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 SAN DIEGO
 
 THE FIRE TRAP AT THE STONE BRIDGE.
 
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 THE 
 
 JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 A THRIVING CITY OF 30,000 INHABITANTS AND MANY GREAT IN- 
 
 DUSTRIAL ESTABLISHMENTS NEARLY WIPED FROM EARTH. 
 
 MANY THOUSANDS DROWNED OR BURNED TO DEATH. 
 
 Property Worth Many Millions of Dollars Destroyed. 
 
 AN AVALACHE OF WATER SWEEPS DOWN THE CONEMAUGH VALLEY 
 
 DESTROYING EVERYTHING IN ITS DESCENT. A BLOCKADE OF 
 
 WRECKS OF HOUSES, TIMBER, Etc., AT THE RAILROAD BRIDGE. 
 
 MIRACULOUS ESCAPES AND RESCUES; WHOLE FAMILIES 
 
 ANNIHILATED THE WONDERFUL BENEVOLENCE OF 
 
 THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. RELIEF ORGANIZATIONS 
 
 EVERYWHERE. MONEY, FOOD, CLOTHING AND 
 
 FURNITURE LAVISHLY CONTRIBUTED. 
 
 GENERAL HASTINGS IN COMMAND IN JOHNSTOWN. 
 
 Ti 10 niwwp Narrative is eatliered from the accounts of Correspondents, Eye- 
 
 ^fueesl rom the u .fortunate district and other sources, and is a 
 narrative of this terrible catastrophe. 
 
 BY 
 
 HERMAN DIKCK, A. M.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE disaster at the Valley of the Conemaugh is so far 
 beyond all experience, that it is difficult for the mind to 
 grasp it. Johnstown, which was really an aggregation of 
 seven or eight towns, with a population of 25,000 to 
 30,000 souls lay in a deep valley at the junction of the 
 Conemaugh and Stony Creek. Early on Friday, the 
 3 1st day of May, a freshet in the latter stream broke 
 away the boom above the town and swept down the 
 mass of logs against the inundated houses. This was 
 followed in the afternoon by a far worse disaster, when 
 the dam of the South Fork Lake broke and the mass of 
 water swept down the valley, carrying everything before 
 it. The logs and the wreckage piling against the bridge 
 formed a partial dam, that raised the water still higher, 
 and in a short time the whole town was submerged. 
 Hundreds were drowned in their houses ; others were 
 swept along by the torrent and perished either by water 
 or by fire among the debris. This terrible calamity 
 filled the hearts of every citizen with grief and horror, 
 and from all parts the globe are being sent contributions 
 in money and goods of all kinds for the sufferers. 
 
 Our book will give to the reader a true and interest- 
 ing narrative of this terrible calamity gathered from the 
 best of sources, and is richly illustrated, the views being 
 taken on the spot by the specjal artists of the publishers. 
 
 (3)
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Introductory Remarks. A Similar Catastrophe never before Occur- 
 red in the United States. The Cause of the Calamity. The 1 
 of Conemaugh Lake. The Largest Reservoir of the World. 
 Construction of the Unsafe Dam. Ignorance or Carelessness 
 shown in the Construction. Location of Johnstown, 
 trial Importance. The Lower Towns. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Difficulties Surmounted by Correspondents in Obtaining Intelligent 
 Information about the Disaster. The First Reports were not 
 Exaggerated. The Facts bear them out, and are Even Worse. 
 Another Account of the Dam that Broke. The Watchman's 
 Views. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A Graphic Description of the Valley of Death, by a Reporter who 
 was among the First to Enter Johnstown after the Catastrophe. 
 Death Everywhere. A Charnel House Twenty Miles Long. 
 Sixty Acres 'of Burning Debris. The Loss of Life and Pro- 
 perty. What a Reporter of the Public Ledger saw. The 
 Horror of Fire added to that of Water. Bodies along the River 
 Banks. Heartrending Scenes. Ruffianism. Scenes on 
 Stony Bridge. In Johnstown. The Loss of Life. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Impossibility of Obtaining a Fair Report of the Actual Losses. 
 A Visit to the Dam that did it. The Water Gates Permanently 
 Closed It was Built of Dirt and Rubble. 
 
 (5)
 
 6 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Break of the Dam. A Spoiled Sensation. Paul Revere non 
 est, but many other Cases of Heroism. A Graphic Description 
 of the Disaster. Railroad Employees Escape on a Locomotive. 
 The Masses of Water Arrive at Johnstown. Terrible Destruc- 
 tion. A Once Prosperous City now Nearly Ruined. Johnstown 
 Before and After the Disaster. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Gorge at the Bridge. Description of an Eye Witness. Un- 
 heeded Warnings. Breaking of the Boom. Roasted to Death. 
 Heroism and Self-sacrifice. Her Last Message. A Boy's 
 Experience. Miraculous Escape. Refused to Desert Her 
 Children. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Remarkable Stories of Escape. A Mother's Efforts to Save Her 
 Children. A Terrible Visitation. A Thrilling Narrative of the 
 Flood. Race between Engine and Flood. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Destruction and Death Everywhere. The Day Express Disaster. 
 The Pennsylvania Railroad's Last Train. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 After the Flood. A Proclamation by the Governor of Pennsylva- 
 nia. Conservative Estimate of the Losses. An Appeal for Aid. 
 The Situation of the Conemaugh Valley. What Followed the 
 Break of the Dam. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Relief for the Afflicted from all Parts of the Globe. Unprecedented 
 Calamity and Grand Charity. Arrival of Relief Trains. Great 
 Energy Shown by the Sufferers.
 
 CONTENTS. 7 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 The Orphans of the Flood will be cared for. At the Relief Sta- 
 tion. The Grand Army in charge of the Work of Receiving and 
 Dispensing Supplies. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Johnstown People Crazed by their Sufferings. Governor Beaver 
 of Pennsylvania Visits Johnstown. General Hastings in Com- 
 mand. Districting the Ruined Area. Several Stores Opened. 
 Latest Estimate of Loss of Life. Passengers Lost from the Day 
 Express. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A New Ray of Hope. Rehabilitation. Merchants to get long 
 Credit. Report of the Transportation Bureau. A Generous 
 Offer made by Philadelphia Bankers. The Relief Committee. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Inundations and Destruction 01 Life and Property in other parts ot 
 Pennsylvania. The Bald Eagle Valley in Centre County. 
 Muncy. The Juniata and the Susquehanna Valley. Lock 
 Haven. Newport. Harrisburg. Renovo. Columbia. McKean 
 County. Sunbury. Bedford. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 The Flood at Williamsport. Loss of Life and Property. Thirty 
 Persons Drowned. Damages to Buildings and Contents. Mil- 
 lions of feet of Lumber Carried Away. Sufferings Among the 
 People, whose Houses were Destroyed by the Hood. The 
 Bell's Gap Road. Huntingdon County. 300 Houses Destroyed r 
 In the Cumberland Valley. Tyrone. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Disasters and Floods Everywhere. Cumberland. Harper's Ferry. 
 Point of Rocks Inundated, The Potomac Floods. At Washing- 
 ton, D. C. Frederick and Port Deposit, Md. Lancaster and 
 Shamokin, Pa. Richmond, Va. Etc.
 
 8 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 The Countless Benevolence of the American People. The Clouds 
 are Passing Away. P'rom 5000 to 7000 People Perished during 
 this Calamity. A Retrospect. The Reporters and the Tele- 
 graph Operators. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Back to the Fated Valley. Up at the Mighty Dam. Homes 
 Once More. The Epidemic. The Commission at Hand. 
 A Bank Open. Another Sabbath. The Red Cross Relief. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIV. 
 
 Floods of History. In Holland and China. How France 
 has Suffered.
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 NOTHING in the history of the United States in time 
 of peace has ever approached the appalling catastrophe, 
 which has spread such awful havoc through the thriving 
 valley of the Conemaugh on the afternoon of Friday the 
 3 ist day of May, 1889, and has left such terrible horror 
 and devastation. It only can be compared to the 
 terrible devastation and loss of life caused by the earth- 
 quake at Lisbon or the breaking of the dam of the 
 Yellow River (Ho-ang-Ho) in China and the returning 
 of its waters to its old bed, then one of the richest 
 districts of that rich part of China. Before this terrible 
 catastrophe the valley of the Conemaugh was perhaps 
 one of the happiest in the great State of Pennsylvania. 
 
 THE CAUSE OF THE CALAMITY. 
 
 The cause of the fearful calamity was the breaking of 
 the resevoir or dam, known as Conemaugh Lake, a body 
 of water about three and a half miles long, one and a 
 quarter miles in width, and in some places 100 feet in 
 depth. It was located on the mountain some three or 
 four hundred feet above the level of Johnstown, and was 
 of course a constant menace to that town, as it was said 
 to hold more water than any reservoir in the United 
 States It is thr property of a number of wealthy gentle- 
 
 (25)
 
 26 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 men of Pittsburg, members of the South Fork Hunting 
 And Fishing Club, and was given its late immense pro- 
 portions in order to fit it for hunting and fishing pur- 
 poses. 
 
 It appears that every possible precaution had been reg- 
 ularly taken to insure the safety of the reservoir, an 
 inspection of it being made by a Pennsylvania railroad 
 engineer once a month, these examinations showing that 
 nothing less than some extraordinary convulsion ot 
 nature could destroy the barrier that held the great body 
 of water within its prescribed bounds. We are con- 
 fronted with the appalling fact that the waters were too 
 strong for the barrier, and that tearing it away they 
 swept down with relentless and resistless fury upon the 
 town below, carrying death and destruction with them 
 to an unparalleled extent. 
 
 THE LARGEST RESERVOIR IN THE WORLD. 
 
 In order to understand the nature of this calamity it is 
 necessary to describe the respective locations of the 
 reservoir at Johnstown. The reservoir lies about 12 
 and a half miles northeast of Johnstown, and is the site 
 of the old reservoir, which was one of the feeders of the 
 Pennsylvania canal. It is the property of a number of 
 wealthy gentlemen in Pittsburg, who formed themselves 
 into the corporation, the title of which is the South Fork 
 Fishing And Hunting Club. 
 
 This sheet of water was formerly known as Cone- 
 maugh Lake. It is from 300 to 400 feet above the level 
 of Johnstown, being in the mountains. It is about three 
 and a half miles long and from a mile to one and a quarter 
 miles in width, andjn some places it is 100 feet in depth.
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 It holds more water than any other reservoir, natural or 
 artificial, in the United States. The lake has been quad- 
 rupled in size by artificial means and was held in check 
 by a dam from 700 to 1,000 feet wide. 
 
 It is 90 feet in thickness at the base and the height is 
 1 10 feet. The top has a breadth of over 20 feet. Recog- 
 nizing the menace which the lake has to the region 
 below, the South Fork Club had the dam inspected once 
 a month by the Pennsylvania railroad engineers, and 
 their investigation showed that nothing less than some 
 convulsion of nature would tear the barrier away and 
 loosen the weapon of death. The steady rain of the past 
 forty- eight hours increased the volume of water in all 
 the small mountain streams, which were already swelled 
 by the lesser rains earlier in the week. 
 
 THE UNSAFE CONDITION OF THE DAM. 
 
 Engineering experts have fairly swarmed to this local- 
 ity to examine the broken dam and the conditions which 
 produced the catastrophe and conduced to making it 
 such a gigantic, appalling calamity. 
 
 Among them were A. M. Wellington and L. P. Burt, 
 of the New York Engineering News. 
 
 A reporter has had a long talk with these latter 
 gentlemen, and from them has received a full description 
 of the dam, its faults of construction and the probable 
 reason for the breaking away of the waters of Cone- 
 maugh Lake. 
 
 The reports rendered by these experts substantially 
 confirm The Evening World's dispatches regarding the 
 insecurity of the dam structure. 
 
 Says Mr. Wellington : " No engineer of known and
 
 28 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 good standing could possibly have been engaged in the 
 reconstruction of the old dam after it had been neglected 
 in disuse for twenty odd years, and the old dam was a 
 very inferior piece of work, and of a kind wholly unwar- 
 ranted by good engineering practices of its day, thirty 
 years ago. 
 
 " Both the original dam and the reconstructed one 
 were built of earth only, with no heart wall and rip-rap- 
 ped only, on the slopes. True, the earth is of a sticky, 
 clayey quality; the best of earth for adhesiveness, and 
 the old dam was made in watered layers, well rammed 
 down, as is still shown in the wrecked dam. But the 
 new end was probably not rammed down at all ; the 
 earth was simply dumped in like an ordinary railway 
 filling. Much of the old dam still stands, while the new 
 work contiguous to it was carried away. 
 
 " It has been an ackpowledged principle of dam 
 building for forty years, and the invariable practice to 
 build a central wall either of puddle or solid masonry, 
 but there was neither in the old nor in the new dam. It 
 is doubtful if there is another dam of the height of fifty 
 feet in the United States which tacks this central wall. 
 
 " Ignorance or carelessness is shown in the recon- 
 struction, for the middle of the ne^ dam was nearly two 
 feet lower in the middle than at the ends. It should 
 have been crowned in the middle by ^U the rules and 
 practise of engineering. 
 
 " Had the break begun at the ends, the cut of the 
 water would have been gradual and little or no harm 
 would have resulted. And had the dan* been cut at 
 once at the ends when the water began running over the 
 centre, the suddenness of the break mighf )vw<
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 29 
 
 checked, the wall crumbling away at least more slowly 
 and gradually and possibly prolonged so that little harm 
 would have been done. 
 
 " There was an overflow through the rocks in the old 
 dam, which, provided that the water must rise seven 
 feet above the ordinary level before it would pass over 
 the crest of the dam. But, owing to the raising of the 
 ends of the dam in 1881, without raising the crest, only 
 five and a half feet of water was necessary to run water 
 over the middle of the dam. And this spillway, narrow 
 at best, had been further contracted by a close grating 
 to prevent the fish from escaping from the lake, while 
 the original discharge pipe at the foot of the dam was 
 permanantly closed when the dam was constructed. 
 Indeed, the maximum discharge was reduced in all 
 directions. The safety valve to that dangerous dam was 
 almost screwed down tight. 
 
 " There seems to have been no leakage through the 
 dam, its destruction resulting from its running over at 
 the top. The estimates for the original dam call for half 
 earth and rock, but there is no indication of it in the 
 broken dam. The riprap was merely a skin on each 
 face, with loose spawls mixed with the earth. The dam 
 was 72 feet high, 2 inches slope to a foot inside, i 1 /? 
 inches to a foot outside slope and 20 feet thick at the 
 top. The fact that the dam was a reconstructed one, 
 after twenty years disuse, made it especially hard on the 
 old dam to withstand the pressure of the water." 
 
 Cyrus Elder, general counsel for the Cambria Iron 
 Company, related some curious incidents as indictive of 
 the distrust of the dam on all sides. 
 
 Mr. Elder is the father of George Elder, the engineer
 
 30 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 of the Cyclone Pulverizer Company of New York, and 
 lost his wife and only daughter in the flood. 
 
 " When the South Fork Fishing And Hunting Club, 
 of Pittsburg, leased the lake of the Pennsylvania Rail- 
 road Company, in 1881, and proposed to rebuild the old 
 dam," says Mr. Elder, "the Cambria Iron Company 
 was considerably exercised, and a competent engineer 
 was employed to inspect the old dam and the plans for 
 the reconstruction. He condemned several matters in 
 the way of construction and the plans were changed to 
 meet his views, whereupon he reported that the new 
 dam would be perfectly safe. 
 
 " My son, George R. Elder, was at the Troy Polytech- 
 nic Institute at the time, and he sent to me a copy of a 
 problem submitted to his class by the Professor. It was, 
 of course, an hypothetical case, but it was quite evidently 
 based on the plans and specifications for the South Fork 
 dam. The class decided that the dam was safe. 
 
 " But the President of my Company was still anxious, 
 and, thinking that it would be a good idea to have some 
 member of the Company inside the South Fork Fishing 
 Club, set aside funds of the Company for the pur- 
 chase of tvVo shares in the Club. They were in the 
 name of D. J. Morrell, and after his death were trans- 
 ferred to my name. They are still held by me, but are 
 the property of the Cambria Iron Company." 
 
 THE CORONER'S JURY BLAMES THE CLUB. 
 
 Those who have always stood as members of the 
 Club now declare that it is a thing of the past and no 
 one will admit his membership. 
 
 Even the owners of cottages on the banks of the lit-
 
 . THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 31 
 
 tie lake deny any interest in the Club. They are wait- 
 ing legal action which will probably be taken against 
 them, and the cottages are unoccupied. 
 
 Coroner Hammer, of Westmoreland County, sitting 
 in inquest upon the bodies found at Nineveh, took the 
 jury to the dam, and a verdict is being prepared for 
 the signatures of the jurymen, and it will throw the bur- 
 den of blame upon the South Fork Fishing And Hunting 
 
 Club. 
 
 It throws the blame on the Club because of the 
 " gross, if not criminal, negligence and carelessness in 
 making repairs from time to time." 
 
 It has been a question before the Coroner if the Penn- 
 sylvania Railroad Company should not be held jointly 
 responsible with the Club, for the Company leased and 
 abandoned the dam and permitted it to fall out of repair. 
 
 THE LOCATION OF JOHNSTOWN. 
 
 Johnstown's geographical situation is one that renders 
 it peculiarly liable to terrible loss of life in the event of 
 such a casualty as that reported. It is a town- 
 built in a basin of the mountains and girt about by 
 streams, all of which finally find their way into the Alle- 
 gheny river, and thence into the Ohio. On one side of 
 the town flows the Conemaugh river, a stream which 
 during the dry periods of the summer drought can be 
 readily crossed in many places by stepping from stone to 
 stone, but which speedily becomes a raging mountain 
 torrent, when swollen by the spring freshets or heavy 
 summer rains. 
 
 On the other side of the town is the Stony creek, 
 which gathers up its own share of the mountain rains 
 and whirls them along toward Pittsburg. The awful
 
 32 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 flood caused by the sudden outpouring of the contents 
 of the reservoir, together with the torrents of rain that 
 had already swollen these streams to triple their usual 
 violence, is supposed to be the cause of the sudden sub- 
 mersion of Johnstown and the drowning of so many of 
 its citizens. The water, unable to find its way rapidly 
 enough through its usual channels, piled up in over- 
 whelming masses, carrying before it everything that 
 obstructed its onward rush upon the town. 
 
 Johnstown had a national bank, several savings insti- 
 tutions, printing offices which issue several daily and 
 weekly papers, sixteen churches, several tanneries, flour, 
 planing and woolen mills. The manufacture of wire, 
 cement, fire-brick and leather is also carried on. The 
 town also had a convent and an academy. 
 
 ITS INDUSTRIAL IMPORTANCE. 
 
 Johnstown, the centre of the great disaster, is on the 
 main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad, 276 miles from 
 Philadelphia and 78 from Pittsburg. It is the head- 
 quarters of the great Cambria Iron Company, and its 
 acres of iron works fill the narrow basin in which the 
 city is situated. The rolling mill and Bessemer steel 
 works employ 6,000 men. The mountains rise quite 
 abruptly almost on all sides, and the railroad track, 
 which follows the turbulent course of the Coner>augh 
 river, is above the level of the iron works, which must 
 have been inundated by the flood. The summit of the 
 Allegheny mountains is reached at Gallitizin, about 24 
 miles east of Johnstown. 
 
 The people of Johnstown had been warned of the im- 
 pending flood as early as I o'clock in the afternoon, but 
 not a person living near the reservoir knew that the dam
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 33 
 
 had given way until the flood swept the houses off their 
 foundations and tore the timbers apart. Escape from 
 the torrent was impossible. The Pennsylvania Railroad 
 hastily made up trains to get as many people away as 
 possible, and thus saved many lives. 
 
 THE LOWER TOWNS. 
 
 Four miles below the dam lay the town of South 
 Fork, where the South Fork itself empties into the Con- 
 emaugh river. The town continued about 2,000 inhab- 
 itants. It has not been heard from, but it is said that 
 four-fifths of it has been swept away. 
 
 Four miles further down, on the Conemaugh river, 
 which runs parallel with the main line of the Pennsylva- 
 vania railroad, was the town of Mineral Point. It had 
 800 inhabitants, 90 per cent, of the houses being on a 
 flat and close to the river. It seems impossible to hope 
 that any of them have escaped. 
 
 Six miles further down was the town of Conemaugh, 
 and here alone was there a topographical possibility of 
 the spreading of the flood and the breaking of its force. 
 It contained 2,500 inhabitants and must be almost 
 wholly devastated. 
 
 Woodvale, with 2,000 people, lay a mile below Cone- 
 maugh, in the flat, and one mile further down were 
 Johnstown and its cluster of sister towns, Cambria City, 
 Co*-' jmaugh borough, with a total population of 30,000. 
 
 On made ground, and stretching along right at the 
 river verge, were the immense iron works of the Cam- 
 bria Iron And Steel Company, who have $5,000,000 
 invested in their plant. 
 
 Besides this there are many other large industrial 
 establishments on the bank of the river. 
 3
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE correspondents, who were dispatched to the Con- 
 emaugh Valley, as soon as the news of the terrible dis- 
 aster horrified the public, found it impossible to gather 
 a clear and intelligible description of the catastrophe 
 from eye witneses. They all agree, that they heard a 
 terrible crashing sound and then all of a sudden they saw 
 a wall of water seventy feet high rushing with lightning 
 speed down the valley, destroying everything in its trail. 
 
 The great damage to Johnstown was largely due to 
 the rebound of the flood after it swept across. The wave 
 spread against the stream of Stony creek and passed 
 over Kernsville to a depth of 30 feet in some places. It 
 was related that the lumber boom had broken on 
 Stony creek, and the rush of tide down stream, coming 
 in contact with the spreading wave, increased the extent 
 of the disaster in this section. In Kernsville, as well as 
 in Hornerstown across the river, the opinion was expres- 
 sed that so many lives would not have been lost had the 
 people not believed from there experience with former 
 floods that there was postively no danger beyond the 
 filling of cellars or the overflow of the shores of the 
 river. After rushing down the mountains from the South 
 Fork dam, the pressure of water was so great that it 
 forced its way against the natural channel not only over 
 Kernsville and Hornerstown, but all the way up to 
 Grubbtown, on Stony creek. 
 
 By the terrible flood the communications by rail and 
 wire were nearly all cut off and many citizens, who on 
 (34)
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 35 
 
 Saturday, June ist. read about the terrible disaster first 
 believed, that the reports about the destruction of life 
 and property were greatly exaggerated either through 
 the excitement bordering on insanity, engendered by 
 this appalling calamity, or by the desire to be sensa- 
 tional, a thing, which we often find in newspaper 
 reports. In this case though there was not the least 
 exaggeration ; on the contrary, the facts, substantiated 
 later on by responsible men, and by the different aid 
 committees, sent there by charitable and benevolent 
 organizations from neighboring cities, fully justified these 
 reports, and in most cases were much more distressing 
 and appalling than according to the first reports. The 
 first reports gave the number of lives lost at 10,000 to 12,- 
 oco, and if all the missing are supposed to be dead this 
 number will be correct, although it can fairly be assumed 
 that many of the people saved, in their consternation 
 and fright, which bordered on the unsettling of their rea- 
 son, have strayed away and will turn up at some other 
 place. The exact number of the victims of this dread- 
 ful disaster probably will never be known. Bodies have 
 been found beyond Pittsburg, which in all probability 
 were carried to that place from Johnstown and its 
 suburbs. The terrible holocaust at the barricade of 
 wrecks at the bridge of the Pennsylvania Railroad below 
 Johnstown, where hundreds of men, women and chil- 
 dren, who were saved from the waves were burned to 
 death, caused a terrible loss of life. The loss of property 
 was first guessed at 25 to 30 millions of dollars, to-day 
 it is estimated at double of that amount. 
 
 ANOTHER ACCOUNT OF THE DAM THAT BROKE. 
 
 On the Monday after the catastrophe there came to
 
 36 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 Johnstown a man, who had scarcely more than a dozen 
 rags to cover his nakedness. His name is Herbert 
 Webber, and he was employed by the South Fork Club 
 as a sort of guard. He supported himself mostly by 
 hunting and fishing on the Club's preserves. By almost 
 superhuman efforts he succeeded in working his way 
 through the forest and across flood, in order to ascertain 
 for himself the terrible results of the deluge which he saw 
 start from the Sportsman's Club's lake. Webber said that 
 he had been employed in various capacities about the 
 preserve for a considerable time. 
 
 He had repeatedly, he declared, called the attention of 
 the members of the Club to the various leakages at the 
 dam, but he received the stereotyped reply that the 
 masonry was all right ; that it had been " built to stand 
 for centuries," and that such a thing as it giving way 
 was among the impossibilities. But Webber did not 
 hesitate to continue his warnings. Finally, according to 
 his own statement, he was instructed to " shut up or he 
 would be bounced." He was given to understand that 
 the officers of the Club were tired of his croakings and 
 that the less he said about the dam from thence on the 
 better it would be for him. 
 
