One of the first to reach Johnstown from a distance was a New York
_World_ correspondent, who on Sunday wrote as follows:--
"I walked late yesterday afternoon from New Florence to a place opposite
Johnstown, a distance of four miles. I describe what I actually saw. All
along the way bodies were seen lying on the river banks. In one place a
woman was half buried in the mud, only a limb showing. In another was a
mother with her babe clasped to her breast. Further along lay a husband
and wife, their arms wound around each other's necks. Probably fifty
bodies were seen on that one side of the river, and it must be
remembered that here the current was the swiftest, and consequently
fewer of the dead were landed among the bushes. On the opposite side
bodies could also be seen, but they were all covered with mud. As I
neared Johnstown the wreckage became grand in its massive
proportions. In order to show the force of the current I will say that
three miles below Johnstown I saw a grand piano lying on the bank, and
not a board or key was broken. It must have been lifted on the crest of
the wave and laid gently on the bank. In another place were two large
iron boilers. They had evidently been treated by the torrent much as the
piano had been.
"The scenes, as I neared Johnstown, were the most heart-rending that man
was ever called to look upon. Probably three thousand people were
scattered in groups along the Pennsylvania Railroad track and every one
of them had a relative lying dead either in the wreckage above, in the
river below, or in the still burning furnace. Not a house that was left
standing was in plumb. Hundreds of them were turned on their sides, and
in some cases three or four stood one on top of the other. Two miles
from Johnstown, on the opposite side of the river from where I walked,
stood one-half of the water-works of the Cambria Iron Company, a
structure that had been built of massive stone. It was filled with
planks from houses, and a large abutment of wreckage was piled up fully
fifty feet in front of it. A little above, on the same side, could be
seen what was left of the Cambria Iron Works, which was one of the
finest plants in the world. Some of the walls are still standing, it is
true, but not a vestige of the valuable machinery remains in sight. The
two upper portions of the works were swept away almost entirely, and
under the pieces of fallen iron and wood could be seen the bodies of
more than forty workmen.
"At this point there is a bend in the river and the fiery furnace
blazing for a quarter of a mile square above the stone bridge came into
view.
"'My God!' screamed a woman who was hastening up the track, 'can it be
that any are in there?'
"'Yes; over a thousand,' replied a man who had just come from the
neighborhood, and it is now learned that he estimated the number at one
thousand too low.
"The scenes of misery and suffering and agony and despair can hardly be
chronicled. One man, a clerk named Woodruff, was reeling along
intoxicated. Suddenly, with a frantic shout, he threw himself over the
bank into the flood and would have been carried to his death had he not
been caught by some persons below.
"'Let me die,' he exclaimed, when they rescued him. 'My wife and
children are gone; I have no use for my life.' An hour later I saw
Woodruff lying on the ground entirely overcome by liquor. Persons who
knew him said that he had never tasted liquor before.
"Probably fifty barrels of whisky were washed ashore just below
Johnstown, and those men who had lost everything in this world sought
solace in the fiery liquid. So it was that as early as six o'clock last
night the shrieks and cries of women were intermingled with drunkards'
howls and curses. What was worse than anything, however, was the fact
that incoming trains from Pittsburgh brought hundreds of toughs, who
joined with the Slavs and Bohemians in rifling the bodies, stealing
furniture, insulting women, and endeavoring to assume control of any
rescuing parties that tried to seek the bodies under the bushes and in
the limbs of trees. There was no one in authority, no one to take
command of even a citizens' posse could it have been organized. A
lawless mob seemed to control this narrow neck of land that was the only
approach to the city of Johnstown. I saw persons take watches from dead
men's jackets and brutally tear finger-rings from the hands of women.
The ruffians also climbed into the overturned houses and ransacked the
rooms, taking whatever they thought valuable. No one dared check them in
this work, and, consequently, the scene was not as riotous as it would
have been if the toughs had not had sway. In fact, they became beastly
drunk after a time and were seen lying around in a stupor. Unless the
military is on hand early to-morrow there may be serious trouble, for
each train pours loads of people of every description into the vicinity,
and Slavs are flocking like birds of prey from the surrounding country.
"Here I will give the latest conservative estimate of the dead--it is
between seven and eight thousand drowned and two thousand burned. The
committee at Johnstown in their last bulletin placed the number of lives
lost at eight thousand. In doing so they are figuring the inhabitants of
their own city and the towns immediately adjoining. But it must be
remembered that the tidal wave swept ten miles through a populous
district before it even reached the locality over which this committee
has supervision. It devastated a tract the size and shape of Manhattan
Island. Here are a few facts that will show the geographical outlines of
the terrible disaster: The Hotel Hurlburt of Johnstown, a massive
three-story building of one hundred rooms, has vanished. There were in
it seventy-five guests at the time of the flood. Two only are now known
to be alive. The Merchants' Hotel is leveled. How many were inside it is
not known, but as yet no one has been seen who came from there or heard
of an inmate escaping. At the Conemaugh round-house forty-one
locomotives were swept down the stream, and before they reached the
stone bridge all the iron and steel work had been torn from their
boilers. It is almost impossible in this great catastrophe to go more
into details.
"I stood on the stone bridge at six o'clock and looked into the seething
mass of ruin below me. At one place the blackened body of a babe was
seen; in another, fourteen skulls could be counted. Further along the
bones became thicker and thicker, until at last at one place it seemed
as if a concourse of people who had been at a ball or entertainment had
been carried in a bunch and incinerated. At this time the smoke was
still rising to the height of fifty feet, and it is expected that when
it dies down the charred bodies will be seen dotting the entire mass.
"A cable had been run last night from the end of the stone bridge to the
nearest point across--a distance of three hundred feet. Over this cable
was run a trolley, and a swing was fastened under it. A man went over,
and he was the first one who visited Johnstown since the awful disaster.
I followed him to-day.
"I walked along the hillside and saw hundreds of persons lying on the
wet grass, wrapped in blankets or quilts. It was growing cold and a
misty rain had set in. Shelter was not to be had, and houses on the
hillsides that had not been swept away were literally packed from top to
bottom. The bare necessities of life were soon at a premium, and loaves
of bread sold at fifty cents. Fortunately, however, the relief train
from Pittsburgh arrived at seven o'clock. Otherwise the horrors of
starvation would have been added. All provisions, however, had to be
carried over a rough, rocky road a distance of four miles (as I knew,
who had been compelled to walk it), and in many cases they were seized
by the toughs, and the people who were in need of food did not get it.
"Rich and poor were served alike by this terrible disaster. I saw a girl
standing in her bare feet on the river's bank, clad in a loose petticoat
and with a shawl over her head. At first I thought she was an Italian
woman, but her face showed that I was mistaken. She was the belle of the
town--the daughter of a wealthy Johnstown banker--and this single
petticoat and shawl were not only all that was left her, but all that
was saved from the magnificent residence of her father. She had escaped
to the hills not an instant too soon.
"The solicitor of Johnstown, Mr. George Martin, said to me to-day:--
"'All my money went away in the flood. My house is gone. So are all my
clothes, but, thank God, my family are safe.'"