front for now had the time arrived when this association, of all
others, could do the most good.... Through its instrumentality much
suffering and destitution has been relieved throughout the Ohio
valley which it would have been almost impossible to reach but for
this organization. With Miss Clara Barton at the head, and a large
corps of active and intelligent assistants, the relief work
performed by this association has been most thorough and
efficacious. Contributions of money and clothing have been sent to
all points in the inundated districts of the Ohio valley where such
assistance was needed, while a thorough and careful investigation by
members of the association of the flooded territory has rendered the
aid most beneficial. As soon as it became apparent that the
suffering from the high water would necessitate the various relief
movements, Miss Barton removed her headquarters from Washington,
D.C., to Cincinnati, O., where she carefully and intelligently
superintended the distribution of a large amount of supplies donated
from all parts of the country, consisting of money, food, clothing
and fuel. As the water receded then came the time for the relief
proffered by this association to be given.
After remaining several days in Cincinnati and relieving all the
suffering so far as it was met with, Miss Barton, on March 3,
removed her headquarters to Evansville, Ind., where arrangements
were at once commenced to reach and aid the sufferers between this
point and Cairo, Ill. Captain J.V. Throop kindly placed his steamer,
the "Josh V. Throop," at the disposal of the Red Cross without any
expense except the actual running cost of the boat. The steamer was
at once loaded with an immense quantity of boxes, barrels, bales and
bundles of clothing, being donations from various private parties
and relief organizations throughout the country which had been
accumulating here for some time, together with a large amount of
bedding and fuel, and started on its mission of mercy down the river
in charge of Miss Clara Barton, Saturday, March 8, 1884.
Miss Barton was accompanied and assisted on this trip by Dr. J.B.
Hubbell, of Washington, D. C, the field agent of the association;
Rev. E.J. Galvin, agent of the Chicago Red Cross Association; Miss
Hamilton, of St. Louis, with Mrs. De Bruler and several other
Evansville ladies. Relief was given to all the sufferers needing it
below Evansville and Wickliff, Ky., below Cairo. The party reached
Cairo March 15, and after proceeding down the river to Wickliff,
Ky., turned back, arriving at Evansville March 20. In addition to
the supplies mentioned, the Rev. E.J. Galvin, of Chicago, had placed
at his disposal $25,000, from which checks were drawn and left with
any party needing financial assistance. Miss Barton and her corps of
assistants remained in Evansville after their return until April 2,
when the relief transactions throughout the Ohio valley having been
practically finished, she removed her headquarters to St. Louis,
Mo., where a relief boat was at once fitted out and similar
assistance tendered to the sufferers in the inundated districts of
the lower Mississippi. Miss Barton was further aided on this trip by
Mr. John Hitz, of Washington, D.C.
On May 25th Miss Barton made a second trip down the Ohio with the
steamer "Josh V. Throop" under charter with household supplies and
farming implements for the recent sufferers. The boat went as far as
Elizabethtown, or possibly a few miles below, and then turning back,
proceeded up stream to Wheeling or Pittsburgh till the supplies were
exhausted.
"THE LITTLE SIX."
It is possible that some readers may recall the story of the "Little
Six," which was locally published at the time, but which I venture to
reproduce, as an extract from the Erie _Dispatch_, of Monday March 24,
1884:
_Dispatch_ readers doubtless recollect its account some weeks ago of
the manner in which six children of Waterford gave a public
entertainment for the benefit of the Ohio flood sufferers; how they
themselves suggested it; how their efforts were crowned with
success; and how they brought the entire proceeds, $51.25, raised by
their unpaid efforts, to the editor of the _Dispatch_ with the
request that the latter forward it "where it would do the most
good." The _Dispatch_ complied by forwarding it to Miss Clara
Barton, president of the American Red Cross Association. The
following letter tells the story of the disposition of the money.
The names of the noble little band, of which any town in the nation
ought to be proud of, are: Reed White, Florence Howe, Lloyd Barton,
Joe Farrar, Mary Barton, Bertie Ensworth. The oldest is twelve years
of age.
* * * * *
MISS BARTON'S LETTER
A TOUCHING INCIDENT VERY TOUCHINGLY RELATED.