 Webber then laid his complaint before the Mayor of 
 Johnstown, not more than a month ago. He told him 
 that the spring freshets were due, and that, if they 
 should be very heavy, the dam would certainly give 
 way. Webber says that the Mayor promised to send an 
 expert to examine the dam then, and if necessary to 
 appeal to the State. Somehow the expert was not 
 chosen, the appeal was not made at Harrisburg, and the 
 catastrophe ensued.
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 37 
 
 For three days previous to the final outburst, Webber 
 says, the water of the lake forced itself through the 
 interstices of the masonry, so that the front of the dam 
 resembled a large watering pot. The force of the water 
 was so great that one of these jets squirted full thirty 
 feet horizontally from the stone wall. All this time, too, 
 the feeders of the lake, particularly three of them, more 
 nearly resembled torrents than mountain streams and 
 were supplying the dammed up body of water with quite 
 3,000,000 gallons of water hourly. 
 
 At 1 1 o'clock last Friday morning, Webber says, he 
 was attending to a camp about a mile back from the 
 dam, when he noticed that the surface of the lake 
 seemed to be lowering. He doubted his eyes, and 
 made a mark on the shore, and then found that 
 his suspicions were undoubtedly well founded. He 
 ran across the country to the dam, and there he saw, he 
 declares, the water of the lake welling out from beneath 
 the foundation stoneo of the dam. Absolutely helpless, 
 he was compelled to stand there and watch the gradual 
 development of what was to be the most disastrous flood 
 of this continent. 
 
 THE DAM COMMENCES TO BREAK. 
 
 According to his reckoning it was 12.45 when the 
 stones in the centre of the dam began to sink because of 
 the undermining, and within eight minutes a gap of 
 twenty feet was made in the lower half of the wall face, 
 through which the water poured as though forced by 
 machinery of stupenduous power. By one o'clock the 
 toppling masonry, which before had partaken some- 
 what of the form of an arch, fell in, and then the remain-
 
 38 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 der of the wall opened outward like twin-gates, and the 
 great storage lake was foaming and thundering down 
 the valley of the Conemaugh. 
 
 Webber became so awestruck at the catastrophe that 
 he declares he was unable to leave the spot until the 
 lake had fallen so low that it showed bottom fifty feet 
 below him. How long a time elapsed he says he does not 
 know before he recovered sufficient power of observa- 
 tion to notice this, but he does not thin-k that more than 
 five minutes passed. Webber says that had the dam 
 been repaired after the spring freshet of 1888, the disas- 
 ter would not have occurred. Had it been given ordi- 
 nary attention in the spring of 1887, the probabilities are 
 that thousands of lives would not have been lost. To 
 have put the dam in excellent condition would not have 
 cost $5,000. Carelessness which, in the minds of an 
 intelligent coroner's jury might be termed criminal 
 was the sole cause of the deluge.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE New York Sun of June 4th, contained a very 
 interesting and truthful graphic dispatch from its report- 
 ers at Johnstown. They were among the first to enter 
 Johnstown after the catastrophe. To do so they had to 
 travel in a roundabout way fully a thousand miles, and 
 finally reached their destination by chartering a special 
 train. One of the correspondents telegraphed as follows : 
 
 " The time has not yet come to write the story of the 
 disaster trfat has turned the sparkling Conemaugh that 
 rippled so pleasantly through the beautiful valley into a 
 river of horror in a valley of death. 
 
 " No man, nor any corps of men, with every facility 
 that can be devised, will ever be able to write a story 
 that shall fully tell of the awful visitation that has made 
 the valley one vast charnel house, twenty miles long and 
 half a mile wide, and that has stained the bright moun- 
 tain stream a color that not all the water that can flow 
 between now and eternity can ever wash out. 
 
 "With the facilities for obtaining information, and for 
 sending it after it is obtained, that are the best that can 
 be had here now, it is impossible to give more than a 
 vague idea of the awful desolation that is universal from 
 Conemaugh dam to far below Johnstown. To write a 
 column is but to glance at the subject. To write a page 
 would be but to skirt lightly over its points, and a whole 
 issue of the Sun would not contain a summary of all 
 there is to tell. 
 
 " This much alone is certain, that, whatever has been 
 
 39
 
 40 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 written is too weak to adequately convey an idea of the 
 extent of the disaster, and that the horror of the calam- 
 ity is bound to increase daily for some time yet. Explora- 
 tion of the valley beyond Johnstown has but just begun 
 On this account not even a good estimate of the total 
 number of lives lost can be made. 
 
 THE LOSS OF LIFE AND PROPERTY. 
 
 " Adjutant General Hastings, whose bureau here is 
 endeavoring to make something like a complete record 
 of the number of bodies found, sent to Governor Beaver 
 to-day his official estimate that at least 5,000 deaths 
 would be absolutely proven. This does not include the 
 large number of deaths that will never be known of posi- 
 tively, and General Hastings' own estimate of the total is 
 8,000. 
 
 " Nobody thinks this too small. Nobody who has been 
 about here an hour would think anything too awful to 
 be possible. Just now there was a report that 1,000 
 bodies had been found this afternaon at Kernsville, a 
 suburb of Johnstown. Nobody questioned it, although 
 it subsequently proved to be untrue. 
 
 "The loss of property will be far up into the millions, 
 but no one thinks of that. The tale of the dead is bad, 
 but the tale of the living is bad, too, and it must have 
 attention. There are as many of them as of the dead, 
 and they are hard pressed for food, clothing and all the 
 necessaries of life. Their necessity will continue, not for 
 a day, not for a week, but for months. 
 
 " They ace as destitute of all that goes to support life, 
 except the bare breath in their bodies, as are the very 
 dead whose half nude bodies line the banks of the Cone-
 
 THE JOHNSTO WN FLOOD. 4 I 
 
 maugh for miles. Their ordinary means of earning a 
 livelihood are gone, with the rest of the town, but there 
 is abundant work for every one. But there must be 
 money to pay the workmen. Food for the immediate 
 necessity of the people in Johnstown itself is coming in 
 from every side, and there is enough to relieve their 
 wants. 
 
 " What the situation is for people further up the valley 
 is unknown here, but their plight must be serious. 
 Clothing enough for the absolute necessity of the time is 
 also coming in, but the people cannot be maintained in 
 idleness so long, and money to set them at work and 
 keep them at work is absolutely necessary. The com- 
 mittee in charge has concluded, at the very outset, to 
 give the least possible amount of charity and the most 
 work. They ask for money first and most, and their 
 character is such that there need be no hesitation about 
 sending it in generous abundance. 
 
 " There is work in cleaning up and rebuilding to last 
 every able-bodied man here for six months, and it will 
 be at least a month before any considerable amount of 
 money can be realized from their labor. The generous 
 heart of the country is depended upon to furnish the 
 means of keeping these men at work for at least that long, 
 and perhaps for twice or three times as long, for no one 
 can tell yet how great will be the task of recreating the 
 town. 
 
 " ' I have visited Johnstown a dozen times a year for a 
 long time,' said a business man, ' and I know it thor- 
 oughly, but I haven't the least idea now of what part 
 of it this is. I can't even tell the direction the streets 
 used to run.'
 
 42 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 " His bewilderment is hardly greater than that of the 
 citizens themselves. They wander about in the mud 
 for hours trying to find the spot where the house of some 
 friend or relative used to stand. It takes a whole family 
 to locate the site of their friends' house with any reason- 
 able certainty. 
 
 SIXTY ACRES OF BURNING DEBRIS. 
 
 " Wandering over this muddy plain one can realize 
 something of what must have been the gigantic force of 
 that vast whirlpool. It pressed upon the town like some 
 huge millstone, weighing tens of thousands of tons and 
 revolving with awful velocity, pounding to powder every- 
 thing beneath. But the conception of the power of that 
 horrible eddy of the flood must remain feeble until that 
 sixty acres of burning debris is inspected. 
 
 " It seems from a little distance like any other mass of 
 wreckage, though vastly longer than any ever before 
 seen in this country. It must have been many times 
 more tremendous when it was heaped up twenty feet 
 higher over its whole area and before the five levelled it 
 off. But neither then nor now can the full terror of the 
 flood that piled it there be adequately realized until a 
 trip across parts where the fire has been extinguished 
 shows the manner in which the stuff composing it is 
 packed together. It is not a heap of broken timber lying 
 loosely thrown together in all directions. It is a solid 
 mass. 
 
 " The boards and timbers which made up the frame 
 buildings are laid together as closely as sticks of wood 
 in a pile more closely, for they are welded into one 
 another until each stick is as solidly fixed in place as
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 43 
 
 though all were one. A curious thing is that wherever 
 there are a few boards together they are edge up, and 
 never standing on end or flat. 
 
 " The terrible force of the whirlpool that ground four 
 square miles into this sixty acres of wreckage left no 
 opportunity for gaps or holes between pieces in the river. 
 Everything was packed together as solidly as though by 
 sledge-hammer blows. 
 
 " But the boards and timber of four square miles of 
 buildings are not all that is in that sixty-acre mass. An 
 immense amount of debris from further up the valley lies 
 there. Twenty-seven locomotives, several Pullman cars, 
 and probably a hundred other cars, or all that is left of 
 them, are in that mass. Fragments of iron bridges can 
 be seen sticking out occasionally above the wreckage. 
 
 " They are about the only things the fire has not lev- 
 elled, except the curious hillock spoken of an eighth of 
 a mile back from the bridge, where the flames appar- 
 ently raged less fiercely. Scattered over the area also 
 are many blackened logs that were too big to be entirely 
 burned, and stick up now like spar buoys in a sea of 
 ruin. Little jets of flame, almost unseen by daylight, 
 but appearing as evening falls, are scattered thickly over 
 the surface of the wreckage. 
 
 HUMAN BODIES BURNING IN THE WRECKAGE. 
 
 "All this is horrible to see, more horrible than it can 
 possibly be thought of; but the worst is untold. The 
 smoke that hovers over the wreckage by the bridge, and 
 floats in light blue clouds above the town, is heavy with 
 an odor rarely smelled. People in New York who 
 remember the smell of the ruins of the Belt Line stables,
 
 44 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 after their destruction by fire, when 1,200 horses had 
 perished, know what the odor is. But it is the flesh of 
 human beings, not of horses, that cause the odors at 
 which every newcomer here shivers with horror. 
 
 " Those who have been here long don't mind it ; they 
 are used to it, and there are more matters than smells to 
 attend to. The cruel whirlpool that pounded four 
 square miles of buildings into dust and splinters did not 
 spare the people. Their bodies were ground beneath 
 the pressure of the awful millstone of the flood, as were 
 the brick and mortar of the buildings. They were torn 
 limb from limb, heaped together, torn apart, scattered 
 and mingled in the mass as were the timbers and boards 
 of the pine buildings. 
 
 " Finally they were lodged in that solid mass of sixty 
 acres of debris along with the ruins of their home s 
 wedged in as tightly as though human flesh was no 
 more than broken wood and iron. There they are, those 
 that have not been burned in the fire that levelled the 
 whole mass, or that were not carried above the t >p of 
 the bridge in the first rush of the flood. How many 
 there were cannot be told. There were, perhaps, as 
 many as there were horses in the Belt Line stables. 
 Scores of bodies have already been removed from along 
 the edges of the area of wreckage, but that is only the 
 beginning. 
 
 " The fire has kept men off, and now that the rain and 
 the Pittsburg firemen are subduing the flames it is found 
 that the debris is packed so closely that it is hopeless 
 to attempt to penetrate it except by beginning at the 
 edges and working into it. That work will take weeks. 
 A few bodies have been pulled out where they were
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 45 
 
 on the surface, but even these cannot all be gotten out. 
 The body of a boy has lain all day beside the iron frame 
 of a locomotive tender near the bridge in plain sight, 
 but beyond reach. 
 
 " A most serious feature of the lodging of this mass of 
 stuff against the bridge is that all the water of the Cone- 
 maugh and of Stony creek has to pass through it on its 
 way to the Allegheny and to the water supply source of 
 Pittsburg. The bodies in the mass are already begin- 
 ning to emit an odor more offensive than that of their 
 roasting, and the danger to the health of localities fur- 
 ther down stream is believed to be immediate and ser- 
 ious. 
 
 " Of the rest of Johnstown, and the collection of towns 
 within sight of the bridge, not much is to be said. They 
 are, to a greater or less extent, gone, as Johnstown is 
 gone. Far up the gap through which came the flood a 
 large brick building remains standing, but ruined. It is 
 all that is left of one of the biggest wire mills and steel 
 works in the country. Turning around below the bridge 
 are the works of the Cambria Iron Company. 
 
 "The buildings are still standing, but they are pretty 
 well ruined, and the machinery, with which they were 
 filled, is either totally destroyed or damaged almost 
 beyond repair. High up on the hill at the left and scat- 
 tered up on other hills in sight are many dwellings, 
 neat, well kept, and attractive places apparently, and 
 looking as bright and fresh now as before the awful tor- 
 rent wiped out of existence everything in the valley 
 below. 
 
 " This is Johnstown and its immediate vicinity as nearly 
 as words can paint it. It is a single feature, one section
 
 46 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 out of fifteen miles of horror that stretches through this 
 once lovely valley of the Allegheny. What is true of 
 Johnstown is true of every town for miles up and down. 
 The desolation of one town may differ from the desola- 
 tion in others as one death may differ from another ; but 
 it is desolation and death everywhere desolation so 
 complete, so relentless, so dreadful that it is absolutely 
 beyond the conception of men who have not seen it 
 death in forms more varied, more painful and more hor- 
 rible than ever were devised by the most atrocious tor- 
 turer of the Inquisition. Many have been burned to 
 death and many have been drowned, but few have been 
 called upon to die with the water surging about their 
 faces while fire burned their limbs, a death that scores 
 suffered after the flood heaped them up against the 
 bridge here. 
 
 " There is one thing even those who have been longest 
 here and who have plunged deepest into the horrors that 
 fill the valley as completely as did the flood have not yet 
 forgotten, and that they say they never can forget that 
 is, the shrieks of the victims whose fate it was to die by 
 fire and water at once. 
 
 " The pitiful sound filled the valley at this point for 
 hours above the roar of the flames and the din and smash 
 of the debris-laden torrent. Hundreds were reached 
 and rescued. Hundreds died within sight of men who 
 would almost have given their own lives to save them. 
 
 THE NUMBER OF VICTIMS MAY NEVER BE KNOWN. 
 
 " The scene in Johnstown simply beggars description. 
 All that has been printed and told about it falls short of 
 the reality. The worst about the disaster will probably
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 47 
 
 never be known, for the reason that the flood and fire have 
 so scattered the victims through such a wide extent of 
 territory that no record can be made and only a list made 
 of a few thousand missing. 
 
 " Many people, too, have left Johnstown never to return, 
 their all having been destroyed. It would require a 
 census taker six months to complete anything approach- 
 ing a detailed statement of the dead, and no tabulation 
 has been attempted yet. Burned and ground to pieces 
 at the great dam of debris at the Pennsylvania Railroad 
 bridge are the remains of hundreds of people. 
 
 " Underneath the ruins of the town are many more. 
 Swept along down the river, lodged in driftwood on the 
 banks, caught in dams and lodged in trees and houses 
 at the bottom are still more. 
 
 " ' Where were most of the bodies found ? ' asked a 
 young man who came here. 
 
 " ' Everywhere/ was the answer. 
 
 " Johnstown has been well described as a scooped hol- 
 low between the hills, made on the pattern of a hollow 
 in a man's hand when he holds his palm upward until 
 the fingers are raised. The hills, of course, take the 
 place of the fingers of the hands. They are covered with 
 forests that have never been cut off, and which loom up 
 gloomy and solemn. On the sides of some of the hills 
 cuts have been made for the railroads and their sidings. 
 
 " Together the location is that which is invariably des- 
 cribed as a beautiful one. The main portion of the 
 town was on the flats and hollow between Stony creek 
 and Conemaugh river, and the mistake has been made 
 by the majority of the people in thinking of the accident
 
 48 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 that most of these houses were wooden ones and of 
 rather a poor character." 
 
 A special reporter of the Public Ledger, the great 
 newspaper of George W. Childs, telegraphed on the 2nd 
 day of June as follows: 
 
 " I have just come from Johnstown proper, over a 
 /ope bridge which was completed this afternoon. I 
 reached there at 5 o'clock last night, and tell only what 
 1 did see and do know. 
 
 " The mighty wave that rushed through the Conemaugh 
 Valley on Friday evening cut a swath of death 13 miles 
 long. In this way lay one of the most thickly popula- 
 ted centres of the Keystone State, and within a few 
 minutes from the time the dam at Lake Conemaugh 
 broke houses were rolling over one another in a mad 
 whirl, as they were carried by the seething waters down 
 the gorge between the endless hills. 
 
 " At Johnstown the whole centre of the city was cut, as 
 if a mammoth scythe had passed over the land. At that 
 place was a large stone bridge of the Pennsylvania Rail- 
 road Company, one of the strongest that the company 
 owns. The Conemaugh river is crossed by it at an 
 angle. Into this angle houses, trees and fences that 
 came down the left side of the river rushed, and were 
 piled one on top of another until the arches under the 
 bridge were closed, the current of the Conemaugh was 
 changed and the wreckage began to pile on high until 
 rafters and timbers projected above the stone. Then the 
 houses, nearly all crowded with people, crashed, one 
 after another, until the terrible wreckage extended a half 
 mile up the stream- No pen can tell the horror or the
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 49 
 
 shrieks of the thousands who y^re in the mass of float- 
 ing ruins. 
 
 AN ADDED HORROR OF FIRE. 
 
 " Shortly after the blockade had formed the dry timbers 
 of the houses caught fire, and the mass nearest the rail- 
 road bridge became a glowing furnace. Hundreds of 
 people, who had not been drowned or crushed to death 
 in the mad rush down stream, were burned alive. Their 
 shrieks as the flames reached them made the most stout- 
 hearted wring their hands in agony at their inability to 
 render assistance. The wind blew from up stream. The 
 air became filled with the gruesome odors, until at last 
 the horrors to sight, hearing and smell became so great 
 that persons in the vicinity were forced to leave the 
 place. Meanwhile the greater bulk of the houses had 
 gone down along the right bank. One mad rush car- 
 ried away a portion of the stone bridge, and then the 
 flood bore down upon the thousands of homes and floated 
 them further westward in the Conemaugh. It was only 
 a little after 5 o'clock Friday afternoon when the first 
 warning came, and as it had been raining heavily all day 
 the citizens of Johnstown and the neighboring hamlets 
 thought that the slowly rising waters only meant a light 
 flood. 
 
 " Thus the inhabitants were either grouped in windows 
 or in the open doors watching what was expected would 
 be an imposing spectacle, but nothing more. No one 
 seemed to think it necessary that they should take to the 
 hills, and so all were caught in the fearful rush. 
 
 BODIES ALONG THE RIVER BANKS. 
 
 " I walked late yesterday afternoon from New Florence 
 4
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 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 50 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 bodies 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 Johns- 
 town 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 the same as 
 the piano had been. 
 
 HEARTRENDING SCENES. 
 
 " The scenes as I neared Johnstown were the most heart- 
 rending that man was ever called on to look upon. 
 Probably 3000 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 plumb. Hundreds ot
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 51 
 
 them were burned on their sides, and in some cases three 
 or four stood one on top of the other. 
 
 THE CAMBRIA IRON WORKS. 
 
 " 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 of fully 50 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 remained 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 40 workmen. 
 
 " At this point there was 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 one thousand too few. 
 The scenes of misery and suffering and agony and des- 
 pair 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
 
 52 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 they rescued him. ' My wife and children are gone ; I 
 have no use for my life.' An hour later I saw Wood- 
 ruff lying on the ground entirely overcome by liquor. 
 
 " Intemperance was a merciful boon in his case. Per- 
 sons who knew him said that he had never tasted liquor 
 before. Probably 50 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 6 o'clock last night the 
 shrieks and cries of women were intermingled with 
 drunken howls and curses. 
 
 RUFFIANISM RAMPANT. 
 
 " What was worse than anything, however, was the fact 
 that incoming trains from Pittsburg brought hundreds 
 of toughs who joined with the Slavs and Bohemians in 
 rifling the bodies, stealing furniture, insulting women 
 and endeavoring 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 nar- 
 row neck of land that was the only approach to the city 
 of Johnstown. 
 
 " I saw persons take watches from dead men's pockets 
 and brutally tear finger rings from their hands. 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, for the troops had not had sway. In fact, 
 i they became beastly drunk after a time and were seen
 
 THE JOHNS TO WN FLOOD. 5 3 
 
 lying around in a stupor. Unless the military are 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. 
 
 A FRIGHTFUL ESTIMATE. 
 
 '' Here I will give the latest a conservative estimate of 
 the dead : It is between seven and eight thousand 
 drowned and two thousand burned. 
 
 " The committee of Johnstown, in their bulletin, placed 
 the number of lives lost at 8000. In doing so they are 
 figuring the inhabitants of their own city and the towns 
 immediately adjoining. But it must be remembered that 
 the flood swept ten miles through a populous district 
 before it even reached the locality over which this com- 
 mittee had supervision. It devasted 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 100 rooms, has vanished. There 
 were in it 75 guests at the time of the flood. Two only 
 are known to be alive. The Merchants' Hotel is 
 levelled. 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. 
 
 THE SCENE AT THE STONE BRIDGE. 
 
 " It is almost impossible in this great catastrophe to go 
 more into details. I stood on the stone bridge at 6 
 o'clock, and looked into the seething mass of ruin below
 
 54 TH JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 me. At one place the blackened body of a babe was 
 seen; in another 14 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 50 feet, and it is expected 
 when it dies down the charred bodies will be seen 
 dotting the entire mass of burned debris. A cable has 
 been run last night from the end of the stone bridge to 
 the nearest point across a distance of 300 feet. Over 
 this cable was run a trolley and a swing was fastened 
 under it. 
 
 IN JOHNSTOWN. 
 
 " 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 hill- 
 side 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 Pittsburg 
 arrived at 7 o'clock. Otherwise the horrors of starva- 
 tion would have been added. All provisions, however, 
 had to be carried over a rough, rocky road a distance of 
 four miles (as I know, 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. 
 
 THE SUFFERINGS OF THE SURVIVORS. 
 
 " It may sound strange to say much about the damage
 
 THE JOHNS TO WN FLOOD. 5 5 
 
 to property, but it must be remembered that the living 
 are those who now suffer, and aid is asked for the thou- 
 sands who are left homeless and without a change of 
 clothing. I learned in Johnstown that the great Char- 
 tiers Steel Works are swept away, with all its valuable 
 machinery. This alone entails a loss of $2,000,000. 
 One million will not make the Cambria Iron Works 
 whole. 
 
 " Rich and poor were served alike by this terrible dis- 
 aster. I saw a girl standing in her bare feet on the river 
 bank, clad in a loose petticoat and with a shawl over- 
 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 were left her, but all that were 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 is 
 safe.' " 
 
 On the following day this correspondent wrote as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 THE LOSS OF LIFE. 
 
 " The developments of every hour make it more 
 and more apparent that the exact number of lives 
 lost in the Johnstown horror will never be known. All 
 estimates that have been made up to this time are con- 
 servative, and, when all is known, will doubtless be found 
 to have been too small. Over 1000 bodies have been
 
 56 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 found since sunrise to-day, and the most skeptical con- 
 cede that the remains of thousands more rest beneath 
 the debris above Johnstown bridge. 
 
 " The population of Johnstown, the surrounding suburbs 
 and the portion of the valley affected by the flood is, or 
 was, 50,000 to 55,000. Associated Press representatives 
 to-day interviewed numerous leading citizens of Johns- 
 town who survived the flood, and the concensus of opin- 
 ion was that fully 30 per cent, of -the residents of Johns- 
 town and Cambria had been victims of the continued dis- 
 asters of fire and water. If this be true the total loss 
 of life in the entire valley cannot be less than 7000 or 
 8000, and possibly much greater. 
 
 ' Of the thousands who were devoured by the flames, 
 and whose ashes rest beneath the smoking debris above 
 Johnstown bridge, no definite information can ever be 
 obtained. As little will be learned of the -hundreds who 
 sank beneath the current and were borne swiftly down 
 the Conemaugh, only to be deposited hundreds of miles 
 below on the banks and in the driftwood of the raging 
 Ohio. Probably one-third of the dead will never be 
 recovered, and it will take a list of the missing weeks 
 hence to enable even a close estimate to be made of the 
 number of bodies that were to be seen floating in the 
 river in the brief hour. That this estimate can never be 
 accurate is understood when it is remembered that, in 
 many instances, whole families and their relatives were 
 swept away and found a common grave beneath the 
 wild waste of waters. The total destruction of the city 
 leaves no data to even demonstrate that the names of 
 these unfortunates ever found place on the pages of eter- 
 nity's history."
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ON the 5th day of June, five days of the disaster, the 
 people had fairly recovered from their stupor, brought 
 on by this terrible disaster and an earnest effort was 
 made to get some definite information as to the total 
 number of persons whose lives were lost in the recent 
 flood and its attendant horror of fire at the Pennsylvania 
 Railroad bridge. The further the inquiry was presented, 
 however, the more uncertain the ascertainment of any 
 authentic figures became. There had up to that time 
 been no general system of keeping records, and when it 
 is remembered that the loss of life began six miles above 
 Johnstown, and extended 20 miles below in a path rang- 
 ing from TOO feet to a mile in width, it will be seen how 
 difficult it would have been to adopt any such system in 
 so sudden an emergency. Dead bodies have been found 
 floating in the rivers into which the Conemaugh empties 
 as far west as Pittsburg, and without doubt many of 
 them still lie buried in the stream or are lodged under 
 the debris and sand. 
 
