pennsylvania road runs along the river, and the works were
built beside it.
[Illustration: JOHNSTOWN AS LEFT BY THE FLOOD.]
Between Conemaugh and Johnstown borough was a string of tenements along
the river which was called Woodvale. Possibly 3000 workmen lived in
them. They were slightly built of wood, many of them without cellars or
stone foundations. There were some substantially built houses in the
borough at the fork. Here the flats widen out somewhat, and they had
been still further increased in extent by the Cambria Company, which
filled up part of the creek beds with refuse and the ashes from their
works. This narrowed the beds of the creeks. The made land was not
far above the water at ordinary times. Even during the ordinary spring
floods the waters rose so high that it flowed into the cellars of the
tenements, and at times into the works. The natural land was occupied by
the business part of the town, where the stores were and the
storekeepers had their residences. The borough had a population of about
9000. On the north bank of the river were a third as many more people
living in tenements built and owned by the Cambria Company. Further
down, below the junction of the two creeks, along both banks of the
Conemaugh river, were about 4000 employees of the Cambria Company and
their families. The place where they lived was called Cambria or Cambria
City. All these villages and boroughs made up what is known as the city
of Johnstown.
The Cambria Company employed about 4000 men in its works and mines.
Besides these were some railroad shops, planing mills, flour mills,
several banks and newspapers. Only the men employed by the Cambria
Company and their families lived on the flats and made ground. The
Cambria Company owned all this land, and made it a rule not to sell it,
but to lease it. The company put rows of two-story frame tenements close
together, on their land close to the works, the cheaper class of
tenements in solid blocks, to cheapen their construction. The better
tenements were separate buildings, with two families to the house. The
tenements rented for from $5 to $15 a month, and cost possibly, on the
average, $500 to build. They were all of wood, many of them without
cellars, and were built as cheaply as possible. The timbers were mostly
pine, light and inflammable. It was not an uncommon thing for a fire to
break out and to burn one or two rows of tenements. But the different
rows were not closely bunched, but were sprinkled around in patches near
the separate works, and it was cheaper for the company to rebuild
occasionally than to put up brick houses.
Besides owning the flats, the Cambria Company owned the surrounding
hills. In one of the hills is limestone, in another coal, and there is
iron ore not far away. The company has narrow-gauge roads running from
its mines down to the works. The city was at the foot of these three
hills, which meet in a double V shape. Conemaugh creek flowing down one
and Stony creek flowing down the other. The hills are not so far distant
that a man with a rifle on any one could not shoot to either of the
others. They are several hundred feet high and so steep that roads run
up them by a series of zigzag grades. Few people live on these hills
except on a small rise of ground across the river from Johnstown. In
some places the company has leased the land for dwelling houses, but it
retains the ownership of the land and of the coal, iron and limestone in
it. The flats having all been occupied, the company in recent years had
put up some tenements of a better class on the north bank of the river,
higher up than the flood reached. The business part of the town also was
higher up than the works and the tenements of the company.
In normal times the river is but a few hundred feet wide. The bottom is
stony. The current is so fast that there is little deposit along the
bank. It is navigable at no time, though in the spring a good canoeist
might go down it if he could steer clear of the rocks. In the summer the
volume of water diminishes so much that a boy with a pair of rubber
boots on can wade across without getting his feet wet, and there have
been times when a good jumper could cross the river on the dry stones.
Below Johnstown, after Stony creek has joined the Conemaugh creek, the
volume of water increases, but the Conemaugh throughout its whole length
is nothing but a mountain stream, dry in the summer and roaring in the
spring. It runs down into the Kiskiminitas river and into the Allegheny
river, and then on to Pittsburgh. It is over 100 miles from Johnstown to
Pittsburgh following the windings of the river, twice as far as the
straight line.
Johnstown was one of the busiest towns of its size in the State. Its
tonnage over the Pennsylvania and Baltimore and Ohio roads was larger
than the tonnage of many cities three times its size. The Iron and Steel
Company is one of the largest iron and steel corporations in the world.
It had its main rolling mills, Bessemer steel works, and wire works at
Johnstown, though it also has works in other places, and owns ore and
coal mines and leases in the South, in Michigan, and in Spain, besides
its Pennsylvania works. It had in Johnstown and the surrounding villages
4000 or 5000 men usually at work. In flush times it has employed more
than 6000. So important was the town from a railroad point of view that
the Baltimore and Ohio ran a branch from Rockwood, on its main line to
Pittsburgh, up to Johnstown, forty-five miles. It was one of the main
freight stations on the Pennsylvania road, though the passenger business
was so small in proportion that some express trains do not stop there.
The Pennsylvania road recently put up a large brick station, which was
one of the few brick buildings on the flats. Some of the Cambria
Company's offices were also of brick, and there was a brick lodging
house for young men in the employ of the company. The Pennsylvania road
had repair shops there, which employed a few hundred men, and the
Baltimore and Ohio branch had some smaller shops. Johnstown had several
Catholic and Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, and Lutheran churches. It
had several daily and weekly papers. The chief were the _Tribune_, the
_Democrat_, and the _Freie Presse_.
The Cambria Iron Works, the great industry of Johnstown, originated in a
few widely separated charcoal furnaces built by pioneer iron workers in
the early years of the century. As early as 1803 General Arthur St.
Clair engaged in the iron business, and erected the Hermitage furnace
about sixteen miles from the present site of Johnstown. In 1809 the
working of ores was begun near Johnstown. These were primitive furnaces,
where charcoal was the only fuel employed, and the raw material and
product were transported entirely on wagons, but they marked the
beginning of the manufacture of iron in this country.