RED CROSS RELIEF STEAMER, "JOSH V. THROOP,"
OFF SHAWNEETOWN, ILLINOIS,
OHIO RIVER, _March 18, 1884_,
MR. M.E. CAMP, Editor of the Erie _Dispatch_:
At length, I have the happiness to inform you that I have placed the
contribution of the brave Little Six to my own satisfaction, and, as
I believe, to the satisfaction of the little donors and the friends
interested in them as well. Your letter inclosing the touching
article describing their pretty thought and act, and the check for
the sum donated by them to the sufferers from the floods, came
during the early days of hurry and confused activity. The entire
matter was too beautiful and withal unique, to meet only a common
fate in its results. I could not, for a moment, think to mingle the
gift of the little dramatists with the common fund for general
distribution, and sought through all these weeks for a fitting
disposition to make of it, where it would all go in some special
manner to relieve some special necessity. I wanted it to benefit
some children who had "wept on the banks" of the river which in its
madness had devoured their home. I watched carefully all the way
down on this trip, and tried, last Sunday, at Smithland on our
return to make a little "foundation" for a children's help and
instruction at that town which had suffered so terribly; but I could
not satisfy myself, and after telling the pretty story to the best
people of the town assembled on our boat, I still declined to leave
the appropriation, waiting in confidence for the real opportunity
to present and which we have met in the last hour. As we neared that
picturesque spot on the Illinois side of the Ohio, known as
"Cave-in-Rock," we were hailed by a woman and her young daughter.
The boat "rounded to" and made the landing and they came on board--a
tall, thin worn woman in a tattered suit, with a good, but
inexpressibly sad face, who wished to tell us that a package which
we had left for her at the town on our way down had never reached
her. She was a widow--Mrs. Plew--whose husband, a good river pilot,
had died from overwork on a hard trip to New Orleans in the floods
of the Mississippi two years before, leaving her with six children
dependent upon her, the eldest a lad in his "teens," the youngest a
little baby girl. They owned their home, just on the brink of the
river, a little "farm" of two or three acres, two horses, three
cows, thirty hogs and a half hundred fowls, and in spite of the
bereavement they had gone on bravely, winning the esteem and
commendation of all who knew them for thrift and honest endeavor.
Last year the floods came heavily upon them, driving them from their
home, and the two horses were lost. Next the cholera came among the
hogs and all but three died. Still they worked on and held the home.
This spring came the third flood. The water climbed up the bank,
crept in at the door and filled the lower story of the house. They
had nowhere to remove their household goods, and stored them in the
garret carefully packed and went out to find a shelter in an old log
house near by, used for a corn crib. Day by day they watched the
house, hailed passing boats for the news of the rise and fall of the
water above, always trusting the house would stand--"and it would,"
the mother said "(for it was a good, strong house), but for the
storm." The wind came and the terrible gale that swept the valley
like a tornado, with the water at its height, leveling whole towns,
descended and beat upon that house and it fell. In the morning there
was no house there and the waves in their fury rushed madly on. Then
these little children "stood and wept on the banks of the river,"
and the desolation and fear in the careful mother's heart, none but
herself and her God can know.
They lived in the corn-crib, and it was from it they came to hail us
as we passed to-day. Something had been told us of them on our
downward trip, and a package had been left them at "Cave-in-Rock,"
which they had not received. We went over shoe-tops in mud to their
rude home, to find it one room of logs, an old stone chimney, with a
cheerful fire of drift-wood and a clean hearth, two wrecks of beds,
a table, and two chairs, which some kind neighbor had loaned. The
Government boats had left them rations. There was an air of thrift,
even in their desolation, a plank walk was laid about the door, the
floor was cleanly swept, and the twenty-five surviving hens, for an
equal number was lost in the storm, clucked and craiked comfortably
about the door, and there were two and a half dozen fresh eggs to
sell us at a higher rate than paid in town. We stood, as we had done
so many scores of times during the last few weeks, and looked this
pitiful scene in the face. There was misfortune, poverty, sorrow,
want, loneliness, dread of future, but fortitude, courage, integrity
and honest thrift.