 The whole territory in which these dead bodies have 
 been located is of so vast an extent, coming under the 
 notice of so many different authorities, that no complete 
 record could have been kept, especially in view of the 
 fact that it was deemed expedient in many places to 
 remove the remains from sight forever as quickly as pos- 
 sible. 
 
 An actual count of the dead is absolutely impossible. 
 The streets of Johnstown to-day are covered in many 
 
 (57)
 
 58 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 places houses high with sand and rubbish and building 
 material and household utensils, in the midst of which 
 human remains are being constantly discovered. 
 
 A VISIT TO THE CAUSE OF THE DISASTER. 
 
 A correspondent of the New York Sun, who visited 
 the South Fork Fishing Club's dam on the fourth of 
 June, thus telegraphed his observations : 
 
 " The investigations of your reporter show clearly that 
 the major part of whatever responsibility may belong to 
 human agencies for the calamity that has desolated the 
 Conemaugh valley must be placed upon the South Fork 
 Fishing And Hunting Club, the association of wealthy 
 Pittsburg gentlemen that has for four or five years past 
 been endeavoring to establish a sportsman's paradise at 
 Conemaugh Lake. When they leased the lake they 
 closed the waste gates, through which all the water that 
 had ever before accumulated in Conemaugh Lake had 
 found a safe and speedy exit. It is measurably certain 
 that had the waste gales been maintained the dam would 
 never have given way. 
 
 " They were removed, it is said, because whenever they 
 were opened the game fish with which the lake was 
 being stocked would escape. The fish have escaped all 
 the same, and the lives of 8000 human beings have gone 
 with them. These statements are made after a visit to 
 the spot by a Sun correspondent and an inspection of 
 the remains of the dam, and after listening to the 
 accounts of the residents in the neighborhood as to what 
 was the condition of the dam before the disaster. The 
 visit to the spot was not easily made. No one had 
 attempted it from this side until this morning, although
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 59 
 
 news of various sorts about it had been brought down by 
 a few people living near it, or who had been caught near 
 it when the flood came. 
 
 " At 6 o'clock this morning a Sun man set out for the 
 lake by way of Conemaugh, and thence nine miles up 
 into the mountains over the summits of some of the 
 highest parts of the Alleghenies, and then down as near 
 the dam as the road leads. The shorter and more direct 
 route up the river was impracticable, the flood having 
 washed out impartially the railroad on one side and the 
 wagon road on the other, and the river having cut out 
 new channels so winding and crooked that they would 
 have to be crossed a dozen times in every mile of the 
 way. The stream is still so swollen that it cannot be 
 forded. 
 
 " After reaching the vicinity of the dam, two miles more 
 of tramping over a mass of rocks and gravel, from ten 
 to twenty feet deep, was necessary to reach and get 
 around the dam. As to the dam itself, no description 
 yet printed gives any hint as to its character. There was 
 no massive masonry, nor any tremendous exhibition of 
 engineering skill in designing the structure or putting it 
 up. There was no masonry at all in fact, nor any engi- 
 neering worthy of the name. The dam was simply a gigan- 
 tic heap of earth dumped across the course of a moun- 
 tain stream between two hills. It was faced on each side 
 with a layer of heavy rough stone, loosely thrown to- 
 gether and uncemented. This pile of earth was, as has 
 been stated, about 75 feet high and 90 feet thick at the 
 base. At the summit it was levelled off so as to be about 
 20 feet wide, and a wagon road crossed it. It was an 
 ordinary dirt road, and there was no rock or masonry
 
 60 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 beneath it. The width of the stream at the bottom of 
 the dam was about 40 feet. At the top the dam was 
 about 400 feet long. It was built straight across the gap, 
 and neither face nor back was curved. The slopes were 
 about the same on both face and back. 
 
 " The dam was built many years ago to create a reser- 
 voir for use as a feeder to the Pennsylvania Canal. The 
 builders placed in the forty-foot space at the bottom, 
 where the creek ran, five huge pipes, each as large as a 
 hogshead. These were covered by an arch of massive 
 masonry, and were arranged to be opened or closed by 
 levers in a tower that was built in the centre of the dam. 
 These five big pipes were calculated to be large enough 
 to carry off all surplus water that could ever be poured 
 into the lake above and which could not escape by the 
 regular exit, which was a sluiceway around one corner 
 of the dam at a level of eight or ten feet below the top. 
 This sluiceway was really a new stream, the water pass- 
 ing off through it finding its picturesquely winding 
 course down the hillside, and running with the stream 
 again some distance below the dam. The sluiceway 
 and waste gates never failed to do the work for which 
 they were designed, and there is no reason to suppose 
 that they would have failed to do so at the present time 
 and for the future had they been maintained as the 
 builders contemplated. 
 
 " When the Pennsylvania Canal was abandoned the 
 dam became useless, and was neglected. The tower in 
 which the machinery for managing the waste gates was 
 located is said to have fallen into ruin a few years ago. 
 The lake was leased by the Pittsburg Sportsman's Asso- 
 ciation. Engineer Fulton, of the Cambria Iron Com-
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 6 1 
 
 pany, made an inspection of it and pronounced it danger- 
 ous. The association set out, they declared, to improve 
 and strengthen it. They did cut off two feet from the 
 top of the dam, and may have strengthened it in some 
 respects ; but either because the waste gates were so 
 damaged that to repair them would have been an expen- 
 sive job, or, for the other reason mentioned, the fear that 
 the fish would escape by the waste gates, every one who 
 lives near says the gates were permanently stopped up. 
 The present appearance of the wreck of the dam indic- 
 ates the truthfulness of the story. There are remnants 
 of the waste gate masonry, but there is no indication 
 that they have been of any practical use for a long time. 
 " Whatever may have been the indirect cause of the 
 giving way of the heap of dirt that dammed upper Cone- 
 maugh, the fearful power of the mass of water which was 
 the direct cause of its yielding is evident all about the 
 place. In the centre of the dam is a gap clear down to 
 bed rock in the old bed of the stream, and sloping rag- 
 gedly upon each side to the top, where it is at least 200 
 feet wide. Through this huge gap can be seen a vast 
 area of yellowish gravel and mud a very deep basin in 
 the centre back of the dam, rising at each side in bluffs 
 thirty feet high, and sloping more gradually backward 
 away off until it curves to the left and is cut off from 
 view by a point of land. At the further end of the curve 
 arc the big club house and a number of cottages erected 
 for members of the club, gay bits of color in the midst 
 of masses of green trees. This mud valley is not less 
 than a quarter of a mile wide at its narrowest point. It 
 is generally much wider, and is said to average a mile 
 and a quarter.
 
 62 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 " There would seem to have been enough water to wash 
 away Johnstown in the parts of the huge basin that can 
 be seen through the gap in the dam, but the whole length 
 of that basin, as it winds irregularly back among the 
 hills, is three miles, and all the water in that area of 
 three miles by a mile and a quarter passed out through 
 the gap in the dam and poured itself upon the devoted 
 valley below in a torrent 75 feet deep and 200 feet wide. 
 Rushing through with a velocity almost inconceivable 
 for so vast a mass, it took a full hour to exhaust the res- 
 ervoir, the tremendous pressure from behind urging the 
 flood on to its most disastrous work. Something of the 
 awful force of the torrent can be seen on the land below 
 the dam. Formerly it was a densely wooded little val- 
 ley, nearly straightaway for half a mile, where it turned 
 so abruptly to the right as to make almost a right angle. 
 
 " The creek, coming down through sluiceway and down 
 the mountain side, wandered in a crooked course through 
 the bottom of the valley. Just before the turn it swept 
 out a good way toward the left and made on the right 
 bank a long point of land. This point was very heavily 
 wooded. On the opposite bank was a high bluff, covered 
 with forest down to the water's edge. For three quarters 
 of the distance from the dam to the curve the formerly 
 wooded flats are low, covered with gravel, coarse stone 
 and big rocks, twenty feet deep at the upper end and not 
 less than ten at any point. The creek runs through the 
 forty-feet gap where the waste gates used to be, and 
 through a deep gully in the mass of gravel and stone. 
 There is no vestige of trees or underbrush. Just before the 
 long curve begins, where formerly there was a bridge, 
 the deposit of gravel is thin, but the heavily wooded point
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 63 
 
 on the other side has disappeared, and gravel ten feet 
 deep covers the spot. 
 
 "On the opposite bluff the trees have been stripped 
 away and the side of the hill torn out for forty feet up, a 
 clear evidence of the terrible force of the torrent as it 
 whirled about the right-angled turn. The surface of the 
 little half-mile valley suggests nothing more forcibly 
 than that the system of hydraulic mining used in the 
 gold regions had been worked for a long time. The 
 debris is still of heavy rock and gravel. There is no 
 dirt in it. The rush of waters carried with it every 
 thing but the heaviest that it picked up. Many of what 
 have evidently been the largest and heaviest rocks in the 
 face of the dam lie broken in fragments against some 
 other rock upon which they were hurled. There were 
 two houses on the flats of the half-mile valley. George 
 Fisher and his family lived in the first, right in sight of 
 the dam. He had been warned that the dam was going 
 to go, and he moved out in time and saved the lives of 
 his family, but little else besides the clothes they wore. 
 
 " George Lamb, with his wife and children and two 
 pigs, lived just by the bridge further down the valley. 
 He also was afraid of the dam, but he stayed in his house 
 until he heard the thunder of the waters pouring through 
 the first breach in the dam. Then he shouted to neigh- 
 bors who had come running down the hill to rescue his 
 wife and children, while he ran himself to save the pigs. 
 He didn't get the pigs. If the neighbors hadn't helped 
 him out along with his family he would have been 
 caught in the first rush of the torrent. The flood, he 
 says, seemed to follow almost instantly after the thunder 
 of the water through the breach. He got back to high
 
 64 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 ground in time to see his house climb the face of the 
 great wall of water, 60 feet high. He saw it roll and 
 toss for an instant with Fisher's house, and then they 
 were flung against the bluff with a force that dashed 
 them into splinters. Not a fragment of them was found 
 after the water had subsided, and Mr. Lamb can scarcely 
 tell where his house stood. 
 
 " ' It's all changed here,' he said to-day. ' I can't tell 
 half the time where I really am.' 
 
 " Mr. Lamb's two pigs were the only lives lost while 
 the flood remained in sight of its starting point. Not 
 until it had gone half a mile down the narrow gulch did 
 it strike any settlement and begin, in the outskirts 
 of South Forks, its fifteen mile course of ruin and 
 death. 
 
 " W. H. Pickerell, operator at Mineral Point tower, and 
 one and a quarter miles west of Mineral Point station, 
 two miles this side of South Fork, was at his post when 
 the flood came. 
 
 " The tower is quite a distance above the head of the 
 stream. His family live at Mineral Point and he had 
 been very anxious about the condition of the South 
 Fork dam. At about 10 A. M. on May 3 1 he sent a spec- 
 ial message to his family to warn them not to remain in 
 the house. He also sent several messages in the fore- 
 noon to Dougherty, the operator at South Fork, asking 
 about the condition of the dam. 
 
 " The replies were to the effect that their watchman, 
 Adam, said there was great danger, but that the 
 operator's opinion was that there was not much dan- 
 ger. At about i P. M. Pickerell received a message 
 from the South Fork operator that the dam was in bad
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 65 
 
 condition. At 1.52 p. M. he received this message from 
 South Fork: 
 
 "'The water is running over the breast of Lake dam, 
 in centre, and west side is becoming dangerous. 
 
 DOUGHERTY.' 
 
 " The last message received from South Fork, and, in 
 fact, the last message received at Mineral Point from any 
 one up to the present time, was received at 2.25 P. M. : 
 
 " ' The dam is getting worse, and may possibly go. 
 
 J. P. WILSON.' 
 
 " Mr. Wilson is superintendent of the Argyle Coal 
 Company. Pickerell sent this message to East Cone- 
 maugh as soon as he received it, together with instruc- 
 tions to have it circulated among the people there at 
 once. The operator at East Conemaugh wired back at 
 2.25 P. M., ' J. O.' these being the letters used to denote 
 the name of the East Conemaugh operator, Mr. Mont- 
 gomery. 
 
 5
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A CORRESPONDENT of the Philadelphia Times, writes 
 about the break of the dam as follows : 
 
 " Standing on what still remains of the embankment, 
 one can see from the marks all around him how tremen- 
 dous was the force of the shock when the break occurred. 
 All that remains is seamed from side to side so that it is 
 unsafe to go near the edge of the break. When it is 
 remembered that the break was almost instantaneous, 
 the dam giving way with two loud reports in rapid suc- 
 cession, some idea may be formed of the force with 
 which the rush of the flood began. The experience of 
 Mr. Joab Salkeld, who lives on the hillside more than a 
 mile below the breast of the dam, will still further illus- 
 trate the momentum of the water. He was lying down 
 at the time. When she heard the first report his wife 
 roused him, telling him the dam had broken. He had 
 scarcely time to get to the window to see the flood com- 
 ing. An instant later it had rolled past, leaving a suc- 
 cession of surging and angry tides behind. Houses 
 came down with the flood and were dashed to pieces as 
 they came. Immense trees were uprooted and carried 
 along like straws dashed about in a whirlpool. In many 
 cases forest giants were snapped off as if they had stood 
 in the track of a cyclone. The verdant valleys became 
 in an instant a mere waste of sand and debris. Even 
 immense rocks were carried along by the flood. Oppo- 
 site the village of South Forks is a huge boulder weigh- 
 ing fully 60,000 tons that was not there before. It is as 
 (66)
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 6/ 
 
 large as a medium-sized house. Nothing was strong 
 enough to resist the force of the flood where its blows 
 had full effect nothing except the everlasting hills. 
 The hills indeed played a very important part in the 
 catastrophe. South Fork creek from the dam to its con- 
 fluence with the Conemaugh, two miles below, is a very 
 rapid stream. Not half a mile below the breast of the 
 dam it makes a sudden turn to the right. At this point juts 
 out a little mountain piled on the top of the Alleghenies. 
 It was against this that the flood first struck after being 
 let loose, the hills throwing it back with a reactionary 
 force momentarily stronger than the force of the flood 
 itself. Midway between the hill and dam there was a 
 large frame house. Hurled against the hill by the force 
 of the flood, the hill dashed it back with a thud and it 
 was ground to pieces in the swirl. Not a vestige of it 
 remains. Across the stream, at Lamb's house, was a 
 bridge Lamb's bridge. It was the first of a hundred 
 other bridges to be swept away. Between the house 
 and the bridge Mr Lamb's spring wagon was standing. 
 The flood caught it up but the hill tossed it back, and 
 when the water subsided it was found about twenty 
 yards from where it originally stood, and strange to say, 
 it was almost uninjured. Indeed, it is still in such good 
 condition that I rode on it on Thursday morning from 
 the dam to Johnstown, a distance of twelve miles over 
 the roughest road in Christendom, excepting only the 
 other roads in Cambria county. Taking a fresh start 
 after its contact with the hill below Lamb's house, the 
 flood swept onward down the South Fork Valley and 
 then along the Coneraaugh and through Johnstown. 
 At many points there are sharp angles formed by the
 
 68 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 hills in the winding valleys, at every one of which the 
 mad flood repeated its angry and destructive contor- 
 tions'. 
 
 A NICE SENSATION SPOILED. 
 
 " One of the reportorial brotherhood, leaning a little 
 towards imagination and sensation had gotten up a story 
 of a new Paul Revere, who had come riding along on a 
 foam-bedecked steed and warned all neighbors to fly 
 from the flood, and who finally succumbed with his noble 
 charger. It was a soul-stirring story, an excellent story 
 for a dime novel or some other elegant publication. It 
 was a nice story, but then came the fellows, who are 
 quick at figures and who have spoiled many other nice 
 stories before, and have proven that they deserve no 
 credit That young man could not have done it, even 
 if he had any intention to do so. The flood was too 
 fast for any horseman and there was no road in the 
 Conemaugh Valley over which a horseman could go. 
 But while this new Paul Revere in this famous creation 
 made by a few strokes of a reporter's pencil is a myth 
 the reporter, it will be remembered, killed him in the 
 flood that he might not rise up and bear testimony against 
 a false witness there were many little Pauls. The South 
 Forks people had watchers at the dam during the fatal 
 Friday who reported its condition from time to time. As 
 it was certain that the dam would break should the water 
 flow over the embankment, two boys were stationed at 
 the bend in the road near it to give notice of the impend- 
 ing calamity. These were Baker's boy and Gaskill's 
 boy. Of these Baker's boy was the last to come down 
 bearing intelligence of the fact that was a sure prelude
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 69 
 
 to disaster. But he was in no danger. He had the start 
 of the flood. Besides the South Fork Valley road at 
 most points between the dam and village is high above 
 the highest crest obtained by the flood wave. Below the 
 village, between South Fork and Conemaugh, there was 
 no road at all except the tracks of the Pennsylvania 
 Railroad. Below Conemaugh there was no chance for a 
 Paul Revere. Warnings were given in abundance, but 
 there was no real notice except that afforded by the com- 
 ing of the flood. Many persons were drowned who had 
 no notice at all they were in the water before they knew 
 the flood was coming. 
 
 THE DISASTER. DOWN THE CONEMAUGH. 
 
 " When the flood reached the village of South Fork 
 the destruction of human life began. At the station in 
 the village an eastbound train was standing within hear- 
 ing distance of the roar of the coming waters. It was 
 able to pull out in time and escape. At some distance 
 from the station down the Conemaugh Valley stood an 
 extra freight train waiting orders. The engineer and 
 conductor were in the tower, the fireman and flagman 
 were on the engine and two brakemen were asleep in the 
 caboose. The men in the tower heard the roar and saw 
 the coming flood. Crying to the brakemen, but failing 
 to rouse them, they hastily detached the engine and 
 fled before the mountain of water. Before them was 
 danger, but behind them was certain death. As they 
 dashed down the valley the flood made a momentary 
 pause at the village of South Fork. There is a bend in 
 the Conemaugh river at its confluence with the South 
 Fork creek, and the flood dashed itself against the hill-
 
 70 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 side in front of it. The waters were thrown back upon 
 the hills on the south bank of the creek. This was an 
 interruption, but with an angry swirl the great wave 
 righted itself and swung down the valley after the flying 
 engine. Steam soon proved to be no match in speed 
 against water. The stout stone viaduct was snapped 
 and dashed to fragments as if it had been a pipe of clay. 
 Obstacles only stood in the way to become the sport of 
 the wave. Across the bridge, on the track of the 
 detached engine, was a freight train barring the way. 
 As soon as the bridge was crossed the lever was reversed 
 and the men jumped and ran for their lives up the hill- 
 side. The flood was close upon them, and they had 
 scarcely got above the water line when it lifted up the 
 engine as if it had been a soap bubble, engulfed the 
 freight and tore up the tracks. Then on it went, mak- 
 ing a mad rush for the suburbs of the city below. 
 
 IN JOHNSTOWN. 
 
 " The course of the Conemaugh river between South 
 Fork and Johnstown is a tortuous one, and the flood in 
 its sweep was only thrown back from one hill to be 
 dashed against another. The obstacles and interrup- 
 tions only seemed to add to its fierce energy, and when 
 the town of Conemaugh was reached it was denuded 
 almost in an instant of every habitation that had shel- 
 tered a populous community. Below was the doomed 
 city of Johnstown. The inhabitants were oblivious of 
 the impending calamity. The merchant was in his store 
 bartering away his goods ; the merchants were at their 
 daily toil in the shops ; the house-wives were going 
 about their household duties. That there was danger 
 was known, but there had been danger before more than
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 71 
 
 once, and it passed away without a calamity. The previ- 
 ous cries of "Wolf!" made the cry ineffective now that 
 the wolf was at the door. Only the timid and the pru- 
 dent escaped the coming flood by going to the hillsides 
 in time. For the others, the only notice was the ring- 
 ing of the bell at the Cambria Iron Works, but so brief 
 was this notice that the bell had not stopped ringing 
 when the flood came. There was no time for even the 
 bell-ringer to escape. The warning came too late, and 
 only a few minutes elapsed before Johnstown was swept 
 away, the angel of death holding his sable wings over 
 the engulfed city. 
 
 " To those on the hillside the sight was an awful one. 
 Before the bell was rung there were few people in the 
 streets. At the first tap there was a panic, and the 
 frightened inhabitants rushed into the thoroughfares j 
 trying to make their way to the hillsides. A man who 
 was on Johnstown Hill at the time told me that he had 
 a view of Main street from end to end. In an instant the 
 deserted street became black with people running for 
 their lives. An instant later the flood came and licked 
 them up with one eager and ferocious lap. The whole 
 city was one surging and whirling mass of water, which 
 swept away house after house and block after block and 
 street after street with a rapidity that even the eye could 
 not follow. It was a sight that, once seen, can never be 
 forgotten a sight to be remembered only as a terrible 
 dream. 
 
 " The course of the flood in Johnstown was apparently 
 as unreasoning as the freaks of a madman and as cun- 
 ningly devised for deadly effect as the blows of an armed 
 maniac running amuck. Into the city the great wave 
 rushed, sweeping everything before it. The course of
 
 72 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 the Conemaugh is a gentle curve around Prospect Hill. 
 A part of the wave seemed disposed to follow the course 
 of the stream while the other part was intent upon dash- 
 ing into and through the heart of the town. The con- 
 flicting forces of the element, however, kept together 
 until the point between Franklin and Market streets was 
 reached. Here they separated, one current sweeping along 
 the course of the Conemaugh to the Pennsylvania Rail- 
 road bridge and the other making the dash through the 
 town. Thus the flood had two prongs, one as destructive as 
 the other. The gorge at the bridge threw the Conemaugh 
 current back upon the town along the course of Stony 
 creek, while the other prong made a mad rush upon the 
 western hills and was thrown back to meet the receding 
 waters from the bridge. At this moment the whole of 
 the Johnstown valley presented the appearance of a 
 mountain lake lashed by a tornado that was itself a con- 
 tortion the whole city was a whirlpool, even the largest 
 edifices being tossed like toys by the angry eddies that 
 made escape for the imprisoned inmates of floating 
 houses impossible. Many of the houses took fire from 
 the stoves as they were hurled from crest to crest of the 
 angry waves, and it is supposed that it was to this cause 
 the burning fires in the houses that the conflagration 
 in the gorge, which added so much to the horrors of the 
 disaster, was due. 
 
 " When the work of destruction and death in Johnstown 
 was complete and the great wave rolled down the Cone- 
 maugh Valley, bearing with its freight of human bodies, 
 some of which it carried as far as the Allegeheny and 
 the Ohio, the waters rapidly subsided in the city, reveal- 
 ing a condition that can only be described as appalling. 
 The scenes that then confronted the vision of the surviv-
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 73 
 
 ors would have been thought impossible before the flood 
 had come and gone." 
 
 JOHNSTOWN BEFORE AND AFTER THE DISASTER. 
 
 In turning from the Johnstown that was to the Johns- 
 town that is the heart sickens at the prospect, writes a 
 correspondent. Everywhere the marks of the devastat- 
 ing element reach the eye. Instead of compactly-built 
 streets intersecting each other and a vista of cheerful 
 yards and gardens there are long stretches of sand and 
 gravel. One of these follows the winding course of the 
 Conemaugh. The other was made by the tongue of 
 flood that kept straight on by the impetus given it in the 
 Conemaugh Valley. These tongues of wave, separating 
 like the two prongs, had an effect as salutary as the cir- 
 cumstance in itself was singular. Some property and 
 many lives were saved in consequence. The force of the 
 current being divided was diverted from the heart of the 
 town, and many buildings are still standing in a part of 
 Main street. They are wrecked, some almost wholly, 
 others only slightly, at least in appearance. Into this 
 space, so curiously preserved from utter ruin, many float- 
 ing buildings jammed, some of them with their living 
 human inmates. Some of these were saved, as were 
 many of the residents in that section of the city. Had 
 these buildings gone many additional lives would have 
 been sacrificed, and unless the bridge itself had shared 
 the fate of the rest of the town the gorge that began 
 when the train fell over the bridge would have been even 
 greater and more unmanageable than it now is. As it 
 is, it is interesting as an agent of mercy as well as a 
 remarkable example of partial escape from the fury of 
 the flood.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ONE of the most terrible sights was the gorge at the 
 railroad bridge. This gorge consisted of debris of all 
 kinds welded into an almost solid mass. Here were the 
 charred timbers of houses and even now the charred and 
 mutilated remains of human beings. The fire at this 
 point, which lasted until June 3d and had still some of 
 its vitality left on the 5th, was one of the incidents 
 of the Johnstown disaster that will become his- 
 toric. The story has not been and even now cannot be 
 fully told. One could not look at it without a shock to 
 his sensibilities. So tangled and unyielding was the 
 mass that even dynamite had little effect upon it. Oiie 
 deplorable effect, however, was to dismember the few 
 parts of human bodies wedged in the mass that the ruth- 
 less flood left whole. 
 