The Cambria Iron Company was chartered under the general law in 1852,
for the operation of four old-fashioned charcoal furnaces in and near
Johnstown, which was then a village of 1300 inhabitants, to which the
Pennsylvania railroad had just been extended. In 1853 the construction
of four coke furnaces was begun, but it was two years before the first
was finished. England was then shipping rails into this country under a
low duty, and the iron industry here was struggling for existence. The
company at Johnstown was aided by a number of Philadelphia merchants,
but was unable to continue in business, and suspended in 1854. At a
meeting of the creditors in Philadelphia soon afterward a committee was
appointed, with Daniel J. Morrell as Chairman, to visit the works at
Johnstown and recommend the best means, if any, to save themselves from
loss. In his report, Mr. Morrell strongly urged the Philadelphia
creditors to invest more money and continue the business. They did so,
and Matthew Newkirk was made President of the company. The company again
failed in 1855, and Mr. Morrell then associated a number of gentlemen
with him, and formed the firm of Wood, Morrell & Co., leasing the works
for seven years. The year 1856 was one of great financial depression,
and 1857 was worse, and, as a further discouragement, the large furnace
was destroyed by fire in June, 1857. In one week, however, the works
were in operation again, and a brick building was soon constructed. When
the war came, and with it the Morrill tariff of 1861, a broader field
was opened up, and in 1862 the present company was formed.
The years following the close of the war brought about an unprecedented
revival in railroad building. In 1864 there were but 33,908 miles of
railroad in the United States, while in 1874 there were 72,741 miles, or
more than double. There was a great demand for English steel rails,
which advanced to $170 per ton. Congress imposed a duty of $28 a ton on
foreign rails, and encouraged American manufacturers to go into the
business. The Cambria Company began the erection of Bessemer steel works
in 1869, and sold the first steel rails in 1871, at $104 a ton.
The company had 700 dwelling-houses, rented to employees. The works and
rolling mills of the company were situated upon what was originally a
river flat, where the valley of the Conemaugh expanded somewhat, just
below Johnstown, and now part of Millville. The Johnstown furnaces, Nos.
1, 2, 3 and 4, formed one complete plant, with stacks 75 feet high and
16 feet in diameter at the base. Steam was generated in forty boilers
fired by furnace gas, for eight vertical, direct-acting blowing engines.
Nos. 5 and 6 blast furnaces formed together a second plant, with stacks
75 feet high and 19 feet in diameter. The Bessemer plant was the sixth
started in the United States (July, 1871). The main building was 102
feet in width by 165 feet in length. The cupolas were six in number.
Blast was supplied from eight Baker rotary pressure blowers, driven by
engines 16 x 24 inches at 110 revolutions per minute. The Bessemer works
were supplied with steam by a battery of twenty-one tubular boilers. The
best average, although not the very highest work done in the Bessemer
department, was 103 heats of 8-1/2 tons each for each twenty-four
hours. The best weekly record reached 4847 tons of ingots, and the best
monthly record 20,304 tons. The best daily output was 900 tons of
ingots. All grades of steel were made in the converters, from the
softest wire and bridge stock to spring stock. The open-hearth building,
120 x 155 feet, containing three Pernot revolving hearth furnaces of
fifteen tons capacity each, supplied with natural gas. The rolling mill
was 100 feet in width by 1900 feet in length, and contained a 24-inch
train of two stands of three-high rolls, and a ten-ton traveling crane
for changing rolls. The product of the mill was 80,000 pounds per turn.
The bolt and nut works produced 1000 kegs of finished track bolts per
month, besides machine bolts. The capacity of the axle shop was 100
finished steel axles per day. The "Gautier steel department" consisted
of a brick building 200 x 50 feet, where the wire was annealed, drawn
and finished; a brick warehouse 373 x 43 feet, many shops, offices,
etc.; the barb-wire mill, 50 x 250 feet, where the celebrated Cambria
link barb wire was made, and the main merchant mill, 725 x 250 feet.
These mills produced wire, shafting, springs, plough-shares, rake and
harrow teeth, and other kinds of agricultural implement steel. In 1887
they produced 50,000 tons of this material, which was marketed mainly in
the Western States. Grouped with the principal mills thus described
were the foundries, pattern and other shops, draughting offices and time
offices, etc., all structures of a firm and substantial character.
The company operated about thirty-five miles of railroad tracks,
employing in this service twenty-four locomotives, and owned 1500 cars.
To the large bodies of mountain land connected with the old charcoal
furnaces additions have been made of ores and coking coals, and the
company now owns in fee simple 54,423 acres of mineral lands. It has 600
beehive coke ovens in the Connellsville district, and the coal producing
capacity of the mines in Pennsylvania owned by the company is 815,000
tons per year.
In continuation of the policy of Daniel J. Morrell, the Cambria Iron
Company has done a great deal for its employees. The Cambria Library was
erected by the Iron Company and presented to the town. The building was
43 x 68-1/2 feet, and contained a library of 6914 volumes. It contained
a large and valuable collection of reports of the United States and the
State, and it is feared that they have been greatly damaged. The Cambria
Mutual Benefit Association is composed of employees of the company, and
is supported by it. The employees receive benefits when sick or injured,
and in case of death their families are provided for. The Board of
Directors of this association also controls the Cambria Hospital, which
was erected by the Iron Company in 1866, on Prospect Hill, in the
northern part of the town. The company also maintained a club house, and
a store which was patronized by others, as well as by its employees.