"Would she like to return to the childhood home in Indiana?" we
asked the mother, for we would help them go.
"No," she said tenderly. "My husband lived and died here. He was
buried here, and I would not like to go away and leave him alone. It
won't be very long, and it is a comfort to the children to be able
to visit his grave. No, I reckon we will stay here, and out of the
wreck of the old house which sticks up out of the mud, we will put
another little hut, higher up in the bank out of the way of the
floods, and if it is only a hut, it will be a home for us and we
will get into it."
There were no dry eyes, but very still hearts, while we listened to
this sorrowful but brave little speech, made with a voice full of
tears.
Our thoughtful field agent, Dr. Hubbell, was the first to speak.
"Here are six children," he said with an inquiring glance at me.
No response was needed. The thing was done. We told the mother the
story of the "Little Six" of Waterford, and asked her if that money
with enough more to make up one hundred dollars would help her to
get up her house? It was her turn to be speechless. At length with a
struggling, choking voice she managed to say--"God knows how much it
would be to me. Yes, with my good boys I can do it, and do it well."
We put in her hands a check for this sum, and directed from the boat
clean boxes of clothing and bedding, to help restore the household,
when the house shall have been completed.
Before we left her, we asked if she would name her house when it
would be done. She thought a second and caught the idea.
"Yes," she replied quickly, with a really winsome smile on that worn
and weary face, "yes, I shall name it 'The Little Six.'"
And so, dear Mr. Camp, will you kindly tell those brave little
philanthropic dramatists, that they are to have a house down on the
banks of the great rolling river, and that one day, I think, will
come a letter to tell them that another six children are nightly
praying God to bless them for the home that will shelter them from
the floods and the storms.
Sincerely and cordially yours,
CLARA BARTON.
In reply the following letters were received:
WATERFORD, PA., _March 25, 1884_.
M.E. CAMP, Editor of Erie _Dispatch_:
DEAR SIR: The "Little Six" met yesterday and wrote the accompanying
letter, which they would like to have you forward to Miss Clara
Barton. They wish me to thank you for sending them copies of your
paper containing Miss Barton's beautiful letter to them. If you or
Miss Barton ever had any doubts in regard to a child's appreciation
of favors shown, I wish you could have seen those bright, happy
faces as they gave three cheers for "ye editor" and three times
three for Miss Clara Barton and the "Home of the Little Six" on the
banks of the Ohio.
MRS. LOYD BENSON, Committee.
WATERFORD, _March 24, 1884_.
DEAR MISS BARTON:
We read your nice letter in the _Dispatch_, and we would like very
much to see that house called "The Little Six," and we are so glad
we little six helped six other little children, and we thank you
for going to so much trouble in putting our money just where we
would have put it ourselves.
Sometime again when you want money to help you in your good work,
call on the "Little Six."
JOE FARRAR, twelve years old.
FLORENCE HOWE, eleven years old.
MARY BARTON, eleven years old.
REED WHITE, eleven years old.
BERTIE ENSWORTH, ten years old.
LLOYD BARTON, seven years old.
It could not fail to have been a satisfaction to me to know that I had
done my work as they would have "done it themselves."
As long as we remained on the river this family was occasionally visited
by our boat. On one occasion a strong flagstaff twenty feet in length
was taken and firmly set upon the bank near where they would place their
house. Its well-lettered cross board at the top showed "Little Six Red
Cross Landing," and this point has remained a landing on the Ohio River
probably unto this day.
During this trip on the upper Ohio, which was even yet scarcely safe for
running at night, we had, after a hard day's work, found a cove and tied
our boat for the night. It was a rather sequestered spot, and the
appearance of a full-size river steamer, halting for the night on one of
its banks, attracted the attention of the few people residing there, and
at dusk a body of five or six men came to the boat to ask if we were in
trouble that we stopped there, and if there were anything they could do
for us. We quieted their kindly apprehensions and invited them on board.