 From the western end of the railroad bridge the view 
 was but a prelude to the views that were to follow. 
 Looking across the gorge the first object the eye caught 
 in the ruined town is the Melville school, standing as a 
 guardian over the dead a solitary sentinel left on the 
 field after the battle. Still further on and near the cen- 
 tre of the old town were the offices and stores of the 
 Cambria Iron Company. Beyond and around both 
 buildings, were sand flats, mud flats until the 2Qth of 
 May, the almost navigable water of the flood itself until 
 the 2(1 of June, the most populous and busy part of the 
 city until the 3ist of May. Part of the ground was cov- 
 (74)
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 75 
 
 ered by a part of the shops of the Cambria Company. 
 Not a vestige of these remain. 
 
 UNHEEDED WARNINGS. 
 
 For several years has the strength of the dam been a 
 subject of discussion among the people of the Cone- 
 maugh Valley, and it was predicted that some time it 
 would succumb to the tremendous pressure behind it 
 and give the lake free refn in a dance of death and 
 destruction. But the many laughed, and the few who 
 were fearful held their peace. When the great storm of 
 Friday came, the dam was again a source of uneasiness, 
 and early in the morning the people of Johnstown were 
 warned that the dam was weakening. They had heard 
 the same warning too often, however, to be impressed, 
 and many jeered at their informants. Some of those that 
 jeered were before nightfall scattered along the banks of 
 the Conemaugh, cold in death, or met their fate in the 
 blazing pile of wrecked houses wedged together at the big 
 stone bridge. Only a few heeded the warning, and these 
 made their way to the hillsides, where they were safe. 
 
 Early in the day the flood caused by the heavy rains 
 swept through the streets of Johnstown. Every little 
 mountain stream was swollen by the rains ; rivulets 
 became creeks and creeks were turned into rivers. The 
 Conemaugh, with a bed too narrow to hold its greatly 
 increased body of water, overflowed its banks, and the 
 damage caused by this overflow alone would have been 
 large. But there was more to come, and the results were 
 so appalling that there lived not a human being who was 
 likely to anticipate them. 
 
 THE BREAKING OF THE BOOM. 
 
 At one o'clock in the afternoon the resistless flood tore
 
 76 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 away the huge lumber boom on Stony creek. This 
 was the real beginning of the end. 'The enormous mass 
 of logs was hurled down upon the doomed town. The 
 lines of the two water courses were by this time 
 obliterated, and Stony creek and the Conemaugh river 
 were raging seas. The great logs levelled everything 
 before them, crushing frame houses like eggshells and 
 going on unchecked until the big seven-arch stone 
 bridge over the Conemaugh river just below Johnstown 
 was reached. 
 
 Had the logs passed this bridge Johnstown might have 
 been spared much of its horror. There were already 
 dead and dying, and homes had already been swept 
 away, but the dead could only be counted by dozens and 
 not yet by thousands. Wedged fast at the bridge, the logs 
 formed an impenetrable barrier. People had moved to 
 the second floor of their houses and hoped that the flood 
 might subside. There was no longer a chance to get 
 away, and had they known what was in store for them 
 the contemplation of their fate would have been enough 
 to make them stark mad. Only a few hours had elapsed 
 from the time of the breaking of the lumber boom when 
 the waters of Conemaugh lake rushed down upon them. 
 The scoffers realized their folly. The dam had given 
 way, and the immense body of water which had rested 
 in a basin five miles long, two miles wide and seventy 
 feet deep was let loose to begin its work of destruction. 
 
 THE DELUGE COMES. 
 
 The towering wall of water swooped down upon 
 Johnstown with a force that carried everything before it. 
 Had it been able to pass through the. big stone bridge a
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 77 
 
 portion of Johnstown might have been saved. The 
 rampart of logs, however, checked the torrent and half 
 the houses of the town were lifted from their founda- 
 tions and hurled against it. This backed the water up 
 into the town, and as there had to be an outlet some- 
 where, the river made a new channel through the heart 
 of the lower part of the city. Again and again did the 
 flood hurl itself against the bridge, and each wave 
 carried with it houses, furniture and human beings. The 
 bridge stood firm, but the railway embankment gave way, 
 and some fifty people were carried down to their deaths 
 in the new break. Through this new outlet the waters 
 were diverted in the direction of the Cambria Iron 
 Works, a mile below, and in a moment the great build- 
 ings of a plant valued at $5,000,000, were engulfed and 
 laid low. Here had gathered a number of iron workers, 
 who felt that they were out of the reach of the flood, and 
 almost before they realized their peril they were swept 
 away into the seething torrent. 
 
 ROASTED TO DEATH. 
 
 It was now night, and darkness added to the terror of 
 the situation. Then came flames to make the calamity 
 all the more appalling. Hundreds of buildings had been 
 piled up against the stone bridge. The inmates of but 
 few of them had had time to escape. Just how many 
 people were imprisoned in that mass of wreckage may 
 never be known, but the number was estimated at 
 between 1000 and 2000. The wreckage was piled to a 
 height of fifty feet, and suddenly flames began leaping 
 up from the summit. A stove had set fire to that part 
 of the wreck above the water, and the scene that was
 
 78 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 then witnessed is beyond description. Shrieks and 
 prayers from the unhappy beings imprisoned in the 
 wrecked houses pierced the air, but little could be done. 
 Men, women and children, held down by timbers, watched 
 with indescribable agony the flames creep slowly toward 
 them until the heat scorched their faces, and then they 
 vere slowly roasted to death. 
 
 Those who were held fast in the wreck by an arm or a 
 leg begged pitiously that the imprisoned limb be cut off. 
 Some succeeded in getting loose with mangled limbs, 
 and one man cut off his arm that he might get away. 
 Those who were able worked like demons to save the 
 unfortunates from the flames, but hundreds were burned 
 to death. 
 
 SWEPT TO THEIR DOOM. 
 
 Meanwhile Johnstown had been been literally wiped 
 from the face of the earth, Cambria City was swept 
 away and Conemaugh borough was a thing of the past. 
 The little village of Millville, with a population of one 
 thousand, had nothing left of it but the school-house 
 and the stone buildings of the Cambria Iron Company. 
 Woodvale was gone and South Fork wrecked. Hun- 
 dreds of people were drowned in their houses, hundreds 
 were swept away in their dwellings and met death in the 
 debris that was whirled madly about on the surface of 
 the flood ; hundreds, as has been said, were burned, and 
 hundreds who sought safety on floating driftwood were 
 overwhelmed by the flood or washed to death against 
 obstructions. The instances of heroism and self- 
 sacrifice were never excelled, perhaps not equalled, on a 
 battle-field. Men rather than save themselves alone
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 79 
 
 died nobly with their families, and mothers willingly 
 gave up their lives rather than abandon their children. 
 
 HER LAST MESSAGE. 
 
 "At three o'clock in the afternoon," said Electrician 
 Bender, of the Western Union at Pittsburg, " the girl 
 operator at Johnstown was cheerfully ticking away; 
 she soon had to abandon the office on the first floor 
 because the water was three feet deep there. She said 
 she was wiring from the second story and the water was 
 gaining steadily. She was frightened, and said that 
 many houses around were flooded. This was evidently 
 before the dam broke, for our man here said something 
 encouraging to her, and she was talking back as only a 
 cheerful girl operator can when the receiver's skilled 
 ears caught a sound of the wire made by no human 
 hands. The wires had grounded or the house had 
 been swept away in the flood, no one knows which 
 now. At three o'clock the girl was there and at 3.07 
 we might as well have asked the grave to answer us." 
 
 EXAMPLES OF BRAVERY. 
 
 Edward Deck, a young railroad man of Lockport, saw 
 an old man floating down the river on a tree trunk, 
 with agonized face and streaming gray hair. Deck 
 plunged into the torrent and brought the old man safely 
 ashore. Scarcely had he done so, when the upper story 
 of a house floated by on which Mrs. Adams, of Cambria, 
 and her two children were both seen. Deck plunged in 
 again, and while breaking through the tin roof of the 
 house cut an artery in his left wrist, but though weak- 
 ened with loss of blood, he succeeded in saving both 
 mother and children.
 
 80 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 J. W. Esch, a brave railroad employe, saved sixteen 
 lives at Nineveh. 
 
 At Bolivar a man, woman and child were seen float- 
 ing down in a lot of drift. The mass of debris com- 
 menced to part, and by desperate efforts the husband 
 and father succeeded in getting his wife and little one on 
 a floating tree. Just then the tree washed under the 
 bridge and a rope was thrown out. It fell upon the 
 man's shoulders. He saw at a glance that he could not 
 save his dear ones, so he threw the means of safety to 
 one side and gripped in his arms those who were with 
 him. A moment later the tree struck a floating house. 
 It turned over, and in a second the three persons were 
 in the seething waters, being carried to their death. 
 
 C. W. Hoppenstall, of Lincoln avenue, East End, 
 Pittsburg, distinguished himself by his bravery. He was 
 a messenger on the mail train which had to turn back at 
 Sang Hollow. As the train passed a point where the 
 water was full of struggling persons, a woman and child 
 floated in near shore. The train was stopped and Hop- 
 penstall undressed, jumped into the water, and in two 
 trips saved both mother and child. 
 
 THE TIDAL WAVE AT BOLIVAR. 
 
 The special train pulled in at Bolivar at 11.30 and 
 trainmen were notified that further progress was impossi- 
 ble. The greatest excitement prevailed at this place, and 
 parties of citizens were all the time endeavoring to save 
 the poor unfortunates that were being hurled to eternity 
 on the rushing torrent. 
 
 The tidal wave struck Bolivar just after dark, and in 
 five minutes the Conemaugh rose from six to forty feet
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 8 1 
 
 and the waters spread out over the whole country. Soon 
 houses began floating down, and clinging to the debris 
 were men, women and children, shrieking for aid. A 
 large number of citizens at once gathered on the county 
 bridge and they were reinforced by a number from Gar- 
 field, a town on the opposite side of the river. They 
 brought a number of ropes and these were thrown into 
 the boiling waters as persons drifted by in efforts to save 
 some poor beings. For half an hour all efforts were 
 fruitless until at last, when the rescuers were about giv- 
 ing up all hope, a little boy astride a shingle roof mana- 
 ged to catch hold of one of the ropes. He caught it 
 under his left arm and was thrown violently against an 
 abutment, but managed to keep hold and was success- 
 fully pulled on to the bridge, amid the cheers of the 
 onlookers. His name was Hessler and his rescuer was 
 a train hand named Carney. The lad was taken to the 
 town of Garfield and cared for in the home of J. P. Rob- 
 inson. The boy was about 16 years old. 
 
 His story of the frightful calamity is as follows : 
 " With my father, I was spending the day at my grand- 
 father's house in Cambria City. In the house at the 
 time were Theodore, Edward and John Kintz, and John 
 Kintz, Jr., Miss Mary Kintz, Mrs. Mary Kintz, wife of 
 John Kintz, Jr., Miss Tracy Kintz, Miss Rachel Smith, 
 John Hirsch, four children, my father and myself. 
 Shortly after 5 o'clock there was a noise of roaring 
 waters and screams of people. We looked out the door 
 and saw persons running. My father told us not to 
 mind as the waters would not rise further. But soon 
 we saw houses being swept away and then we ran to the 
 floor above. The house was three -stories, and we were 
 6
 
 82 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 at last forced to the top one. In my fright I jumped on 
 the bed. It was an old fashioned one with heavy posts. 
 The water kept rising and my bed was soon afloat. 
 Gradually it was lifted up. The air in the room grew 
 close and the house was moving. Still the bed kept 
 rising and pressed the ceiling. At last the post pushed 
 the plaster. It yielded and a section of the roof gave 
 way. Then suddenly I found myself on the roof and 
 was being carried down stream. After a little this roof 
 commenced to part and I was afraid I was going to be 
 drowned, but just then another house with a single roof 
 floated by and I managed to crawl on it and floated 
 down until nearly dead with cold, when I was saved. 
 After I was freed from the house I did not see my father. 
 My grandfather was on a tree but he must have been 
 drowned as the waters were rising fast. John Kintz, Jr., 
 was also on a tree. Miss Mary Kintz and Mrs. Mary 
 Kintz I saw drowned. Miss Smith was also drowned. 
 John Hirsch was in a tree, but the four children were 
 drowned. The scenes were terrible. Live bodies and 
 corpses were floating down with me and away from me. 
 I would hear persons shriek and then they would dis- 
 appear. All along the line were people who were try- 
 ing to save us, but they could do nothing and only a 
 few were caught." 
 
 The boy's story is but one incident and shows what 
 happened to one family. God only knows what has 
 happened to the hundreds who were in the path of the 
 rushing water. It is impossible to get anything in the 
 way of news, save meagre details. 
 
 ANOTHER SCENE OF HORROR. 
 
 An eye-witness at Bolivar Block Station tells a story
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 83 
 
 of unparalleled horror which occurred at the lower 
 bridge which crosses the Conemaugh at this point. A 
 young man and two women were seen coming down the 
 river on a part of a floor. At the upper bridge a rope 
 was thrown them. This they all failed to catch. 
 Between the two bridges the man was noticed to point 
 towards the elder woman, who, it is supposed, was his 
 mother. He was then seen to instruct the women how 
 to catch the rope which was being lowered from the 
 other bridge. Down came the raft with a rush. The 
 brave man stood with his arms around the two women. 
 As they swept under the bridge he reached up and 
 seized the rope. He was jerked violently away from the 
 two women, who failed to get a hold on the life line. 
 Seeing that they would not be rescued he dropped the 
 rope and fell back on the raft which floated on down. 
 The current washed the frail craft in towards the bank. 
 The young man was enabled to seize hold of a branch 
 of a tree. The young man aided the two women to get 
 up into the tree. He held on with his hands and rested 
 his feet on a pile of driftwood. A piece of floating debris 
 struck the drift, sweeping it away. The man hung with 
 his body immersed in the water. A pile of drift soon 
 collected and he was enabled to get another secure foot- 
 ing. Up the river there was a sudden crash and a sec- 
 tion of the bridge was swept away and floated down the 
 stream, striking the tree and washing it away. All 
 three were thrown into the water and were drowned 
 before the eyes of the horrified spectators just opposite 
 the town of Bolivar. 
 
 REFUSED TO DESERT HER CHILDREN. 
 
 Early in the evening a woman with her two children
 
 84 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 were seen to pass under the bridge at Bolivar, clinging 
 to the roof of a coalhouse. A rope was lowered to her, 
 but she shook her head and refused to desert the child- 
 ren. It was rumored that all three were saved at Coke- 
 ville, a few miles below Bolivar. A later report from 
 Lockport says that the residents succeeded in rescuing 
 five people from the flood, two women and three men. 
 One man succeeded in getting out of the water unaided. 
 They were kindly taken care of by the people of the 
 town. 
 
 A little girl passed under the bridge just before dark. 
 She was kneeling on a part of a floor and had her hands 
 clasped as if in prayer. Every effort was made to save 
 her, but they all proved futile. A railroader who was 
 standing" by remarked that the piteous appearance of 
 the little waif brought tears to his eyes. All night long 
 the crowd stood about the ruins of the bridge, which 
 had been swept away at Bolivar. The water rushed past 
 with a roar, carrying with it parts of houses, furniture 
 and trees. The flood had evidently spent its force up 
 the valley. No more living persons were being carried 
 past. Watchers with lanterns remained along the banks 
 until daybreak, when the first view of the awful devasta- 
 tion of the flood was witnessed.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MORE than one brave man risked his life in trying to 
 save those in the flood. Some details of heroic action 
 are brought to light. In many instances the floaters dis- 
 played remarkable courage, and gave their chances for 
 rescue to friends with them. Some stood back for 
 mothers and were lost while the parents were taken out. 
 Many a dear boy went down to a watery grave that a 
 sister or father might be saved. Such instances of self- 
 sacrifice in the face of fearful danger were numerous, and 
 it shows conclusively that the heroes are not all dead. 
 
 REMARKABLE STORIES OF ESCAPE. 
 
 Almost every one has a story of remarkable escape. 
 On a train, Michael Ronesen, an Irishman, tells a won- 
 derful story of his escape. He says he was walking 
 down Main street when he heard a rumbling noise, and, 
 looking around, he imagined it was a cloud, but in a 
 minute the water was upon him. He floated with the 
 tide for some time, when he was struck with some float- 
 ing timber and borne underneath the water ; when he 
 came up he was struck again, and at last he was caught 
 by a lightning rod and held there for over two hours, 
 when he was finally rescued. 
 
 Mrs. Ann Williams tells a rather remarkable story. 
 She was sitting sewing when the flood came on. She 
 heard some people crying and jumped out of the window 
 and succeeded in getting on the roof of an adjoining 
 house. Under the roof she heard the cries of men and 
 
 (85)
 
 86 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 women, and saw two men and women with their heads 
 just above the water crying : " For God's sake either kill 
 us outright or rescue us." Mrs. Williams cried for help 
 for the drowning people, but none came, and she saw 
 them give up one by one. 
 
 DEEDS OF HEROISM. 
 
 The sad story of the Conemaugh is not without its 
 deeds of heroism. The appalling scenes of horror 
 developed daring courage where least expected, while 
 every-day heroes in the midst of the terrifying scenes 
 usually degenerated into arrant cowards. 
 
 Mothers cooly sacrificed themselves to the fury of the 
 flood or fire to save the lives of their children and 
 loved ones. Not infrequently some pale-faced woman, 
 clinging with her child to floating debris and realizing 
 that the support was too frail for two, would be seen to 
 lift her precious burthen high upon the floating debris, 
 and, with a hasty kiss, bidding farewell to all that bound 
 her to the world, sink beneath the waves. 
 
 A MAN WHO SAVED 22 LIVES. 
 
 Edward C. Will is a young foundryman of Cambria, 
 27 years old, whom no one ever suspected of possessing 
 more than ordinary courage. When the flood was at 
 its height and people were floating down the rushing 
 torrent in hundreds, Will rushed to his boat, and, sense- 
 less to the pleadings of wife and relatives, shoved his 
 frail craft far out into the angry current. Gilding rap- 
 idly alongside a floating roof upon which a woman 
 and two children were kneeling with blanched faces and 
 stony stare, he skillfully evaded the obstructions that 
 every minute threatened to crush the craft, and lifting
 
 THE JOHXSTOWN FLOOD. 87 
 
 the terrorized creatures to his boat, shot across the cur- 
 rent back to the bank whence he came. 
 
 A shout of applause swelled from the throng that 
 lined the bank, but, unmoved by plaudits, young Will 
 repeated the perilous journey, not one, but seven times, 
 until 22 lives had been saved by his indomitable energy. 
 The next day, when most of Johnstown was still under 
 water, Will ascended the stream to the desolate city and 
 again distinguished himself by many acts of heroism 
 and endurance. Tribute too fulsome cannot be paid to 
 his noble character, but after all, among the heroes that 
 these strange scenes developed, he is only one of the 
 many. 
 
 HEARTRENDING RECITALS BY SURVIVORS. 
 
 James P. McCanagh had a terrible experience in the 
 water. He saw his wife was safe on land and thought 
 his only daughter, a girl aged about 21, was also saved, 
 but just as he was making for the shore he saw her and 
 went to rescue her. He succeeded in getting within 
 about ten feet of land when the girl said " Good-bye, 
 father," and expired in his arms before he reached the 
 shore. 
 
 A pretty, pale little woman told part of her sad story 
 as she nervously clasped and unclasped her hands and 
 cried in a quite heart-breaking way. Years ago, in the 
 Virginia Valley, somewhere near Winchester, this sad 
 little soul met and loved a hard-working, intelligent 
 engineer, named Fenn. They were married some years 
 ago, came to Johnstown, where they had a neat, com- 
 fortable home. Fenn made good wages, their eight
 
 88 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOO.D. 
 
 children were always well clad, and their mother lived 
 with her life concentrated upon them. 
 
 On the afternoon of the flood, Fenn went to the 
 butcher's and passed out of this short history in the 
 waters. When the flood came into the Fenn house, the 
 mother gathered her chicks in the parlor and told them 
 not to be afraid, as God was there and would guard 
 them. Up came the torrent, and they went to the second 
 floor, and again the little mother talked of hope and 
 bade them be of good cheer, " for papa Heaven rest 
 him would come soon in a boat and take them away." 
 Up, up and up rose the water, and now the family were 
 forced to the top story. The rooms were very low, and 
 soon the heads of the mother and children were beating 
 against the ceiling. " Mamma," said the eldest child, a 
 girl, " wouldn't it be better to go outside and die in the 
 open air ? " 
 
 " Yes, dear," said the mother, " we'll make a raft, and 
 all go down together." 
 
 A MOTHER'S EFFORTS FOR HER CHILDREN. 
 
 She fought her own and her children's way to the 
 window and opened it. She caught a piece of plank and 
 on it put the eldest child, with a hasty kiss and a " God 
 bless you." Then she let it float away into the darkness 
 and the roar of the waves. Six times these frail barks 
 were freighted with precious cargoes and argosies of 
 pious trust. The children were frightened, but obedi- 
 ence was part of their creed, and they made but little 
 protest. 
 
 Now came the turn of the last child, Bessie, the four- 
 year-old. One can fancy what it meant the last and
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 89 
 
 the dearest. There was scarce breathing space in the 
 room now, and, if haste was not used, death would come 
 there at once. To a broad plank Bessie was fastened 
 securely and was blessed as had been the others. " I 
 loved them all, oh, I loved them all ! " said the mother. 
 " But I had two kisses for Bessie, for she was Tom's 
 favorite, and was such a good child. She put her arms 
 about my neck and said, ' You know you said God 
 would take care of me always, mamma. Will he take 
 care of me now ? ' ' 
 
 HER EIGHT CHILDREN GONE. 
 
 " I told her he would and she need not fear and then 
 she was carried away. ' I'm not afraid, mamma,' she 
 called out, and I heard her, although I could not see her 
 and that's all, except that the roof was torn off and I 
 floated off on it, and some Italians saved me at Kernsville, 
 sixteen miles from here." 
 
 " And the children, Mrs. Fenn, I hope they all 
 escaped ? " 
 
 " We have found two of them dead Bessie and 
 George and there is not a mark on Bessie's face, and 
 oh I am so tired. They're all gone, every one eight of 
 them and I am going home to Virginia after all these 
 years to rest and try to think." 
 
 A FEARFUL FIGHT FOR LIFE. 
 
 At Lockport, about eighteen miles from Johnstown, 
 Eliel Benson, an old man, Mrs. Boyle, Paddy Madden 
 and two Hungariens were rescued. Mr. Benson said to 
 a correspondent : 
 
 "I live in Cambria City. I think not less than 1500
 
 90 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD- 
 
 people were lost. In the house with me on Chestnut 
 street were ten persons besides myself, and I feel sure 
 they were all lost. Up to four o'clock the water, which 
 was about seven feet deep in the streets, remained station- 
 ary. At about four o'clock in the afternoon the great 
 rush came. In fifteen minutes the water rose fully ten 
 feet, and in five minutes more I am sure fifty houses came 
 floating down the streets. There were people in every 
 one of them, and God only knows how many were lost. 
 As they were carried off the houses were jammed to- 
 gether and against the houses still standing, and in a 
 very few minutes they were all battered to pieces before 
 they had been carried very far. The house I was in 
 was soon smashed to pieces, and I managed to jump on 
 to a cellar door. In a few minutes I was pushed off into 
 the flood, and when I looked back where Cambria City 
 stood there was nothing but a great lake of water. It 
 looked to me as if every house had been razed or cov- 
 ered over. The vast sheet of water was full of floating 
 timbers, roofs of houses, rafts and other articles. The 
 scene was indescribable. The cries of the men, women 
 and children were fearful. I passed Paddy Madden's 
 wife, my son's wife and a man clinging to the roof of a 
 house. I cried to them and bade them good-bye. In a 
 short time I was caught by the water and turned under. 
 Every once in a while I got into a whirlpool, and almost 
 lost my grip on the cellar door. I saw people in the 
 water ahead of me and all around me. Many of them 
 were struck by the crashing timbers and killed out- 
 right. They were so badly hurt that they fell into the 
 water and were drowned at once."
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD, 91 
 
 AN INTERESTING DESCRIPTION OF THE CATASTROPHE. 
 
 A correspondent of the Philadelphia Press gives the 
 following thrilling narrative of the terrible flood : 
 
 THE FLOOD ON ITS WAY. 
 
 " Far up the valley of the Conemaugh, over the hills, 
 not up the course of the stream, some people saw a 
 strange white fog through the rain of the lowering after- 
 noon. Pious Catholics about St. Joseph's Church in 
 Conemaugh borough saw it, crossed themselves and fled. 
 Superstitious colored people living in the little ' black 
 patch,' near the Gautier Works, also in Conemaugh 
 borough, saw it and fled, too. These were a fraction. 
 Johnstown was tired of hearing of the dam. 
 
 " Meantime, the flood was on its way. Long before 
 this the waters had burst man's puny breastwork at 
 South Fork, sniffed freedom and leaped headlong down 
 the valley, flattening a forest before it in its first wild 
 leap for liberty, after years of control. Long before this 
 it had made an unavailing grasp at the Limited, stand- 
 ing just beyond its reach, and devoured the crew of the 
 freight which stood on the tracks just below it. Long 
 before this it had made a running river of the main street 
 of the borough of Frankford, swept away a roundhouse 
 and toyed with a dozen engines as a boy toys with a 
 rubber ball. Long before this it had caught the passen- 
 gers fleeing, fifteen of them, from the day express, and 
 with a delicate, ironical touch, for a loosened mountain 
 monster had drowned Miss Paulson's pretty friend and 
 hardly bruised the petals of her corsage bouquet. 
 
 " All this it had done, but not yet shown itself in the 
 straight gorge, which begins at the head of the valley
 
 92 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 and the end of Conemaugh borough and continues up 
 past Woodvale. Only the white fog hung over the hills 
 beyond the town in the stream which few but supersti- 
 tious people heeded. The fog was advancing, but then 
 that might be the wind. 
 
 " The engine house of the Conemaugh Fire Department 
 was in the east end of Conemaugh borough, and from it 
 there was a good view up the valley to and beyond 
 Woodvale. As work had stopped at the Gautier Works, 
 between it and the river, James Kelly and a dozen other 
 members of the company were idling in the firehouse. 
 
 " These men heard at half-past 3 a succession of quick 
 whistles on the north shore of the Conemaugh, and 
 running out saw an engine whizzing down the Pennsyl- 
 vania Railroad, the engineer looking out of the cab 
 window and gesticulating with his left hand, while with 
 his right he pulled the warning rope. Quick-witted 
 Irish boys, they knew that no Pennsylvania Railroad 
 engineer would come down the road in that manner un- 
 less something was very far wrong. They rushed into 
 the street, looked up the gorge and saw not the borough 
 of Woodvale. There was no borough of Woodvale. 
 Not the gorge of the Conemaugh entering the Cone- 
 maugh valley. There was no gorge. The borough of 
 Woodvale was demolished. The gorge was filled up by 
 the most appalling thing that ever visited in time of 
 peace a civilized community. Some of them say it was 
 sixty, some seventy-five feet high. Some say it was of 
 broken timber ; some say it was of solid water. All say 
 that there were houses on it, and men, women and 
 children, with hands outstretched in prayer, and that it 
 went at the speed of a fast freight.
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 93 
 
 A RACE BETWEEN ENGINE AND FLOOD. 
 
 " Then they fled south, up to the hills, and watched. 
 They saw the unknown engineer fleeing eastward along 
 the track, with the flood racing behind him. They do 
 not know, nor does anyone to this day, who he was, or 
 whether he outran it. They saw the flood strike Johns- 
 town. They saw it erase the houses on Railroad street, 
 and then, as if not content with the destruction of every- 
 thing on the face of the earth, bear down into its bosom, 
 grasp the rails and stringers and ties of the street car 
 tracks and carry them along before it. They saw it strike 
 the long, low, solidly built iron Gautier Works, and saw 
 Peter McMullen, whom they well knew, and who had 
 been called into the works to adjust a belt, climb upon 
 the roof, in fancied safety, and saw the roof, the man, the 
 whole quarter-mile of building, curl and crumble up 
 before the flood like a shaving before a carpenter's plane, 
 and then in fragments go sliding away. 
 
 " Then they saw the watery curl deploy upon the 
 plain and while one wing moved straight downward and 
 westward along the course of the Conemaugh the other 
 charged south and across, toward the churches and 
 hotels about the upper end of Johnstown. They saw 
 their friend and comrade, Put Early, of Woodvale, drifting 
 down on a roof with his mother and sister. They might 
 have heard, but for the roar of water and the crash of 
 houses, the mother say to the son : ' Lift up my head, 
 Pat.' They might have seen, but for the muddy spray, 
 the son lift up the mother's head and then see the son's 
 body stiffen with horror as the mother's stiffened with 
 death. These are some few things that the young men
 
 94 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 of the Conemaugh Fire Company saw and heard as the 
 flood swept past them. 
 
 " From Woodvale's Mill to the German Catholic 
 Church in the lower fringe of Conemaugh borough is 
 an easy mile. Never an instant let or hindrance did the 
 wing which charged southward across the plain find 
 between the two. There was nothing to be seen but 
 the little homes and little shops, places to make homes 
 with. The church was a check. It burst the brick- 
 work in upon the eastern wall and made two windows 
 into one. 
 
 THE CONVENT CHAPEL SPARED. 
 
 "Then it turned somewhat eastward. Here occurred 
 what will, while the Conemaugh has a valley, be called 
 a miracle. At the corner of Clinton and Locust streets, 
 Johnstown, stood the convent of St. John's Parish. 
 Above it, on Locust street, stood the German Lutheran 
 Church, and next it, on the convent side, the parochial 
 school, of which the Sisters had charge. The Sisters, 
 thirteen of them, with Sister Ignatia at their head, fled 
 into the second story of the convent chapel. The 
 Lutheran Church and Catholic School disappeared 
 before the scourge of the valley like snow in the first 
 thaw of March, but those that passed on that wild devas- 
 tation and saw and live and could remember, say that 
 Sister Ignatia stood in the chapel window praying with 
 both hands clasped upon a crucifix. When the flooc 
 passed the Sisters came out safe and went to chloro- 
 forming the wounded for surgeons, knives and splints. 
 
 " It was near here, but further down, opposite the north- 
 ern wall of the Methodist Church, that this wing of the
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 95 
 
 flood struck the new Queen Anne house of John Fron- 
 heis;jr, a superintendent in the Cambria Works. He 
 was at home as most men were that day, trying to calm the 
 fears of the women and children of the family during the 
 earlier flood. Down went the front of the new Queen 
 Anne house, and into the wreck of it fell the superinten- 
 dent, two elder children, a girl and a boy. As the flood 
 passed he heard the boy cry : ' Don't let me drown, 
 papa ; break my arms first ! ' and the girl : ' Cut off my 
 legs, but don't let me drown ! ' 
 
 " And as he heard them, came a wilder cry from his 
 wife drifting down with the torrent, to ' Save the baby.' 
 But neither wife or baby could be saved and boy and 
 girl stayed in the wreck until the water went down and 
 they were extricated. 
 
 SIXTEEN MILLION TONS OF WATER. 
 
 " Jacob Reese, of Pittsburg, the inventor of the basic 
 process for manufacturing steel, in estimating the force 
 of the flood, said : 
 
 "'When the South Fork dam gave way 16,000,000 
 tons of water rushed down the mountain side, carrying 
 thousands of tons of rocks, logs and trees with it. When 
 the flood reached the Conemaugh Valley it struck the 
 Pennsylvania Railroad at a point where they make up 
 the trains for ascending the Allegheny Mountains. Sev- 
 eral trains with their locomotives and loaded cars were 
 swept down the valley before the flood wave, which is 
 said to have been fifty feet high. Cars loaded with iron, 
 cattle, and freight of all kinds, with those mighty loco- 
 motives, weighing from seventy to one hundred tons each,
 
 96 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 were pushed ahead of the flood, trucks and engines roll- 
 ing over and over like mere toys. 
 
 " ' Sixteen million tons of water gathering fences, 
 barns, houses, mills and shops into its maw. Down the 
 valley for three miles or more rushed this mighty ava- 
 lanche of death, sweeping everything before it, and 
 leaving nothing but death and destruction behind it. 
 When it struck the railroad bridge at Johnstown, and 
 not being able to force its way for that stone structure, 
 the debris was gorged and the water dammed up fifty feet 
 in ten minutes. 
 
 "'This avalanche was composed of more than 100,- 
 ooo tons of rocks, locomotives, freight cars, car trucks, 
 iron, logs, trees, and other material pushed forward by 
 16,000,000 tons of water falling 500 feet, and it was this 
 that, sliding over the ground, mowed down the houses, 
 mills and factories as a mowing machine does a field of 
 grain. It swept down with a roaring, crushing sound at 
 the rate of a mile a minute and hurled 10,000 people 
 into the jaws of death in less than half an hour. And 
 so the people called it the avalanche of death.' 
 
 HORROR PILED ON HORROR. 
 
 " Horror piled on horror is the story from Johnstown 
 down to the viaduct. Horror shot through with intense 
 lights of heroism, and here and there pervaded with 
 gleams of humor. It is known that one girl sang as she 
 was whirled through the flood, " Jesus, lover of my 
 Soul," until the water stopped her singing forever. It is 
 known that Elvie Duncan, daughter of the superintend- 
 ent of the Street Car Company, when her family was 
 separated and she was swept away with her baby sister,
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 9/ 
 
 kept the little thing alive by chewing bread and feeding 
 it to her. It is known that John Dibart, banker, died as 
 miserably in his splendid house as John McKee, the 
 prisoner, in liis cell ; that the pleasant park, with the 
 chain fence about it, was so completely annihilated that 
 not even one root of the many shade trees within its 
 boundaries remains. It is known also that to a leaden- 
 footed messenger boy who was ambling Main street, fear 
 lent wings to lift him into the Tribune office in the sec- 
 ond story of the postoffice and that the Rosensteels, gen- 
 eral store-keepers of Woodvale, were swept into the 
 windows of their friends, the Cohens, retail store-keepers 
 of Main street, Johnstown, two miles from where they 
 started. It is known that the Episcopal Church, at 
 Locust and Market streets, went down like a house of 
 cards, or as the German Lutheran had gone, in the path 
 of the flood and that Rector Diller, his wife and child 
 and adopted daughter went with it, while of their next 
 door neighbors, Frank Daly, of the Cambria Company, 
 and his mother, the son was drowned and the mother 
 not so badly hurt in body as in spirit, died three nights 
 after in the Mercy hospital, Pittsburg. 
 
 "All these people living on 'The Point,' the heart of the 
 valley, seemed to have had no warning, made no effort 
 to escape, died or were swept away without sign, save 
 here and there an instance protruding from the sum 
 total of destruction, as the timbers and telegraph poles 
 and logs protruded here and there from the mass of ruin 
 which marched in advance of the flood. One of these 
 was the word that ticked into the Pittsburg office of the 
 Western Union from Mrs. Ogle, the chief operator in 
 the Johnstown general office : 
 7
 
 98 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 11 ' This is my last message. The flood is coming.' 
 " But while the flood was driving people to silent 
 death down the valley, there was a sound of lamentation 
 on the hills. Hundreds who had climbed there to be 
 out of reach during the morning's freshet saw the city 
 in the valley disappearing and their cries rose high 
 above the crash and the roar. Little time had eyes to 
 watch or lips to cry. O'Brien, the disabled Millville 
 storekeeper, was one of the crowd in the park. He saw 
 a town before him, then a mountain of timber approach- 
 ing, then a dizzy swirl of men at the viaduct, a breaking 
 of the embankment to the east of it, the forming of a 
 whirlpool there that ate up homes and those that dwelt 
 in them, as a caldron of molten iron eats up the metal 
 scraps that are thrown in to cool it, and then a silence 
 and a subsidence. 
 
 It was a quarter of 4 o'clock. At half past 3 there 
 had been a Johnstown. Now there was none. 
 
 CHAOS AND FLAMES. 
 
 " What followed was chaos, paralysis and panic. 
 Those who got out were swept out. As night came on 
 a little point of flame that had been almost unnoticed in 
 the wreckage above the dam grew larger. It crept 
 about the living and the dead, the whole houses and the 
 houses that were split in half. It became a blaze, a fire, 
 a conflagration. While it lighted up the foot of the 
 valley another flame grew bright at the head. It was 
 the Catholic Church, and the same Conemaugh firemen 
 who had first seen the approach of the flood were fight- 
 ing it. Thus night fell a swirling, subsiding lake 
 where four boroughs had been, a town of flame at either
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 99 
 
 end, a whirlpool where an embankment had been grasp- 
 ing for more human lives. 
 
 " Over the crackle of the flames, the cries of the dying 
 and the roar of the whirlpool came another sound. It 
 was the unsteady tolling of the bell in Millville school 
 rung by two children of Charles Dobbins, of Johnstown, 
 who had been swept into the second story of the build- 
 ing, and so they all unwittingly, in their childish terror, 
 tolled curfew for Johnstown."
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The bridge whose " resistance of the torrent " has been the 
 matter of so much talk, was a noble four-track structure, just 
 completed, 50 ft. wide on top, 32 ft. high above the water line, 
 consisting of 7 skew spans of 58 ft. each. It still remains 
 wholly uninjured, except that it is badly spalled on the upper 
 side by blows from the wreckage, but that it so remains is due 
 solely to the accident of its position, and not to its strength, 
 although it was and is still the embodiment of solidity. Had 
 the torrent struck it, it would have swept it away as if it had 
 been built of card-board, leaving no track behind ; but fortu- 
 nately (or unfortunately) its axis Avas exactly parallel with the 
 path of the flood, which hence struck the face of the mountain 
 full, and compressed the whole of its spoils gathered in a 14- 
 mile course into one inextricable mass, with the force of tens 
 of thousands of tons moving at nearly 60 miles per hour. Its 
 spoil consisted of (1) every tree the flood had touched in 
 its whole course, with trifling exceptions, including hundreds 
 of large trees, all of Avhich were stripped of their bark and 
 small limbs almost at once ; (2) all the houses in a thickly set- 
 tled town 3 miles long and 1 to 2 mile wide ; (3) half the 
 human beings and all the horses, cows, cats, dogs, and rats 
 that were in the houses ; (4) many hundred of miles of tele- 
 graph wire that was on strong poles in use, and many times 
 more than this that was in stock in the mills ; (5) perhaps 50 
 miles of track and track material, rails and all ; (6) locomo- 
 tives, pig-iron, brick, stone, boilers, steam engines, heavy ma- 
 chinery, and other spoil of a large manufacturing town. All 
 this was accumulated in one inextricable mass, which almost 
 immediately caught fire from some stove which the waters had
 
 THE JOHNSTO WN FL OD. 101 
 
 not touched. Hundreds if not thousands of human beings, 
 dead and alive, were caught in it, many by the lower part of 
 the body only. Eye-witnesses describe the groans and cries 
 which came from that vast holocaust for nearly the whole 
 night as something almost unbearable to listen to, yet Avhich 
 could not be escaped. Hundreds, undoubtedly, suffered a 
 slow death by fire ; yet we cannot doubt that the vast major- 
 ity of the men, women, and children in that fearful jam, which 
 covered fully 30 acres, and perhaps more, were already dead 
 when the fire began. 
 
 Johnstown proper is in a large basin formed by the junc- 
 tion of the Conemaugh and the almost equally large Stony 
 Creek, flowing into the Conemaugh from the south, just above 
 the bridge. The bridge being hermetically sealed, it and the 
 adjacent embankment formed a second dam about 30 feet 
 high, Johnstown serving as a bed of a reservoir which we 
 should judge to be nearly large enough to hold the entire 
 contents of the reservoir above, except that it was already 
 filled knee-deep or more by an unusually heavy but annual 
 spring flood. One offshoot of the main torrent was deflected 
 southward by the Gautier Works, and went tearing through 
 the heart of the more southerly portion of the town, and still 
 another similar branch was split off from the main torrent 
 farther down ; but in the main, the direct force of the torrent 
 did not strike this southerly portion of the town. It struck 
 first against the jam, and thus lost most of its fierce energy, 
 flowing thence southward in a heavy stream, which tossed 
 about houses in the most fantastic way, so that this part of 
 the town looks much like a child's toy-village poured out of a
 
 102 THE JOHNSTO WN FL 01). 
 
 box hap-hazard ; the houses are not torn to pieces generally. 
 
 About half the loss of life was in this district, for all 
 Johnstown became speedily a lake twenty or more feet deep, 
 and stayed so all night; and it was here, and not in the 
 direct path of the flood, that all the " rescuing " of people 
 from roofs and floating timbers occurred. Nothing of the 
 kind was possible in the flood itself. Likewise, after the 
 break in the embankment had occurred, and the flood began 
 to recede from Johnstown, it was from this district chiefly 
 that people were carried off down stream on floating wreck- 
 age. All that came within the direct path of the flood was 
 fast within the jam. 
 
 The existence of this temporary Johnstown reservoir 
 naturally broke the continuity of the flood discharge, and 
 transformed it into something not greatly different from an 
 ordinary but very heavy freshet. Cambria City, just below 
 the bridge, was badly wrecked, with the loss of hundreds of 
 lives ; but in the main, from Johnstown down, the flood 
 ceased to be very destructive. It took out almost every 
 bridge it came to, for 50 miles, and washed away tracks, and 
 did other minor damage, but the Johnstown " reservoir" saved 
 hundreds of lives below it by equalizing the flow. 
 
 THE DAY EXPRESS DISASTER. 
 
 John Barr, the conductor in charge of the Pullman parlor 
 car on the first section of the day express, which was caught 
 in the flood at Conemaugh, tells a thrilling story of hia ex- 
 perience. 
 
 His train, with two others, had been run onto a siding 
 on high ground at Conemaugh Station, opposite the big
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 103 
 
 round-house. He saw the water coming and describes 
 it as having the appearance of a mountain moving 
 towards him. 
 
 He immediately ran to his car and shouted to his pas- 
 sengers to run for their lives. John Davis, who is con- 
 nected with a large rolling mill near Lancaster, was 
 travelling from Colorado with his invalid wife and two 
 children, aged about 4 and 6. Mr. Davis was engaged 
 in getting his wife off the car, and Conductor Barr grab- 
 bed up the two children, and, with one under each arm, 
 started for the hills, with the water right at his heels. 
 He ran a distance of about 200 yards and barely man- 
 aged to deposit his precious burden on safe ground 
 before the flood swept past him. 
 
 Mr. Barr says it will never be known how many per- 
 sons lost their lives from the ill-fated train. The one 
 passenger coach which was carried away had some peo- 
 ple in it ; how many noboby knows. He thinks at least 
 twenty were drowned. A freight train was between the 
 day express and the flood on an adjoining track, and this 
 served to in a measure protect his train. 
 
 Some idea of the terrible force of the flood may be 
 gained from Mr. Barr's statement that the engines in the 
 round-house 37 in number, swept past him standing half 
 way out of the water, their forty tons of weight not being 
 sufficient to take them beneath the surface. The bag- 
 gage car was lifted clear out of the water and landed on 
 the other side of the river. 
 
 A Miss Wayne, who was travelling from Pittsburg to 
 Altoona, had a wonderful escape. She was caught in 
 the swirl and almost all of her clothing torn from her
 
 1 04 THE JOHNS TO WN FLOOD, 
 
 person, and she was providentially thrown by the angry 
 waters clear of the rushing flood. 
 
 Miss Wayne said that while she lay more dead than 
 alive on the river bank, she saw the Hungarians rifle the 
 bodies of dead passengers and cut off their fingers for 
 the purpose of obtaining the rings on the hands of the 
 corpses. Miss Wayne was provided with a suit of men's 
 clothing and rode into Altoona thus arrayed. 
 
 Miss Maloney, of Woodbury, N. J., a passenger on 
 the parlor car, started to leave the car, and then, fearing 
 to venture out into the flood, returned to the inside of 
 the car. When the water subsided the crew rushed to 
 the car, expecting to find Miss Maloney dead, but the 
 water had not gone high enough to drown her and she 
 was all right, though greatly frightened. She displayed 
 a rare amount of forethought in the face of danger, hav- 
 ing tied securely around her waist a piece of her cloth- 
 ing on which her name was written in indelible ink. She 
 fully expected that she would be drowned, and did this 
 in order that her body, if found, might be identified. 
 
 When the water was still high Conductor Barr made 
 an attempt to get back to his car from the hill, but after 
 wading up to his arm-pits in the water he was forced to 
 return to safe ground. 
 
 THE P. R. R.'S LAST TRAIN. 
 
 The last train to which the Susquehanna River per- 
 mitted the use of the tracks of the Pennsylvania 
 Railroad between Harrisburg and Lancaster rolled 
 into Broad Street Station at 9.35 P. M. on Saturday, 
 June 1st. It was a nondescript train. The last car was 
 a vestibule Pullman which had never stopped at so many
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 105 
 
 way stations before in its aristocratic life, and which had 
 been cut off the stalled Chicago limited at Harrisburg 
 to be taken back to New York. The rest of the train 
 had started from Harrisburg at 3.40 as the day express 
 and at Lancaster had been changed into the York and 
 Columbia " tub." 
 
 No train's name ever fitted it better. The tub had 
 swam through seven miles of water on its way, water 
 differing in depth from three inches to three feet. 
 
 The seven miles of water covered the track between 
 Harrisburg and Highspire. When the newspaper train 
 touched with the morning dailies and to some extent 
 with the men who make them, dashed drippingly into 
 Harrisburg at half-past 7 in the morning it had only 
 encountered three-fourths of a mile of water. No 
 reports of a great increase in the Susquehanna's output 
 had reached beleagured Harrisburg during the day, and 
 the express started out with two engines, 1095 and 1105, 
 towing it and a fair chance of reaching Philadelphia on 
 time. The original three-quarters of a mile of overflow 
 caused by the back water of Paxton creek was passed 
 without incident. The water was about up to the bottom 
 steps of the car platforms and the pilot of the leading 
 engine threw to each side a fine billow of yellow water, 
 sending a swell like that of a tramp steamer passing 
 Gloucester, in among the floating outhouses and sub- 
 merged slag heaps of the suburbs of Harrisburg and 
 bringing cheers from thousands who watched the train's 
 advance from their second-story windows and forgot the 
 condition of their first-floor furniture in the excitement 
 of watching the amphibious prowess of the day express. 
 
 " We've seen the worst of it," said the elderly kindly
 
 106 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 conductor to a couple of excited women passengers as 
 the last of the three-fourths of a mile of billows was 
 thrown from the pilot of 1095. " We've seen the worst 
 of it, but the train will have to wait here a little while 
 the fires are almost out." 
 
 So 1095 and 1102 stood puffing and panting fora 
 while on the high track while the afternoon sunlight 
 dried their dripping flanks and the baffled Susquehanna 
 rolled its burden of driftwood sullenly southward on 
 their right. Then the day express rolled on again. The 
 dry ground was just about long enough to give the train 
 an impetus for another header into the Susquehanna's 
 overflow. It was into the Susquehanna itself that the 
 header seemed to be taken this time. It was no longer 
 a question of an overflow creek in a railroad cut. The 
 billows from the prow of 1095 swept not in among over- 
 turned outhouses and submerged slag heaps, but out on 
 the broad coffee-colored bosom of the river to be broken 
 into a thousand chop waves among the churning driftwood. 
 The people in the second-story windows forgot to cheer. 
 The people in the coaches forgot to joke on the men's 
 part and to fret on the women's. It was curious and it 
 was ticklish. The train was running slowly, very slowly. 
 The wheels were out of sight. The water was swirling 
 among the trucks and lapping at the platforms. The 
 only sign of land locomotion about the day express was 
 an audible one, a watery pounding and rumbling of the 
 wheels on the hidden tracks. 
 
 The day express looked like a long broad river ser- 
 pent wriggling on its belly down along the green river 
 bank. Gradually there was a simultaneous though not 
 concerted movement among the passengers. They began
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 107 
 
 crowding toward the platforms and looking toward the 
 land side. Suddenly a brakeman broke the queer silence, 
 in a voice which had just the least crescendo of excite- 
 ment in it. " If you people don't keep quiet we can't do 
 anything ! " he shouted. The demand was a little 
 absurd, the direction of a land coxswain to "trim ship." 
 Still, it had its uses. It relieved the tension which 
 everybody felt and nobody acknowledged. The passen- 
 gers retired from the platforms. 
 
 Joking began again among the men and fretting 
 among the women. There hadn't been much fun in 
 looking toward the land side anyway. What had 
 appeared to be a recession of the waters when looked at 
 from above was merely a swelling of the stream from 
 the overflow of the canal which parallels the road for 
 several miles at that point. All at once the train which 
 had been moving more slowly for each of a good ten 
 minutes stopped short. It seemed as if 1095*8 sharp 
 nose had scented danger like a sensitive horse, and, 
 panting, refused to go further. 
 