The lights revealed a condition of personal poverty which should have
more naturally asked help than offered it. On the entire trip with its
thousands of miles, among white and black, we had never seen such
evidences of destitution. They scarcely could have decently gone among
civilized people, and yet as they spoke, there was no lack of sense. On
the contrary, they seemed in many ways to be men of the world. Their
language, while provincial, had nothing uncommon in it, and altogether
they were a study to us. We gave them some supper, and while eating,
learned the facts of their lives.
Either by blood or marriage, they were all relatives, consisting of six
families, making in all about thirty people. They all lived
together--such living as it was--and there seemed to be among them a
perfectly good understanding. They had always lived on the river banks,
probably more on the river than off of it. They were not farmers, never
planted or raised anything, subsisting mainly upon fish and the floating
drift to be picked up. Thus, they clung to the river like the muskrat
and beaver, and were washed out with every flood. Sixteen of them at
that time were living under some slanting boards.
After supper our men quietly invited them to the clothing department on
the stern of the ship, and exchanged their garments.
Thus we got hold of these people, clothed, fed, encouraged and advised
them, got them into houses, furnished them, formed them into a little
colony, put up a landing named, at their own request, "Red Cross Big
Six," and took care of the women and children. Every man foreswore his
drink, his cards and his betting, and went to work for the first time in
his life.
We found a faithful merchant to stand by, advise them and report to us.
From year to year we have helped to keep them clothed. The children
immediately went to school, and the next year for the first time they
planted land and raised their own food; and the growing thrift and
strange prosperity of this body of heretofore vagrants began after a
time to excite the envy of its neighbors, who thought they were getting
on better than themselves, and their merchant friend had to repel it.
Only one or two of them could write a little, but they made good use of
their accomplishment as far as possessed. One day I received a letter
from one of their _savants_, Charley Hunter, out of which among much
that was encouraging, with considerable labor, I deciphered the
following: "We are all doing well. We don't drink or play cards no more.
I got the flannel undershirts and drawers and the medicine you sent me.
My rhumatis is better. I know now I have got two friends; one is you and
the other is God."
I was sorry he named me first; I do not think he intended it. I might
add that two years later these people had united with the church; that
the children were all in school, and that one daughter was being
educated for a teacher.
On the lower Ohio one of the villages most wrecked by the waters and the
cyclone was Smithland, an old aristocratic borough on the Kentucky side.
They had no coal, and we supplied them as we went down. On our return we
lowered steam and threw out our landing prow opposite the town. The
whistle of the "Throop" was as welcome to their ears as the flag to
their eyes.
It was a bright, clear, spring morning and Sunday. In an hour the entire
little hamlet of people stood on our decks; only four, they said, were
left at home, and these sick and infirm. They had selected their lawyer
to speak their thanks, and they had chosen well. No words will ever do
justice to the volume of native eloquence which seemed to roll unbidden
from his lips. We listened in mute surprise until he finished with these
sentences:
At noon on that day we were in the blackness of despair. The whole
village in the power of the demon of waters, hemmed in by sleet and
ice, without fire enough to cook its little food. When the bell
struck nine that night, there were seventy-five families on their
knees before their blazing grates, thanking God for fire and light,
and praying blessings on the phantom ship with the unknown device
that had come as silently as the snow, they knew not whence, and
gone, they knew not whither.
A few days later we finished the voyage of relief, having covered the
Ohio River from Cincinnati to Cairo and back twice, and the Mississippi
from St. Louis to New Orleans and return, occupying four months' time on
the rivers, in our own chartered boats, finishing at Pittsburg and
taking rail for Washington on the first of July, having traveled over
eight thousand miles, and distributed in relief, of money and estimated
material, $175,000.
The government had expended an appropriation from the treasury on the
same waters of $150,000 in money, and distributed it well. The
difference was that ours was not appropriated; we gathered it as we used
it.
THE TEXAS FAMINE.
Occasional rumors reached us in the years 1885 and 1886 about a drouth
in Texas and consequent suffering, but they were so contradictory and
widely at variance that the public took little or no heed of them.
During the year of 1886 the Rev. John Brown, a North Presbyterian
minister, located at Albany, Shackelford County, Texas, began making
appeals by circular and oral address to the people of the Northern
States, in which he asserted that there were a hundred thousand families
in northwestern Texas who were utterly destitute and on the verge of
starvation. He stated that since the close of the war a large number of
poor families had been constantly crowding into Texas from the Southern
States principally, induced thither by land agents and others, who gave
glowing representations of the character of the soil for farming
purposes.