 Then the engine crews were seen by the passengers 
 to leap from their cabs thigh deep in the water and 
 begin hauling at some sub-aquean obstacle. " Drift- 
 wood," said the same brakeman who had commanded 
 quiet. So it was. A train stopped by driftwood ! It 
 was floating all about and threatened to impede the pro- 
 gress of the day express altogether. Fence rails from 
 far up country farms, plartks from dismantled signal 
 stations, platforms along the line, railroad tires innumer- 
 able, branches and even small trunks of trees floated 
 against the wheels with disjected stacks of green wheat 
 and other ruined crops upon the ever-rising flood of the 
 river. There had been high dry land in sight just be-
 
 108 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 yond Highspire Station, but as sure as guns were iron 
 and floods were floods the land was disappearing. The 
 river's rise was steady. The inhabitants of the drowned 
 lands who appeared to take the drowning easily, though 
 no such a drowning had been known to them in a quar- 
 ter of a century, had been in large numbers keeping 
 company of the train for the last two miles in skiffs and 
 punts. They rowed close to the cars and towed away 
 the larger drift. They were not entirely on life-saving 
 service. There was a bit of the wreckage in their com- 
 position. They towed the trunk and ties into their front 
 yards and anchored them to their window-blinds. 
 
 Finally the straining backs of the engine crews gave 
 one mighty tug at the hidden obstacle. A huge plat- 
 form plank floated loose from 1095, and 1095 shrieked 
 triumph. The wheels began to churn the brown water 
 with yellowish white and 1095 and 1 102 ran up on the 
 dry ground like the eagle in the sun, to whom the Irish 
 poet compared the Irish troops at Fontenoy. As they 
 did so the clatter of a light advancing train was heard 
 from the east, and a sound of cheering. A single engine 
 drawing two crowded cars shot around the bend, and 
 ran with a light heart into the torrent out of which the 
 day express had just emerged. 
 
 " They'll never get through," was the unanimous 
 comment of the day express passengers, and their verdict 
 seemed to be confirmed officially by the brakeman who 
 had been excited. He stood in the door of the car and 
 shouted : " This train will stop at all stations between 
 Lancaster and Bryn Mawr. There will be no more 
 trains between Harrisburg and Lancaster to-night." 
 Afterwards adding, " As this is the last train it will have 
 to take the place of the ' tub. '"
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A PROCLAMATION BY THE GOVERNOR OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 GOVERNOR BEAVER having received official information 
 regarding the terrible destruction of life and property in 
 the valley of the Conemaugh, issued the following proc- 
 lamation : 
 
 COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, Executive Cham- 
 ber, Harrisburg, Pa., June 3, 1889. To the people of the 
 United States : The Executive of the Commonwealth of 
 Pennsylvania has refrained hitherto from making any 
 appeal to the people for their benefactions in order that 
 he might receive definite and reliable information from 
 the centres of disaster during the late floods, which have 
 been unprecedented in the history of the State or nation. 
 Communication by wire has been established with Johns- 
 town to-day. The city authorities are in control, the 
 Adjutant-General of the State co-operating with them. 
 Order has been restored and is likely to continue. 
 
 Newspaper reports as to the loss of life and property 
 have not been exaggerated. The valley of the Cone- 
 maugh, which is peculiar, has been swept from one end 
 to the other as with the besom of destruction. It con- 
 tained a population of 40,000 to 50,000 people, living 
 for the most part along the banks of a small river, con- 
 fined within its narrow limits. 
 
 The most conservative estimates place the loss of life 
 at 5,000 human beings and of property at $25,000,000. 
 Whole towns have been utterly destroyed, not a vestige 
 
 (109)
 
 IIO THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD, 
 
 remaining. In the more substantial towns the better 
 buildings, to a certain extent, remain, but in a damaged 
 condition. Those who are least able to bear it have suf- 
 
 r 
 
 fered the loss of everything. The most pressing needs 
 so far as food is concerned have been supplied. Shoes 
 and clothing of all sorts for men, women and children 
 are greatly needed. Money is also urgently required to 
 remove the debris, bury the dead and care temporarily 
 for widows and orphans, and for the homeless generally. 
 Other localities have suffered to some extent in the same 
 way, but not in the same degree. 
 
 Late advices would seem to indicate that there is great 
 loss of life and destruction of property along the west 
 branch of the Susquehanna and in localities from which 
 we can get no definite information. What does come, 
 however, is of the most appalling character, and it is 
 expected that the details will add new horrors to the sit- 
 uation. The responses from within and without the 
 State have been most generous and cheering. North 
 and south, east and west, from the United States and 
 from England there comes the same hearty, generous 
 response of sympathy and help. The President, Gov- 
 ernors of States, Mayors of cities, individuals and com- 
 mittees, private and municipal corporations seem to vie 
 with each other in their expressions of sympathy and in 
 their contributions of substantial aid. 
 
 But gratifying as are these responses, there is no dan- 
 ger of their exceeding the necessities of the situation. 
 A careful organization has been made upon the ground 
 for the distribution of whatever assistance is furnished 
 in kind. The Adjutant General of the State is there as 
 representative of the State authorities, and is giving per-
 
 THE JOHNS TO WN FLOOD. Ill 
 
 sonal attention, in connection with the Chief Burgess of 
 Johnstown and a committee of relief, to the distribution 
 of the help which is furnished. Funds contributed in 
 aid of the sufferers can be deposited with Drexel & Co., 
 Philadelphia; Jacob C. Bomberger, banker, Harrisburg; 
 or William R. Thompson & Co., bankers, Pittsburg. All 
 money contributed will be used carefully and judiciously. 
 Present wants are fairly met. A large force will be em- 
 ployed at once to remove the debris and bury the dead, 
 so as to avoid disease and epidemic. 
 
 The people of the Commonwealth and others whose 
 unselfish generosity is hereby heartily appreciated and 
 acknowledged maybe assured that their contributions will 
 be made to bring their benefactions to the immediate 
 and direct relief of those for whose benefit they are 
 intended. 
 
 JAMES A. BEAVER. 
 
 By the Governor : 
 
 Charles W. Stone, Secretary of the Commonwealth. 
 
 THE FIRST RUSH OF THE DEATH WAVE. 
 
 A man who was above the danger line on the right 
 bluff above the town, and who saw the first rush of the 
 death wave, says that it was preceded by a peculiar 
 phenomena, which he thinks was the explosion of the 
 gas mains. He says that a few minutes before the wall 
 of the water had reached the city there was a tremen- 
 dous explosion somewhere in the upper part of the 
 place. He said that he saw the fragments of the build- 
 ings rise in the air, and the next moment saw two lines 
 of flame down through the city in different directions, 
 and frame buildings were apparently being torn to pieces
 
 1 1 2 THE JOHNS TO IV N FLOOD. 
 
 and wrecked. The next minute the water came, and he 
 remembers nothing further. There really was an explos- 
 ion of gas that wrecked a church in the upper part of 
 the city just at the time of the flood. If there was also 
 an explosion of the gas main, the cause of the fire at 
 the bridge is explained. Light frame buildings set on 
 fire by the explosion were picked up bodily and tossed 
 on top of the water into the wreck at the bridge without 
 the fire being extinguished. 
 
 Mrs. Fredericks, an aged woman, was rescued alive 
 from the attic in her house. The house had floated from 
 what was formely Vine street to the foot of the moun- 
 tains. Mrs. Fredericks says her experience was terrible. 
 She said she saw hundreds of men, women and children 
 floating down the torrent to meet their death, some pray- 
 ing, while others had actually become raving maniacs. 
 
 THE REAL HORRORS OF THE DISASTER. 
 
 " No one will ever know the real horrors of this acci- 
 dent unless he saw the burning people and debris beside 
 the stone bridge," remarked the Rev. Father Trautwein. 
 "The horrible nature of the affair cannot be realized by 
 any person who did not witness the scene. As soon as 
 possible ofter the first great crash occurred I hastened to 
 the bridge. 
 
 "A thousand persons were struggling in the ruins and 
 imploring for God's sake to release them. Frantic hus- 
 bands and fathers stood at the edge of the furnace that 
 was slowly heating to a cherry heat and incinerating 
 human victims. Every one was anxious to save his own 
 relatives, and raved, cursed, and blasphemed until the 
 air appeared to tremble. No system, no organized effort
 
 THE JOHNSTO WN FLOOD 1 1 3 
 
 to release the pent-up persons was made by those related 
 to them. Shrieking they would command. ' Go to that 
 place, go get her out, for God's sake get her out; refer- 
 ring to some loved one they wanted saved. Under the 
 circumstances it was necessary to secure organization, 
 and thinking I was trying to thwart their efforts when I 
 ordered another point to be attacked by the rescuers, 
 they advanced upon me, threatened to shoot me or dash 
 me into the raging river. 
 
 " One man who was trying to steer a float upon which 
 his wife sat on a mattress lost his hold, and in a moment 
 the craft swept into a sea of flame and never again 
 appeared. The agony of that man was simply heart- 
 rending. He raised his arms to heaven and screamed in 
 his mental anguish and only ceased that to tear his hair 
 and moan like one distracted. Every effort was made to 
 save every person accessible, and we have the satisfaction 
 of knowing that fully 200 were spared from cremation. 
 One young woman was found under the dead body of a 
 relative. 
 
 " A force of men attempted to extricate her and suc- 
 ceeded in releasing every limb but one leg. For three 
 hours they labored, and every moment the flames crept 
 nearer and nearer. I was on the point several times of 
 ordering the men to chop her leg off. It would have 
 been much better to save her life even at that loss than 
 have her burn to death. Fortunately it was not nec- 
 essary ; but the young lady's escape from mutilation or 
 death she will never realize." 
 
 The flood and fire claimed among its victims not only 
 the living, but the dead. To-day a handsome coffin was 
 found half burned in some charred wreckage down near
 
 1 1 4 THE JOHNS TO WN FLOOD. 
 
 the point. Inside was found the body of a man shrouded 
 for burial, but so scorched about the head and face as to 
 be unrecognizable. The supposition is that the house in 
 which the dead man had lain had been crushed and the 
 debris partly consumed by fire. The body is still at the 
 Fourth Ward school house, and unless reclaimed it will be 
 buried in the unknown field. 
 
 THE CLOCK STOPPED AT $.20. 
 
 One of the queerest sights in the centre of the town is 
 a three-story brick residence standing with one wall, the 
 others having disappeared completely, leaving the floors 
 supported by the partitions. In one of the upper rooms 
 can be seen a mantel with a lambrequin on it and a 
 clock stopped at twenty minutes after five. In front of 
 the clock is a lady's fan, though from the marks on the 
 wall paper the water has been over all these things. 
 
 In the upper part of the town, where the back water 
 from the flood went into the valley with diminished 
 force, there are many strange scenes. There the houses 
 were toppled over one after another in a row, and left 
 where they lay. One of them was turned completely 
 over and stands with its roof on the foundations of 
 another house and its base in the air. The owner came 
 back, and getting into his house through the windows 
 walked about on his ceiling. Out of this house a woman 
 and her two children escaped safely and were but little 
 hurt, although they were stood on their heads in the 
 whirl. Every house has its own story. From one a 
 woman sent up in her garret escaped by chopping a hole 
 in the roof. From another a Hungarian named Grevins 
 leaped to the shore as it went whirling past and fell
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. Tl5 
 
 twenty-five feet upon a pile of metal and escaped with a 
 broken leg. Another is said to have came all the way 
 from very near the start of the flood and to have cir- 
 cled around with the back water and finally landed on 
 the flats at the city site, where it is still pointed out. 
 
 THE SITUATION. 
 
 A correspondent thus describes the situation at 
 Johnstown, nine days after the disaster : 
 
 " So vast is the field of destruction that to get an ade- 
 quate idea from any point level with the town is simply 
 impossible. It must be viewed from a height. From 
 the top of Kernsville Mountain, just at the east of the 
 town, the whole strange panorama can be seen. 
 
 " Looking down from the height many things about 
 the flood that appear inexplicable from below are per- 
 fectly plain. How so many houses happened to be so 
 queerly twisted, for instance, as if the water had a twirl- 
 ing instead of a straight motion, was made perfectly clear. 
 
 " The town was built in an almost equilateral triangle, 
 with one angle pointed squarely up the Conemaugh 
 Valley to the east, from which the flood came. At the 
 northerly angle was the junction of the Conemaugh and 
 Stony creeks. The southern angle pointed up the Stony 
 Creek Valley. Now about one- half of the triangle, 
 formerly densely covered with buildings, is swept as 
 clear as a platter, except for three or four big brick 
 buildings that stand near the angle which points up the 
 Conemaugh. 
 
 "The course of the flood, from the exact point where 
 it issued from the Conemaugh Valley to where it disap- 
 peared below in a turn in the river and above by spread-
 
 1 1 6 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 ing itself over the flat district of five or six miles, is 
 clearly defined. The whole body of water issued 
 straight from the valley in a solid wave and tore across 
 the village of Woodvale and so on to the business part 
 of Johnstown at the lower part of the triangle. Here a 
 cluster of solid brick blocks, aided by the comformation 
 of the land evidently divided the stream. 
 
 " The greater part turned to the north, swept up the 
 brick block and then mixed with the ruins of the vil- 
 lages above down to the stone arch bridge. The other 
 stream shot across the triangle, was turned southward 
 by the bluffs and went up the valley of Stony Creek. 
 The stone arch bridge in the meantime acted as a dam 
 and turned part of the current back toward the south, 
 where it fi'nished the work of the triangle, turning again 
 to the northward and back to the stone arch bridge. 
 The stream that went up Stony Creek was turned back 
 by the rising ground and then was reinforced by the 
 back water from the bridge again and started south, 
 where it reached a mile and a half and spent its force on 
 a little settlement called Grubbtown. 
 
 WORK OF THE WATER. 
 
 " The frequent turning of this stream, forced against 
 the buildings and then the bluffs, gave it a regular whirl- 
 ing motion from right to left, and made a tremendous 
 eddy, whose centrifugal force twisted everything it 
 touched. This accounts for the comparatively narrow 
 path of the flood through the southern part of the town, 
 where its course through the thiekly clustered frame 
 dwelling houses is as plain as a highway. 
 
 "The force of the stream diminished gradually as it
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. \ 1 7 
 
 went south, for at the place where the currents separated 
 every building is ground to pieces and carried away, and 
 at the end the houses were only turned a little on their 
 foundations. In the middle of the course they are 
 turned over on their sides or upside down. Further 
 down they are not single, but great heaps of ground 
 lumber that look like nothing so much as enormous pith 
 balls. 
 
 " To the north the work of the waters is of a differ- 
 ent sort. It picked up everything except the big 
 buildings that divided the current and piled the frag- 
 ments down upon the stone bridge or swept them over 
 and so on down the river for miles. This left the great 
 yellow, sandy and barren plain, so often spoken of in 
 the despatches where stood the best buildings in Johns- 
 town the opera house, the big hotel, many wholesale 
 warehouses, shops and the finest residences. 
 
 " In this plain there are now only the Baltimore and 
 Ohio Railroad train, a school house, the Morrell Com- 
 pany's store and an adjoining warehouse and the few 
 buildings of the triangle. One brick residence, badly 
 shattered, is also standing. 
 
 HOUSES CHANGED BASE. 
 
 " These structures do not relieve the shocking picture 
 of ruin spread out below the mountain, but by contrast 
 making it more striking. That part of the town to the 
 south where the flood tore the narrow path there used 
 to be a separate village which was called Kernsville. It 
 is now known as the South Side. Some of the queerest 
 sights of the wreck are there, though few persons have 
 gone to see them.
 
 1 18 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 " Many of the houses that are left there scattered 
 helter skelter, thrown on their sides and standing on their 
 roofs, were never in that neighborhood nor anywhere 
 near it before. They came down on the breast of the 
 wave from as far up as Franklin, were carried safely by 
 the factories and the bridges, by the big buildings at the 
 dividing line, up and down on the flood and finally 
 settled in their new resting places little injured. 
 
 " A row of them, packed closely together and every 
 one tipped over at about the same angle, is only one of 
 the queer freaks the water played. 
 
 " I got into one of these houses in my walk through 
 the town to-day. The lower story had been filled with 
 water and everything in it had been torn out. The 
 carpet had been split into strips on the floor by the sheer 
 force of the rushing tide. Heaps of mud stood in the 
 corners. There was no vestige of furniture. The walls 
 dripped with moisture. 
 
 " The ceiling was gone, the windows were out and the 
 cold rain blew in and the only thing that was left intact 
 was one of those worked worsted mottoes that you 
 always expect to find in the homes of working people. 
 It still hung to the wall, and though much awry the glass 
 and frame were unbroken. The motto looked grimly 
 and sadly sarcastic. It was : 
 
 " There is no place like home." 
 
 " A melancholy wreck of a home that motto looked 
 down upon. 
 
 A TREE IN A HOUSE. 
 
 "I saw a wagon in the middle of a side street sticking 
 tongue and all straight up into the air, resting on its tail
 
 THE JOHNSTO WN FLOOD. 119 
 
 board, with the hind wheels almost completely buried in 
 the mud. I saw a house standing exactly in the middle 
 of Napoleon street, the side stove in by crashing against 
 some other house and in the hole the coffin of its owner 
 was placed. 
 
 " Some scholar's library had been strewn over the 
 street in the last stage of the flood, for there was a trail 
 of good books left half sticking in the mud and reach- 
 ing for over a block. One house had been lifted over 
 two others in some mysterious way and then had settled 
 down between them and there it stuck, high up in the 
 air, so its former occupants might have got into it again 
 with ladders. 
 
 " Down at the lower end of the course of the stream, 
 where its force was greater, there was a house lying on 
 one corner and held there by being fastened in the deep 
 mud. Through its side the trunk of a tree had been 
 driven like a lance, and there it stayed sticking out 
 straight in the air. In the muck was the case and key 
 board of a square piano, and far down the river, near the 
 debris about the stone bridge, were its legs. An upright 
 piano, with all its inside apparatus cleanly taken out, 
 stood straight up a little way off. What was once a set 
 of costly furniture was strewn all about it, and the house 
 that had contained it was nowhere. 
 
 " The remarkable stories that have been told about 
 people floating a mile up the river and then back two or 
 three times are easily credible after seeing the evidences 
 of the strange course the flood took in this part of the 
 town. People who stood near the ruins of Poplar Bridge 
 saw four women on a roof float up on the stream, turn 
 a short distance above and come back and go past
 
 120 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 again and once more return. Then they were seen to 
 go far down on the current to the lower part of the town 
 and were rescued as they passed the second story win- 
 dow of a school house. A man who was imprisoned in 
 the attic of his house put his wife and two children on a 
 roof that was eddying past and stayed behind to die 
 alone. They floated up the stream and then came back 
 and got upon the roof of the very house they had left, 
 and the whole family were saved. 
 
 " At Grubbtown there is a house which came all the 
 way from Woodvale. On it was a man who lived near 
 Grubbtown, but was working at Woodvale when the 
 flood came. He was carried right past his own home, 
 and coolly told the people at the bridge to bid his wife 
 good-bye for him. The house passed the bridge three 
 times, the man carrying on a conversation with the peo- 
 ple on the shore and giving directions for his burial if 
 his body should be found. 
 
 " The third time the house went up it grounded at 
 Grubbtown, and in an hour or two the man was safe at 
 home. Three girls who went by on a roof crawled into 
 the branches of a tree, and had to stay there all night 
 before they could make anyone understand where they 
 were. At one time scores of floating houses were 
 wedged in together near the ruins of Poplar street bridge. 
 Four brave men went out from the shore, and stepping 
 from house-roof to house-roof brought in twelve women 
 and children. 
 
 " Some women crawled from roofs into the attics of 
 houses. In their struggles with the flood most of their 
 clothes had been torn from them, and rather than appear 
 on the streets they stayed where they were until hunger
 
 THE JOHNSTO WN FL OOD. 1 2 1 
 
 forced them to shout out of the window for help. At 
 this stage of the flood more persons were lost by being 
 crushed to death than by drowning. As they floated by 
 on roofs or doors the toppling houses fell over upon 
 them and killed them. 
 
 SAVED FROM DISFIGURATION. 
 
 " The workers began on the wreck on Main street just 
 opposite the First National Bank, one of the busiest 
 parts of the city. A large number of people were lost 
 here, the houses being crushed on one side of the street 
 and being almost untouched on the other, a most remark- 
 able thing considering the terrific force of the flood. 
 Twenty-one bodies were taken out in the early morning 
 and taken to the morgue. They were not much injured, 
 considering the weight of lumber above them. 
 
 " In many instances they were wedged in crevices. 
 They were all in a good state of preservation, and when 
 they were embalmed they looked almost lifelike. In 
 this central part of the city examination is sure to result 
 in the unearthing of bodies in every corner. Cottages 
 which are still standing are banked up with lumber and 
 driftwood, and it is like mining to make any kind of 
 a clear space. 
 
 DYNAMITE TEARS THE BODIES. 
 
 " Thirteen bodies were taken from the burning debris 
 at the Stone Bridge at one time yesterday afternoon. 
 None of the bodies were recognizable, and they were put 
 in coffins and buried immediately. They were so badly 
 decomposed that it was impossible to keep them until 
 they could be indentified. During a blast at the bridge 
 yesterday afternoon two bodies were almost blown to
 
 1 2 2 THE JOHNS TO WN FLOOD. 
 
 pieces. The blasting has had the effect of opening the 
 channel under the central portion of the bridge. 
 
 " The order that was issued that all unidentified dead 
 be buried is being rapidly carried out. The Rev. Mr. 
 Beall, who has charge of the morgue at the Fourth Ward 
 school-house, which is the chief place, says that a large 
 force of men has been put at work digging graves, and 
 at the close of the afternoon the remains will be laid 
 away as rapidly as it can be done. 
 
 " William Flynn has taken charge of the army of 
 eleven hundred laborers who are doing a wonderful 
 amount of work. In an interview he told of the work 
 that has to be done, and the contractors' estimates show 
 more than anything the chaotic condition of this city. 
 ' It will take ten thousand men thirty days to clear the 
 ground so that the streets are passable and the work of 
 rebuilding can be commenced,' said he, ' and I am at a 
 loss to know how the work is to be done. This enthu- 
 siasm will soon die out and the volunteers will want to 
 return home. 
 
 "' It would take all Summer for my men alone to do 
 what work is necessary. Steps must be taken at once to 
 furnish gangs of workmen, and I shall send a communi- 
 cation to the Pittsburg Chamber of Commerce asking 
 the different manufacturers of the Ohio Valley to take 
 turns for a month or so in furnishing reliefs of work- 
 men. 
 
 " ' I shall ask that each establishment stop work for a 
 week at a time and send all hands in the charge of a 
 foreman and timekeeper. We will board and care for 
 them here. These gangs should come for a week at a
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 12$ 
 
 time, as no organization can be effected if workmen arrive 
 and leave when they please.' 
 
 " A meeting was held here in the afternoon which 
 resulted in the appointment of James B. Scott, of Pitts- 
 burg, generalissimo. 
 
 " Mr. Scott in an interview said that he proposed to 
 clear the town of all wreckage and debris of all descrip- 
 tions and turn the town site over to the citizens when he 
 has completed his work clean and free from obstructions 
 of all kinds. 
 
 TRACING BODIES BY THE SMELL. 
 
 " I was here when the gang came across one of the 
 upper stories of a house. It was merely a pile of boards 
 apparently, but small pieces of a bureau and a bed spring 
 from which the clothes had been burned showed the 
 nature of the find. A faint odor of burned flesh pre- 
 vailed exactly at this spot. 
 
 " ' Dig here,' said the physician to the men. ' There 
 is one body at least quite close to the surface.' The 
 men started in with a will. A large pile of underclothes 
 and household linen was brought up first. It was of 
 fine quality and evidently such as would be stored in the 
 bedroom of a house occupied by people quite well to do. 
 Shovels full of jumbled rubbish were thrown up, and the 
 odor of flesh became more pronounced. Presently one 
 of the men exposed a charred lump of flesh and lifted it 
 up on the end of a pitchfork. It was all that remained 
 of some poor creature who had met an awful death 
 between water and fire. 
 
 " The trunk was put on a cloth, the ends were looped 
 up making a bag of it, and the thing was taken to the
 
 124 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 river bank. It weighed probably thirty pounds. A stake 
 was driven in the ground to which a tag was attached 
 giving a description of the remains. This is done in 
 many cases to the burned bodies, and they lay covered 
 with cloths upon the bank until men came with coffins 
 to remove them. 
 
 " Then the tag was taken from the stakes and tacked 
 on the coffin lid, which was immediately closed up, as 
 identification was of course out of the question. There 
 is a stack of coffins by the railroad bridge. Sometimes 
 a coffin is carried to the spot on the charred debris where 
 the find is made. 
 
 " A party started in early exploring the huge mass of 
 debris banked against the Pennsylvania Railroad bridge. 
 This collection, consisting of trees, sides of houses, tim- 
 ber and innumerable articles, varies in thickness from 
 three or four feet to twenty feet. It is about four hun- 
 dred yards long and as wide as the river. There are 
 thousands of tons in this vast pile. How many bodies 
 are buried there it is impossible to say, but conservative 
 estimates place it at one thousand at least. 
 
 " The corps of workmen who were searching the ruins 
 near the Methodist Church late last evening were horri- 
 fied by unearthing one hundred additional bodies. The 
 great number at this point shows what may be expected 
 when all have been recovered. 
 
 " In one of the tents a baby was born. The mother 
 is Mrs. O'Connor, whose husband was lost in the flood. 
 Both mother and baby are doing well, in fact better than 
 thousands of other poor sufferers. The latest addition 
 to the list of homeless victims of the flood will in all 
 probably be christened Johnstown Camp O'Connor.
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 12$ 
 
 " The only church totally destroyed by the flood was 
 St. John's Protestant Episcopal, which stood at the cor- 
 ner of Locust and Market streets. A sand bank now 
 marks its site. The ruins washed down to the mass 
 above the railroad bridge and the town, and lodged a lit- 
 tle further up stream. 
 
 "The rector, the Rev. .A. P. Dillon, formerly of Lan- 
 caster, Penna., was drowned with his family. He was 
 last seen standing at a window with a child in his arm. 
 His other arm was about his wife and his boy stood at 
 his side. 
 
 " Such houses as are so damaged as to be in danger 
 of falling are being pulled down. Others are propped 
 up until the work of repair can be commenced and 
 already the work of putting up frame structures is under 
 way. 
 
 " A multitude of tents are standing where once were 
 row after row of substantial buildings. They are occu- 
 pied by the militia and the laboring force, while the 
 homeless natives are camped out on the various hillsides."
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MEASURES for relief for the sufferers by the flood were 
 promptly taken by the thoughtful persons, even before 
 communication was reopened by the afflicted district. 
 From every city, town and hamlet subscriptions for the 
 Johnstown sufferers are coming in. The distress caused 
 by this unparalleled disaster is wide spread, and the cry 
 for relief did not come from Johnstown alone. As soon 
 as it was possible to reach the afflicted districts relief 
 committees and trains with clothing, provisions, house- 
 hold goods, etc., were sent there. 
 
 A correspondent telegraphed on the second day of 
 June to the Philadelphia Times : 
 
 " Just as Sunday broke over the valley of death at 
 Johnstown the first of the impatient rescuers who had 
 been waiting at the borders broke into the city precincts. 
 Johnstown is not figuratively but literally a ruin. 
 
 " Doctor Wakefield has issued a call for physicians to 
 come, as they are needed. There are plenty of people 
 here with broken arms, legs and bruises that need medi- 
 cal attention. Among the incidents is the following : A 
 lady, her brother and two children were visiting a family 
 here, and, singular as it may seem, it is said every one 
 of the family with which she was visiting were drowned, 
 while all the visitors were saved. Since yesterday 
 organized relief has taken the place of disorder and con- 
 fusion and the work of distributing provisions and caring 
 for the wants of the needy is now going on with some 
 regulation and order. Adjutant General Hastings 
 (126)
 
 THE JOHNS TO WN FLOOD. 1 2/ 
 
 arrived Saturday night and immediately set to work to 
 get aid to those in the greatest distress. Hundreds of 
 willing hands stood ready to render assistance, if they 
 had somebody to direct them what to do. Every 
 farmer within a large radius of this place was astir by 
 daylight this morning, and, with wagons, drays, horses 
 and all kinds of conveyances, were on hand to haul pro- 
 visions or do anything that might be wanted. 
 
 " The relief train from Pittsburg arrived at an early 
 hour this morning and the work of transferring the pro- 
 visions from Sang Hollow, the furthest point east 
 reached by train, was begun at once. All of Coopers- 
 dale, Cambria City and Sheridan, below Johnstown, and 
 what few people are left at Woodvale and East Cone- 
 maugh above were supplied as fast as the work of distri- 
 bution could be carried on. As is usual in all such cases 
 of distress many came here for the purpose of pilfering 
 and nearly every train from Pittsburg brought a lot of 
 toughs whose object is to prey on the charity being 
 dispensed and rob those deserving of even what little 
 they have left. 
 
 " The few hours that have intervened since the disaster 
 occurred have given people time to consider the situa- 
 tion, and instead of sitting down and weeping for lost 
 ones they are actively engaged in taking care of them- 
 selves and assisting others. This principle seems to have 
 taken hold of the brave people left from the Johnstown 
 flood, and many a poor woman or man goes about the 
 duties of the day with a heart heavy for some absent one 
 who was drowned or killed by the crush of buildings. 
 
 " Thousands of sight-seers and anxious friends are 
 gathered about the wrecked city and hundreds of work-
 
 128 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 ers are busy taking out bodies, removing debris and car- 
 ing for the wants of survivors. All night long 500 labor- 
 ers worked like beavers on the railroad track and at 8 
 o'clock Sunday morning the first train passed over the 
 road from Sang Hollow to Johnstown. It was received 
 all along the line with cheers and shouts of joy from the 
 hundreds of sufferers who were waiting along the track 
 eager to obtain the supplies contained in the relief trains, 
 three of which lay in Sang Hollow all night waiting to 
 get through. 
 
 " The first train to pass over the reconstructed track 
 was that sent out by the citizens of Pittsburg and manned 
 by the Americus Club boys. 
 
 " The work of getting the bodies together for easy 
 identification began this afternoon. The central point 
 was Morrellville. On Fairfield avenue is a large vacant 
 lot belonging to Frank Leckey. At 5 o'clock this was 
 almost entirely covered with coffins, while between them, 
 and stooping over them, were weeping men and women. 
 
 " Although the number was short of one hundred at 
 5 o'clock, others will come in, and there is no telling 
 what the total will be. On one rough box was a piece 
 of paper with the words, ' Three children.' To-night 
 they were lifted out and all three placed in one coffin. 
 The little bodies were almost naked and the purple 
 faces bruised and cut. 
 
 " The corpse of a beautiful young woman lay in the 
 extemporized morgue. Several people say that it is that 
 of Miss Ida Fischer, a prominent young lady of Johns- 
 town. 
 
 " Only a few hundred yards below the bridge a num-
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 129 
 
 her of bodies had been taken to private houses. They 
 were taken to the Morrellville morgue this afternoon. 
 
 " St. Mary's German Catholic Church stands a quarter 
 of a mile below the bridge. Its walls are standing, but 
 inside it is filled with mixed, broken benches and ruined 
 images. In it were found the mangled body of P. 
 Eldridge and the remains of several negroes. 
 
 " The distance to St. Columbia's Catholic Church is a 
 half mile. The streets to it are filled with broken houses 
 and people in those that were left standing were busy 
 shoveling mud from the first floors. The scene at St. 
 Columbia's Church was awful. Forty or fifty bodies had 
 been carried into it and laid on the muddy seats. 
 
 " Trenches were being dug in Lower Yoder Catholic 
 Cemetery and Grandview Protestant Cemetery this after- 
 noon. The bodies that were exposed when the waters 
 began falling are in bad condition. Some have already 
 been interred. In the haste and excitement no definite 
 arrangements seem to have been made for funeral ser- 
 vices. The only suggestion that could be obtained at 
 Morrellville was that all the bodies would be buried and 
 general memorial services held after the present suffer- 
 ing is alleviated. 
 
 GREAT ENERGY SHOWN. 
 
 " One remarkable feature of the disaster is the energy 
 with which Johnstown sets to work to repair the ravages 
 of the flood. In every direction gangs of workmen are 
 burning the debris and clearing the streets, getting ready 
 for the time when the property holders may be able to 
 rebuild their houses. It is because of this that 
 the change in the condition and appearance of the 
 9
 
 130 TU1-: JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 town is so constant from day to day. Whether 
 the city will be soon rebuilt is, however, another matter. 
 One great difficulty in the way of rebuilding will be 
 found in the uncertainty in regard to party lines. The 
 city lots being entirely covered and the landmarks 
 obliterated, it will not be easy for lot-owners to locate 
 the exact bounds of their properties. Fortunately, the 
 county seat being at Ebensburg, the deeds have been 
 preserved and a re-survey is possible. When the bound- 
 aries of one lot in a square are determined, the location 
 of the others will be comparatively easy. When this is 
 done there is no question that the city will be rapidly 
 rebuilt. 
 
 " Though rapid progress was being made in the work 
 on the ruins of Johnstown, a week after the disaster 
 the piles of rubbish were still up to the second story win- 
 dows of quite a number of houses on Main street. A 
 great hinderance to progress was found in the tangled 
 multitude of telegraph, telephone and electric light wires 
 that were twisted into every conceivable shape and 
 tightly wrapped around almost every thing. At the raft 
 near the viaduct immense quantities of steel wire came 
 down from the Gautier Steel Works. Much of it was 
 barbed, and the laborers were terribly hampered by it. 
 Their progress was also impeded by the several locomo- 
 tives and tenders that were firmly imbedded in the mass 
 and were practically immovable. 
 
 " Several stationary engines were located at various 
 points through the city and were used to pull out heavy 
 timbers and tear apart buildings that resisted the 
 destructive force of the water, but so solidly packed were 
 the piles that the stoutest cables were repeatedly broken.
 
 THE JOHNSTO WN FLOOD. 1 3 1 
 
 SIXTY ACRES OF BURNING DEBRIS. 
 
 " Wandering over this muddy plain one can realize 
 something of what must have been the gigantic force of 
 that vast whirlpool. It pressed upon the town like some 
 huge millstone, weighing tens of thousands of tons and 
 revolving with awful velocity, pounding to powder every- 
 thing beneath. But the conception of the power of that 
 horrible eddy of the flood must remain feeble until the 
 sixty acres of burning debris is inspected. It seems from 
 a little distance like any other mass of wreckage, though 
 vastly longer than ever before seen in this country. It 
 must have been many times more tremendous when it 
 was heaped up twenty feet over its whole area and before 
 the fire levelled it off. But neither then nor now can the 
 full terror of the flood that piled it there be adequately 
 realized until a trip across parts where the fire has been 
 extinguished shows the manner in which the stuff com- 
 posing it is packed together. 
 
 " It is not a heap of broken timbers lying loosely 
 thrown together in all directions. It is a solid mass. 
 The boards and timbers which made up the frame build- 
 ings are laid together as closely as sticks of wood in a 
 pile more closely, for they are welded into one another 
 until each stick is as solidly 'fixed in place as though all 
 were one."
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE ORPHANS OF THE FLOOD. 
 
 THE orphans of the flood sadly few there are of them, 
 for it was the children that usually went down first, not 
 the parents were being looked after by the Pennsylva- 
 nia Children's Aid Society, which had transferred its 
 headquarters for the time being from Philadelphia to 
 Johnstown. There was a thriving branch of this society 
 at that place before the flood, but of all its officers and 
 executive force two only are alive. Fearing such might 
 be the situation, the general officers of the society sent 
 out on the first available train Miss H. E. Hancock, one 
 of the directors, and Miss H. W. Hinckley, the secre- 
 tary. They arrived on the /th, and within thirty 
 minutes had an office open in a little cottage just above 
 the water line in the upper part of the city. Business 
 was ready as soon as the office, and there were about 
 fifty children looked after before evening. In most cases 
 these were children with relatives or friends in or near 
 Johnstown, and the society's work has been to identify 
 them and restore them to their friends. 
 
 As soon as the society opened its office all cases in 
 which children were involved were sent at once to them, 
 and their efforts have been of great benefit in systematiz- 
 ing the care of the children who are left homeless. Be- 
 sides this, there are many orphans who have been living 
 in the families of neighbors since the flood, but for whom 
 permanent homes must be found. One family here has 
 cared for 157 children saved from the flood, and nearly 
 (132)
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. . 133 
 
 as many are staying with other families. There will be 
 no difficulty about providing for these little ones. 
 
 The Rev. Morgan Dix, on behalf of the Leake and 
 Watts Orphan Home in New York, has telegraphed an 
 offer to care for seventy-five orphans. Pittsburg has 
 been proving itself generous in this as in all other mat- 
 ters relating to the flood, and other places all over the 
 country are telegraphing offers of homes for the homeless. 
 Superintendent Pierson of the Indianapolis Natural Gas 
 Company has asked for two ; Cleveland wanted some ; 
 Altoona would like a few ; Apollo, Pa., has vacancies the 
 orphans can fill, and scores of other small places are send- 
 ing in similar offers and requests. A queer thing is that 
 many of the offers are restricted by curious provisions as 
 to the religious belief of the orphans. The Rev. D. 
 Griffiths, for instance, of 1420 Chestnut street, Philadel- 
 phia, says that the Angora (Pa.) Home would like some 
 orphans, "especially Baptist ones," and Father Field oi 
 Twentieth and Cherry streets, Philadelphia, offers to look 
 after a few Episcopal wails. 
 
 The work of the society here has been greatly assisted 
 by the fact that Miss Maggie Brooks, formerly secre- 
 tary of the Johnstown society here, but living in Phila- 
 delphia at the time of the flood, has come there to assist 
 the general officers. Her acquaintance with the town 
 was invaluable. 
 
 The secretary of the society on the nth of June pre- 
 pared a statement for publication, the purpose of which 
 was to correct a widespread impression that Johnstown 
 is full of orphan children. It is as follows: 
 
 " From private citizens and from generous institutions 
 throughout the United States telegrams and letters have
 
 134 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 been steadily pouring in ever since the disaster. Each 
 bears in substance the same warm-hearted message : 
 ' Send us the destitute little ones from Johnstown.' The 
 fact is that the loss of life from the violence of the flood 
 has been one of the most pathetic features of the Johns- 
 town tragedy. This fact is shown to be true, not only 
 from the number of silent little forms brought to the 
 morgues next door, but that almost every family caught 
 by the Johnstown flood now mourns a lost child. Adults 
 were often saved by their strength and the judgment 
 used in self-preservation, but the children were swept 
 away from their parents and friends. Every relief agency 
 here is taxed to its utmost to help stricken families, and 
 the work for children is incessant. The Johnstown 
 ladies will need for months to come all the sympathy 
 and help that can be sent, but there seems to be at pres- 
 ent more need of uniting families than of sending away 
 children from Johnstown. Children reported, in the 
 confusion of the past day, as being destitute orphans, 
 have been claimed in the majority of cases by friends or 
 relatives. Before closing, in behalf of the Johnstown 
 Children's Aid Society, I wish to acknowledge the con- 
 stant courtesy shown by headquarters and the various 
 relief agencies to this office. 
 
 " HELEN WALLACE HINCKLEY, 
 
 Secretary Children's Aid Society of Pennsylvania, 69 
 Adams street, Johnstown." 
 
 AT THE RELIEF STATIONS. 
 
 A correspondent of the New York Srm, on June /th, 
 thus described scenes at the relief station : 
 
 " The first thing that Johnstown people do in the morn-
 
 THE JOHNS TO WN FL OOD. 1 3 5 
 
 ing is to go to the relief stations and get something to 
 eat. They go carrying big baskets, and their endeavor 
 is to get all they can. There has been a new system 
 every day about the manner of dispensing the food and 
 clothing to the sufferers. At first the supplies were 
 placed where people could help themselves. Then they 
 were placed in yards and handed to people over the 
 fences. Then people had to get orders for what they 
 wanted from the Citizens' Committee, and their orders 
 were filled at the different relief stations. Now the whole 
 matter of receiving and dispensing relief supplies has 
 been placed in the hands of the Grand Army of the 
 Republic men. Thomas A. Stewart, Commander of the 
 Department of Pennsylvania, G. A. R., arrived yesterday 
 with his staff and established his headquarters in a tent 
 on Adams street, near the headquarters of the Citizens' 
 Committee, and opposite the temporary Post Office. 
 Over this tent floats Commander Stewart's flag, with 
 purple border, bearing the arms of the State of Pennsyl- 
 vania. The members of his staff are : Quartermaster- 
 General Tobin Taylor and his assistant, H. J. Williams, 
 Chaplain John W. Sayres, and W. V. Lawrence, Quar- 
 termaster-General of the Ohio department The Grand 
 Army men have made the Adams street relief station a 
 central relief station, and all the others at Kernsville, the 
 Pennsylvania depot, Cambria City, and Jackson and 
 Somerset streets, sub-stations. The idea is to distribute 
 supplies to the sub-stations from the central station, and 
 thus avoid the jam of crying and excited people at the 
 committee's headquarters. 
 
 " The Grand Army men have appointed a committee 
 of women to assist them in their work. The women go
 
 1 36 THE JOHNSTO WN FLOOD. 
 
 from house to house, ascertaining the number of people 
 quartered there, the number of people lost from there in 
 the flood, and the exact needs of the people. It was 
 found necessary to have some such committee as this, 
 for there were women actually starving who were too 
 proud to take their places in line with the other women 
 with bags and baskets. Some of these people were rich 
 before the flood. Now they are not worth a dollar. A 
 Sun reporter was told of one man who was reported to 
 be worth $100,000 before the flood, but who now is pen- 
 niless, and who has to take his place in the line along 
 with others seeking the necessaries of life. 
 
 " Though the Adams street station is now the central 
 relief station, the most imposing display of supplies is 
 made at the Pennsylvania Railroad freight and passenger 
 depots. Here on the platforms and in the yards are 
 piled up barrels of flour in long rows, three and four 
 barrels high ; biscuits in cans and boxes where car loads 
 of them have been dumped, crackers under the railroad 
 sheds in bins, hams by the hundred strung on poles, 
 boxes of soap and candles, barrels of kerosene oil, stacks 
 of canned goods, and things to eat of all sorts and kinds. 
 The same is visible at the Baltimore and Ohio road, and 
 there is now no fear of a food famine in Johnstown, 
 though of course everybody will have to rough it for 
 weeks. What is needed most in this line is cooking 
 utensils. Johnstown people want stoves, kettles, pans, 
 knives and forks. All the things that have been sent so 
 far have been sent with the evident idea of supplying an 
 instant need, and that is right and proper, but it would 
 be well now if, instead of some of the provisions that 
 are sent, cooking utensils would arrive. Fifty stoves
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 137 
 
 arrived from Pittsburg this morning, and it is said that 
 more are coming. 
 
 " At both the depots where the supplies are received 
 and stored a big rope line encloses them in an improptu 
 yard, so as to give room to those having them in charge 
 to walk around and see what they have got. On the 
 inside of this line, too, stalk back and forth the soldiers, 
 with their rifles on their shoulders, and beside the lines, 
 pressing against the ropes, there stands every day, from 
 daylight until dawn, a crowd of women with big baskets, 
 who make piteous appeals to the soldiers to give them 
 food for their children at once before the order of the 
 relief committee. Those to whom supplies are dealt 
 out at the stations have to approach in a line, and this 
 is fringed with soldiers, Pittsburg policemen, and deputy 
 sheriffs, who see that the children and weak women are not 
 crowded out of their places by the stronger ones. The 
 supplies are not given in large quantities, but the appli- 
 cants are told to come again in a day or so and more 
 will be given them. The women complain against this 
 bitterly, and go away with tears in their eyes, declaring 
 that they have not been given enough. Other women 
 utter broken words of thankfulness and go away, their 
 faces wreathed in smiles. 
 
 " Last night something in the nature of a raid was 
 made by Father McTahney, one of the Catholic priests 
 here, on the houses of some people whom he suspected 
 of having imposed upon the relief committee. These 
 persons represented that they were destitute, and sent 
 their children with baskets to the relief stations, each 
 child getting supplies for a different family. There are 
 unquestionably many such cases. Father McTahney
 
 1 3 8 THE JOHNS TO WN FLOOD. 
 
 found that his suspicions were correct in a great many 
 cases, and he brought back and made the wrongdoers 
 bring back the provisions which they had obtained under 
 false pretences. 
 
 " The side tracks at both the Pennsylvania and Balti- 
 more and Ohio Railroad depots are filled with cars sent 
 from different places bearing relief supplies to Johns- 
 town. The cars are nearly all freight cars, and they con- 
 tain the significant inscriptions of the railroad officials : 
 ' This car is on time freight. It is going to Johnstown, 
 and must not be delayed under any circumstances.' 
 Then there are the ponderous labels of the towns and 
 associations sending the supplies. They read this way : 
 'This car for Johnstown with supplies for the sufferers.' 
 ' Braddock relief for Johnstown.' ' The contributions of 
 Beaver Falls to Johnstown.' The cars from Pittsburg 
 had no inscriptions. Some cars had merely the inscrip- 
 tion in great big black letters on a white strip of cloth 
 running the length of the car : ' Johnstown.' One car 
 reads on it, ' Stations along the route fill this car with 
 supplies for Johnstown, and don't delay it.' The sup- 
 plies from Cleveland were said to be exceptionally fine. 
 There were bales of fine new blankets from the manufac- 
 turers, the best thing that could be sent. 
 
 " Money is pouring into Johnstown as fast as the 
 Finance Committee will let it. That is to say, the com- 
 mittee have announced their wish that money be not 
 sent to Johnstown yet, as the town is not yet ready for 
 it. People feel encouraged, as well they may, over the 
 liberal contributions that have been made for them.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 CRAZED BY THEIR SUFFERINGS. 
 
 ' WHEN the great wave of death swept througn Johns- 
 town, the people who had any chance of escape ran 
 hither and thither in every direction. They did not have 
 any definite idea where they were going, only that a 
 crest of foaming waters as high as the housetops was 
 roaring down upon them through the Conemaugh, and 
 that they must get out of the way of that. Some in 
 their terror dived into the cellars of their houses, though 
 this was certain death. Others got up on the roofs of 
 their houses and dambered over the adjoining roofs to 
 places of safety. But the majority made for the hills, 
 which girt the town like giants. Of the people who 
 went to the hills the water caught some in its whirl. The 
 others clung to trees and roots and pieces of debris 
 which had temporarily lodged near the banks, and man- 
 aged to save themselves. These people either stayed 
 out on the hills wet and in many instances naked, all 
 night, or they managed to find farm houses which 
 sheltered them. There was a fear of going back to the 
 vicinity of the tovvn. Even the people whose houses the 
 water did not reach abandoned their homes and began 
 to think of all of Johnstown as a city buried beneath the 
 water. But in the houses which were thus able to afford 
 shelter there was not food enough for all. Many sur- 
 vivors of the flood went hungry until the first relief sup- 
 plies arrived from Pittsburg. From all this fright, des- 
 titution, and exposure is coming nervous shock, cul- 
 
 (139)
 
 140 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 ruinating in insanity, pneumonia, fever, and all forms of 
 disease. When these people came back to Johnstown 
 on the day after the wreck of the town they had to put 
 up in sheds, barns, and in houses which had been but 
 partially ruined. They had to sleep without any cover- 
 ing in their wet clothes, and it took the liveliest kind of 
 skirmishing to get anything to eat. Pretty soon a 
 citizens' committee was established, and for a fact nearly 
 all the male survivors of the flood were immediately 
 sworn in as deputy sheriffs. They adorned themselves 
 with tin stars, which they cut out of pieces of the sheet 
 metal in the ruins, and sheets of tin with stars cut out of 
 them are turning up continually, to the surprise of the 
 Pittsburg workmen who are endeavoring to get the 
 town in shape. The women and children were housed, 
 as far as possible, in the few houses still standing, and 
 some idea of the extent of the wreck of the town may 
 be gathered from the fact that of 300 prominent build- 
 ings only 1 6 are uninjured. 
 
 For the first day or so people were dazed by what had 
 happened, and for that matter they are dazed still. They 
 went about helpless, making vague inquiries for their 
 friends and hardly feeling the desire to eat anything. 
 Finally the need of creature comforts overpowered them, 
 and they woke up to the fact that they were faint and 
 sick. Now this is to some extent changed by the arrival 
 of tents and by the systematic military care for the suffer- 
 ing. But the daily life of a Johnstown man, who is a 
 refugee in his own city, is still aimless and wandering. 
 His property, his home, and, in nine cases out of ten, his 
 wife and children are gone. The chances are that he 
 has hard work to find the spot where he and his family
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 141 
 
 once lived and were happy. He meditates suicide, and 
 even looks on the strangers who have flocked in to help 
 him, and to put him and his town on their feet again, 
 with a kind of sullen anger. He has frequent conflicts 
 with the soldiers and sightseers, and he is just crazy 
 enough to do anything. 
 
 One night a young Lieutenant in the Fourteenth 
 Regiment from Pittsburg, which was doing guard duty, 
 got drunk and went around flourishing a pistol and 
 abusing people. He tried to force his way through the 
 wreck at a place where the Sheriff had issued strict 
 orders that no one should be allowed to pass. The 
 military here are under the control of the civil power, 
 and Gen. Hastings refuses to issue passes to the most 
 important parts of town now unless they are counter- 
 signed by Sheriff Steinman. The man on guard at the 
 place where the Lieutenant tried to pass refused to let 
 the officer go by. The officer swore like a pirate, and 
 threatened to pound the deputy. 
 