These poor people, by hard labor and industry, had been generally able
to make a living and nothing more. The last fall they had planted wheat
and other grain quite extensively, but the rains came not and everything
perished; and in the following spring and summer, too, everything put
into the ground was blasted by the hot winds, so that not a thing was
raised for man or beast. For fifteen months no rain had fallen, and the
condition of the people was pitiable and called aloud to the charitable
throughout the land for relief. They must be carried through to the next
summer or they would perish. At a meeting of the citizens of Albany,
Texas, they decided that the task of relieving the sufferers was greater
than the well-to-do people of the State were able to undertake, and that
an appeal should be made to the good-hearted people of the North for
immediate aid. The Governor of Texas also published an appeal to the
people of the whole land, asking for food for these people. But as there
was no concerted action, and so many denials of the stories of
suffering, little or nothing in the way of relief work was accomplished
for some time. Spasmodic attempts were made, and some food for man and
beast was contributed, but not enough to relieve a hundredth part of the
needy.
The Rev. Dr. Brown went to the State Capital and endeavored to interest
the legislature in the matter, but there were seemingly so much
misunderstanding and unbelief, and so many conflicting interests to
reconcile, that he failed to receive any substantial assurances and left
the place in disgust. When the citizens of Texas could not agree as to
the necessities of their own people it was not to be expected that the
citizens of the country would take much interest in them, hence the
relief movement languished from inanition.
About the middle of January, 1887, Dr. Brown came to Washington and, as
solicitor and receiving agent for the committee which had issued an
appeal to the country, appealed to me, as president of the American
National Red Cross, asking our organization to come to the relief of the
people, who were in a deplorable state, greatly needing food and
clothing. I immediately shipped to Texas all the stores that were then
in our warehouse, but they were no great quantity.
An appeal direct to the Red Cross required immediate attention, and I at
once sought a conference with President Cleveland, who was greatly
worried over the contradictory stories that were constantly printed, and
was anxious to learn the truth about the matter. When I said that I
should go to Texas and see for myself, he was greatly pleased, and
requested me to report to him the exact situation just as soon as I had
satisfied myself by personal investigation.
Dr. Hubbell and I proceeded directly to Albany, Texas, where we arrived
near the end of January. We were met by the leading citizens and most
heartily welcomed and accorded every privilege and attention. We began
our investigations at once in a systematic way, carefully noting
everything we heard and saw; and in the course of a two weeks' trip over
the afflicted region, we learned the extent of the need and formulated
plans for its relief.
Making Albany our object point, we traveled by private conveyance over
such territory as we thought sufficient to give a correct knowledge of
the condition of the country and the people. We met large numbers of the
residents, both collectively and at their homes, and learned from them
personally and by actual observation their condition and what they had
to depend upon during the next few months. It will be borne in mind that
when we entered upon this investigation little or no relief had come
from the State, and none was positively assured.
Almost no rain had fallen during a period of eighteen months; two
planted crops had perished in the ground, and the seed wheat sown the
previous fall gave no signs of life. The dust was rolling over the
great wind-swept fields, where the people had hidden their last little
forlorn hope of borrowed seed, and literally a heaven of brass looked
down upon an earth of iron.
Here were twenty to forty counties of a size commensurate with Texan
dimensions occupied by new settlers, making their first efforts in the
pioneer work of developing home life in an untried country, soil and
climate. They had put their all into the new home and the little stock
they could afford for its use. They had toiled faithfully, planted two
and three times, as long as there was anything to plant or sow, and in
most instances failed to get back their seed. Many had grown discouraged
and left the country. The people were not actually starving, but they
were in the direst want for many of the necessities of life, and it was
only a matter of days when they would have reached the condition of the
reconcentrados as we later found them in Cuba. Hundreds of thousands of
cattle had died for the want of food and water, and their drying
carcasses and bleaching bones could be seen in every direction as the
eye wandered over the parched surface of the plains.