 " So help me God, sir," said the deputy, " if you try 
 to go by me I will shoot you like a dog. I have lost my 
 wife and all my children here, and I don't care what 
 becomes of me." 
 
 The Lieutenant did not say anything further. He 
 went away, and was soon placed under arrest by his 
 commanding officer. Mrs. D. S. Lane had to be taken 
 away insane. Her husband kept a shoe store on Morris 
 street, the family living in Kernsville. The couple are 
 quite aged and lost all their children and property in the 
 flood. Mrs. Lane brooded over the calamity to such 
 an extent that her mind became affected, and her hus- 
 band was obliged to take her away to an asylum.
 
 142 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 Governor Beaver's conference with Mayor Fitler of 
 Philadelphia, the 8th of June, and others, and his per- 
 sonal visit to Johnstown and return to Philadelphia 
 between Saturday night and Monday afternoon, have 
 been of great value in clearing up matters that were get- 
 ting into some entanglement. It is now understood that 
 there is a clear line of demarcation between the relief of 
 destitution and suffering including all that relates to the 
 care of the sick and injured and the burial of the dead 
 on the one hand, and the clearing out of blockaded 
 rivers, and the prevention of such pollution and poison- 
 ing of their waters as might spread disease through a 
 score of counties distant from the devastated districts. 
 While the purely charitable work belongs to the juris- 
 diction of the authorities and committees in charge of 
 the funds contributed for relief by the benevolent upris- 
 ing of the people the work of removing the obstructions 
 and pollution from scores and, perhaps, hundreds of 
 miles of river beds goes properly under the jurisdiction 
 of the State, and should be dealt with under the super- 
 vision of State authorities. No part of the relief fund 
 proper contributed by popular subscription is to be used 
 for this State service. 
 
 It is a further result of the conferences which the Gov- 
 ernor has been holding that from and after Wednesday 
 the 1 2th, General Hastings is in command at Johns- 
 town, and that the Governor has appointed an Advisory 
 Commission, selected from well-known citizens in whom 
 the public have learned to place confidence to exercise 
 general supervision and direction over the whole work 
 and whole field of relief.
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD, 143 
 
 GENERAL HASTINGS IN COMMAND. 
 
 General Hastings, having divided the ruined area into 
 districts, on the I2th began putting contractors or sub- 
 contractors in charge of each. He caused these men to 
 come to his headquarters, where he instructed them 
 that they must find their own tools and supplies for their 
 workmen, and that their operations would be under the 
 supervision of engineers directly responsible to him. 
 
 It is estimated that at the rate at which the work of 
 removing the drift above the stone bridge had been done, 
 about three weeks more would be required to tear it 
 apart, burning what is taken off the sides and sending 
 down the river the material coming out of the channel 
 that is being cut upward through the stream from the 
 bridge. The most difficult part of this work is in mak- 
 ing the channel, as the logs, boards, etc., are interlocked 
 in every way, and the interstices packed with stones, 
 brick, house plaster, sand and general debris, but there 
 are additional hoisting engines ready to begin loosening 
 and dragging logs. With these engines and the addi- 
 tional force of wood-choppers and other workmen 
 expected to be on the drift by the end of this week, it is 
 believed by Contractor William Flinn and others, that 
 this great obstruction can be cleared away within the 
 next eight or ten days. It is thought that at least 1500 
 men, or three times as many as were employed on the 
 drift on previous days, could be used there advantage- 
 ously. Now that number could be increased as the 
 channel is lengthened. The cutting right and left 
 from the channel will be much easier than the present 
 work, as has been demonstrated by such cutting near 
 the bridge. The main difficulty in working at the sides
 
 144 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 of the drift is in dragging the material out on land, to be 
 burned. 
 
 The first real work under the supervision of the State 
 commenced on the I3th of June at 6 o'clock a. m. The 
 whistle at the Cambria Iron and Steel Works was the 
 signal for the men to commence, and about 1 500 started in 
 with their picks and shovels. The early morning was 
 warm and cloudy, and the fumes and odors from the 
 decayed bodies was something almost unbearable. As 
 the morning advanced the weather grew warmer, and by 
 10 o'clock the sun was shining brightly and every one 
 on the ground was hard at work. 
 
 During the morning a crowd of worthless loafers in 
 some manner secured an entrance to the town, and 
 wanted to inaugurate a strike among the workmen. 
 Some of the laborers were already dissatisfied at having 
 new bosses over them, and only wanted a chance to com- 
 plain. James Me Knight, of Pittsburg, of the State con- 
 tractors, got wind of the trouble brewing, and went 
 among the men and informed them that he would have 
 no kicking, and that all those who wished to quit would 
 have to do so immediately, and about 100 of the men 
 left, but the loafers remained around, and Mr. McKnight 
 went to General Hastings and demanded protection for 
 his men. A detachment of militia from the Fourteenth 
 Regiment were detailed to the place, and drove away all 
 the men who refused to work. This caused General 
 Hastings to issue an order to the soldiers not to admit 
 any one to Johnstown proper without an order. 
 
 SEVERAL STORES OPENED. 
 
 The business men of the town seemed to have awak-
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 145 
 
 ened to their senses, and a number of them were prepar- 
 ing to start over again in business. Two grocery stores 
 were started near the Pennsylvania Railroad freight 
 station. Both places were doing a land office business 
 and this encouraged other merchants to start up, and 
 the probabilities are that inside of a week, at least, a 
 hundred stores will be in operation. Already two barber 
 shops and one jewelry store have been opened. 
 
 GOOD NEWS. 
 
 Captain Seers, of the United States Army, one of the 
 corps of engineers at Willet's Point, and Captain Bur- 
 bank, of the West Point Engineering Corps, have laid 
 out the different boroughs in five districts, and compe- 
 tent men have been appointed to take charge of each 
 district. Captain Seers, in an interview, said : " I am 
 only here to advise General Hastings, and do what I can 
 to help him. I think that inside of two weeks the 
 3000 or 4000 men that will be at work will succeed in 
 putting the town in very good condition, and I think 
 inside of a month Johnstown will have almost recovered 
 from this terrible shock." 
 
 THE LATEST ESTIMATE OF LOSS OF LIFE. 
 
 The general opinion among well posted people here is 
 that the loss of life will be between 3000 and 4000. 
 
 It was generally given out that Johnstown and 
 boroughs adjoining had a population of 35,000 people, 
 but this is a very high estimate, and conservative people 
 put the population between 25,000 and 28,000. Colonel 
 Rogers, who has charge of the registration, states that, 
 from all he can learn, the population only amounted to 
 about 25,000, and this accounts for 10,000 supposed to 
 10
 
 146 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 be lost. The reports sent out from here to the effect 
 that 12,000 to 15,000 people were missing were based 
 upon the suppositioa that there were 35,000 inhabitants 
 in these boroughs. The reports as to the number of 
 bodies recovered at different points along the flooded 
 districts are very conflicting. Supposed official reports 
 have been sent in by different persons, and these are 
 also conflicting, and put the number of bodies recovered 
 anywhere from 1 100 to 1800. Consequently there is no 
 telling how many bodies have been recovered. 
 
 PASSENGERS LOST FROM THE DAY EXPRESS. 
 
 The following is the only full and complete list of 
 passengers lost from the Day Express on the Pennsyl- 
 vania road at East Conemaugh on the day of the flood : 
 
 Miss Long, Curwensville, Pa., body recovered. She 
 had three children in her charge, but they have not been 
 found. 
 
 Cyrus Schenck, Reading, Pa. 
 
 Miss J. B. Ralney, of Kalamazoo, Mich. 
 
 Miss Paulson, of Pittsburg. 
 
 Miss Bryan, of Philadelphia. 
 
 Mr. Ross, a cripple, residence unknown. 
 
 Mr. Ewing, Ligonier, Pa., body not found. 
 
 Manager of the Mansfield, Pa., Base Ball Club, name 
 unknown, body not found. 
 
 E. Lyon, of New York, body not found. 
 
 F. Phillips, colored porter on the Pullman car, resi- 
 dence Thirty-eighth street, Philadelphia. 
 
 W. Shelley, Newark, N. J., body not found. 
 Mrs. J. F. King, residence unknown, body not recov 
 ered.
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 147 
 
 Anna Bates, companion of Mrs. King, body not recov- 
 ered. 
 
 Mrs. Swineford, New Berlin, O., aged 70 years, weight 
 about 150 pounds ; body not recovered. 
 
 Mrs. Edward Swineford, St. Louis, Mo. ; destination, 
 Middleboro', Pa. ; body not found. 
 
 Mrs. McCoy, body recovered and buried. 
 
 Two boys, sons of Mrs. McCoy, bodies not recovered. 
 
 Mrs. H. K. Smith and child, three years of age ; bodies 
 not recovered.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 AN IMPORTANT MEETING. 
 
 first decisive step toward putting Johnstown's 
 business men on their feet again was made on the I3th 
 of June, when about 200 merchants who had survived 
 the flood, many of them without a dollar, met Adjutant- 
 General Hastings, and were assured that they would be 
 re-established in business on long credit. Both Pitts- 
 burg and Philadelphia wholesalers have offered Johns- 
 town merchants this business courtesy. The meeting 
 turned out to be an ovation to General Hastings. 
 
 The meeting was opened by the Adjutant-General, 
 who said : 
 
 " I have been directed to clear the streets of Johns- 
 town in order that merchants may be enabled to get to 
 and from their business places. Our work is progress- 
 ing rapidly and vigorously, and the best thing for Johns- 
 town merchants to do is to begin business over again. 
 I have communicated with eastern firms, who offer to 
 assist you if you will resume business in this city. 
 
 " I would suggest that you build temporary structures 
 for the present, until more favorable circumstances war- 
 rant the erection of permanent establishments. Word 
 has been received from a large number of Pittsburg 
 houses, offering to stock your stores with a full line of 
 first-class goods on long credit. I advise you to improve 
 this opportunity, and when in the course of time matters 
 take a more tangible shape you will be able to repay all 
 losses incurred. 
 ('48)
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 149 
 
 " In conclusion, let me say that all those in need of 
 relief should immediately make their wants known to me. 
 No one should go hungry when they can have plenty to 
 eat for the asking. We will provide shelter and clothes 
 for all sufferers and try in every way to help the needy 
 ones as much as we can. I am anxious to see Johns- 
 town resume her own government as speedily as pos- 
 sible, and, while we have no martial law to prevent the 
 people from passing through the streets unmolested, we 
 will keep the troops here to check all unwelcome visitors, 
 such as sight-seers, vandals and so forth." 
 
 Hearty applause followed, and several merchants spoke 
 out to say that they were already making arrangements 
 to resume business. 
 
 Joseph Morgan, Jr., of the Cambria Iron And Steel 
 Company, stated that they had thrown open their doors, 
 ready to receive orders, and would resume operations in 
 the works at once. He agreed with the views of Adju- 
 tant-General Hastings on vandalism, and spoke of the 
 necessity for barring out all persons from the ruins while 
 the work of clearing the city was in progress. 
 
 " I thank God," said Colonel Linton, the next speaker, 
 " for the new regime is managing the Relief Committee, 
 which helps men by teaching them to help themselves. 
 I am satisfied that united action will drag us out of the 
 slough of despond, and there is no doubt of the future of 
 the town." 
 
 The last words of Colonel Linton's speech were lost in 
 a round of applause. Upon the suggestion of General 
 Hastings, the Colonel dictated the following resolutions : 
 
 Resolved, That the merchants and business men of 
 Johnstown assembled at the request of Adjutant-
 
 150 7 HE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 General Hastings, having listened with gratification to 
 his remarks, agree to secure as rapidly as possible the 
 resumption of business and to furnish the committee all 
 the provisions required. 
 
 Resolved further, That each merchant and business 
 man in Johnstown use his best efforts to restore by his 
 own exertions his property and that of the community 
 at large. 
 
 Resolved, That the business men and merchants of 
 Johnstown tender their hearty thanks to Adjutant-Gen- 
 eral Hastings for his kindly suggestions and offers of 
 aid. 
 
 The meeting then closed with the taking down of the 
 names and occupations of the business men present in 
 order to assist General Hastings in his work of relief. 
 
 REPORT OF THE TRANSPORTATION BUREAU. 
 
 The report of the Bureau of Transportation, which 
 died with the Citizens' Relief Committee, was presented 
 to James B. Scott June I2th. It shows that from June 4th 
 to nth inclusive, 1592 people were given free transporta- 
 tion out of Johnstown. Out of these, 872 were over the 
 Pennsylvania and 720 over the Baltimore and Ohio. 
 
 One hundred and seventy-six were sent to Pittsburg by 
 the Baltimore and Ohio and 636 over the Pennsylvania : 
 157 were sent to Philadelphia over the Baltimore and 
 Ohio. The Bureau of Information answered 287 tele- 
 grams and 68 letters, mostly inquiries from anxious 
 friends as to the safety of Johnstowners. 
 
 FOR THE RELIEF OF THE SUFFERERS. 
 
 A plan for the concentration and distribution of the 
 various funds now being collected for the benefit of the
 
 THE JOHNSTO II ',V FLOOD. 1 5 i 
 
 sufferers by the recent flood was arranged on the I3th 
 of June, at a conference between Governor Beaver and 
 Mayor Fitler, Thomas Dolan, Robert C. Ogden, John 
 Y. Huber and Francis B. Reeves. 
 
 The conference was held at the Hotel Lafayette, Phil- 
 adelphia, Governor Beaver telegraphing, while on his 
 way from Harrisburg, that he would meet the represen- 
 tatives of the Citizens' Permanent Relief Committee of 
 Philadelphia there on his arrival. 
 
 The formulation of the plan had been left to the Gov- 
 ernor, and when the gentlemen above mentioned had 
 assembled, he laid before them the following letter 
 addressed to Mayor Fitler, which contains his opinion 
 as to how the funds should be spent. 
 
 " My Dear Sir. Impressed with the sacredness of the 
 trust which has been entrusted to me in part by gener- 
 ous donors in this country and abroad for the relief of 
 the sufferers by the late disastrous floods in Pennsyl- 
 vania, especially in the Conemaugh and West Branch 
 Valleys, I have called to my aid the experience, ability 
 and well-known character of a number of prominent 
 gentlemen of Pennsylvania, to assist me in making the 
 distribution of the funds in my hands and such other 
 moneys as may be entrusted to them. 
 
 " After careful consideration and consultation I have 
 appointed as a commission to aid me in this work the 
 following gentlemen: Edwin H. Fitler, Thomas Dolan, 
 Robert C. Ogden, John Y. Huber and Francis B. Reeves, 
 Philadelphia; James B. Scott, Reuben Miller, S. S. Mar- 
 vin, Pittsburg ; John Fulton, Johnstown; H. J. Cummin, 
 Williamsport. I respectfully suggest that these gentle- 
 men should visit the stricken districts at once, so as to
 
 1 5 2 THE JOHNS TO WN l-'L OOD. 
 
 determine the directions in which the funds entrusted to 
 them should go beyond the supply of food, clothing, 
 bedding, etc., which is regularly and systematically 
 going on. Will you please consult the Philadelphia 
 members of the commission and let me know their 
 views as to the proposed visit, and when it can be made, 
 and I will communicate with the other members on the 
 subject. With grateful thanks for your cordial, earnest 
 support and counsel in this emergency, I am very cor- 
 dially yours, JAMES A. BEAVER." 
 
 The suggestions contained in the letter were favorably 
 received, and unanimously adopted as the best means 
 of relieving the distress of the State's citizens. After a 
 short discussion it was decided that the commission 
 should start on its tour of inspection next Monday after- 
 noon, the members to visit all the towns affected by the 
 flood, learn the amount of distress prevalent, and take 
 immediate steps to assist the needy by furnishing food, 
 clothing, household utensils, and, where it would be 
 advisable, to purchase tools for workmen and mechanics, 
 that they might resume employment as quickly as pos- 
 sible, and become self-supporting. 
 
 After this matter was settled, the Governor announced 
 that he had abandoned the plan of using a million 
 dollars out of the State Treasury, under the proposed 
 indemnity bond, which was to be signed by 200 gentle- 
 men to secure the Governor against loss in case the 
 Legislature refused to appropriate the amount. The 
 Governor stated that it would probably establish a prece- 
 dent that might work harm in the future and it would be 
 better to secure the money by other means. He said he 
 had been offered and had accepted the million dollars by
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 153 
 
 officers of Philadelphia banks, who declare they will 
 require no security for its repayment and ask no interest 
 for its use, merely accepting the Governor's word that 
 he will use his efforts to have the Legislature appropri- 
 ate the money from the State Treasury to repay the 
 loan. 
 
 " This arrangement," said the Governor, in speaking 
 of this plan of raising the million dollars, " supersedes 
 the necessity of securing the names of 200 gentlemen, 
 as the bond will not be given now, and the guarantee 
 will not be required. It might be said that over 200 
 gentlemen had consented to go on the bond. Among 
 those was General Simon Cameron. I could get fully 
 1000 names on that bond. It has been useful in show- 
 ing the complete backing the Executive had in dealing 
 with 'this emergency. 
 
 " The Commission which has just been appointed will 
 deal with the question of relief; that is, the distribution 
 of charity that may be needed by the people of this 
 State. This Commission is required to visit as soon 
 as possible the stricken districts, so as to make a 
 personal inspection and determine what can be done to 
 put the people in a condition to support themselves. It 
 is well known to every one who has had anything to do 
 with the donors of the funds that it is their wish to 
 make these people self-supporting. We are not only to 
 give them food, but we are to give them clothing, shoes 
 and cooking utensils. 
 
 " The work of supplying the poor people with necessi- 
 ties is going on rapidly. Since I came here I got a tele- 
 gram asking for a car load of shoes. I handed it to 
 Mayor Fitler, and he refered it to Mr. Ogden, who went
 
 154 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 out, and in 15 minutes the order was filled and preparing 
 to be shipped. There is not a person in Pennsylvania 
 that suffers. They are getting clothing, shoes, food, ect., 
 even in the villages. 
 
 " The question is, how far the Commission can go in 
 expending the funds beyond providing something to eat 
 and something to wear. 
 
 " It is an error to suppose that the State intended to 
 relieve destitution. The State will simply clear up the 
 highways and watercourses." 
 
 The Governor said he did not know all the names of the 
 banks offering to loan the million dollars, and said it 
 would be unfair to mention some of them. The banks 
 are very few that have made the offer probably three 
 or four and it is thought that the Governor expects to 
 hear from others soon.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE people of the whole country niouin together as 
 one family, for this sorrow has brought into activity the 
 spirit of brotherhood, which is apt to slumber in times 
 of prosperity. This was an occasion which called for and 
 obtained the promptest and most liberal benevolence. 
 It was a duty, to offer aid promptly and liberally to the 
 sufferers. Food, clothing, shelter, money were needed 
 in large amounts for the instanstaneous relief of the 
 afflicted district. And not only was this given, but our 
 merchants and business men also granted long credit to 
 their customers who had lost all their possessions by the 
 flood, and soon the valley of the Conemaugh will be 
 again a prosperous industrial centre of the State of 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 Not only this valley was visited by this terrible disas- 
 ter, but also other parts of the State suffered heavy losses 
 by rain-storms and inundations about the same time as 
 Johnstown. 
 
 CENTRE COUNTY. 
 
 The flood played terrible havoc in Centre county, in 
 both loss of life and damage to property. Bellefonte 
 itself suffered little, being built on hills. Along the Bald 
 Eagle Valley the destruction was fearful, but happily 
 there was no loss of life. The furnace at Curtin was 
 so badly damaged that it had to be blown out. The 
 entire bottom land, with all the spring crops, for 35 
 miles in the lower end of the valley, were destoyed. All 
 
 (155)
 
 156 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 county, township and railroad bridges from Milesburg 
 to Lock Haven are washed away, and nearly all small 
 buildings in the line of the flood succumbed to it. 
 
 The damage in the Bald Eagle Valley will amount to 
 three-quarters of a million of dollars. In Penn's Valley 
 there was loss of life and many miraculous escapes were 
 made. The breaking of the mill dams all along the 
 courses of the streams made it worse. All along 
 this valley all the saw and grist mills were carried away 
 and destroyed. The valley being narrow made the 
 water deep and gave it force. The flood, occurring at 
 midnight, caught most of the people unprepared. At 
 Millheim and Coburn several houses were carried away 
 with the people in them, but all escaped with their lives, 
 except Mrs. Simon Phoust and three children. Their 
 house was overturned, and the whole family was 
 drowned. Her husband worked in Cameron county, 
 and, hearing that there was trouble, started to come 
 home, but he also was drowned in crossing the river at 
 Sinnemahoning. The damage in this part of the county 
 will also amount to nearly three-quarters of a million, 
 made up of individual losses, ranging from $300 to $20,- 
 ooo. Some poor people lost not only their house and 
 contents, but also their lot, nothing being left but a creek 
 bottom of rocks and debris. 
 
 The great loss of life occurred on Fishing creek. It 
 rises in Nittany Valley, ten miles above Bellefonte, and 
 flows into the Bald Eagle near Mill Hall. The valley 
 is narrow. There was a large dam at Washington Fur- 
 nace, at the head of the valley, and it broke in the night 
 and filled the valley from mountain to mountain, sweep-
 
 THE JOHNSTO WN FLOOD. 1 5 / 
 
 ing everything before it, leaving nothing but ruin and 
 disaster in its wake. 
 
 All those drowned were lost by their houses being 
 swept away and torn apart. The flood left only a few 
 houses in what were prosperous villages of from twenty 
 to thirty houses each. Many families were saved by 
 getting on the roofs of their houses and floating to the 
 end of the valley. 
 
 MUNCY. 
 
 Muncy people were surprised on Monday, June 3, 
 when the Philadelphia papers of May 31 and June I came 
 in, to find that the story of their suffering had not been 
 told. 
 
 The town is situated at the confluence of the West 
 Branch river and Muncy creek, and in the loveliest valley 
 in the Keystone State. Wherever the eye could reach 
 beautiful country seats and well-tilled farms could be 
 seen. Winding streams found their way to larger ones, 
 well-kept roads carried and led the prosperous people to 
 and fro, contentment was written on every hearthstone 
 and joy at the prospect of great crops filled every 
 farmer's heart. The grim hand of fate brought want 
 and misery elsewhere, but to beautiful Muncy Valley 
 starvation was a stranger. The reverse is with us now. 
 Farms are laid waste, factories are gutted, homes ruined, 
 people are in want, children are becoming sick for the 
 necessaries of life, disease lurks in our midst, pestilence, 
 with a gaunt hand, threatens to follpvv in the wake of 
 rushing water, provisions are scarce, and those who
 
 1 5 8 THE JOHXSTO IVN FL OOD. 
 
 dreamed of happy futures have no place to rest their 
 heads. 
 
 The overflow of river and creek covered a territory at 
 least two miles wide and three long, tearing out the 
 large ice supply at Edwards' Point, pushing the large oil 
 tank of the Tidewater Company from its foundation, 
 sweeping the farm of P>nest Noble and destroying crops 
 worth about $5000, flooding the farms of James Sprout, 
 washing out all the bridges on Glade run, filling every 
 cellar in East Muncy, were the first efforts of the flood. 
 "That was about as far as '65 flood came," and "this 
 can't go any further," was heard on every side. But 
 when the water rolled on the floors of Mr. De La 
 Green's home, ruining all on the floor, and moving right 
 up Market street at the rate of three feet per hour gen- 
 eral havoc took place, and every one who could com- 
 menced to save property. It was almost folly. The 
 water was coming the width of a weather-board on every 
 house at TO o'clock Saturday morning and it never 
 halted until Sunday came. Then slowly but surely the 
 tide turned. The record of 1865 had been beaten by 
 over seven feet. Fortunately not a soul was lost, but 
 homes have gone, and furniture is all ruined. 
 
 LEWISTOWN. 
 
 The town of Lewistown has been cut ofF from the rest 
 of the world since the 3ist of May. The situation was 
 this: The waters rose nine feet higher than in 1847. 
 Eight river bridges, railroad and county, were all swept 
 away. There is but one open railroad here. South- 
 ward the line is a wreck. 
 
 The highways of the town are covered with debris ten
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 159 
 
 feet high, and many of its population are sheltered and 
 fed in the Court House and otherwise. It is impossible 
 to estimate the loss by damage to property. No lives 
 were lost. 
 
 NEWPORT, PERRY COUNTY. 
 
 Two-thirds of the town was overflowed. Seven fami- 
 lies were destitute, their homes having been swept 
 away. The water was seven feet deep in the streets in 
 the central part of the town. The loss is estimated at a 
 half million dollars. 
 
 LOCK HAVEN. 
 
 Superintendent Pettit, of the Pennsylvania Railroad, 
 made his way to the edge of the city of Lock Haven on 
 the 4th day of June. He saw some of the principal 
 citizens, and they said there was no suffering. All the 
 houses had from six to ten feet of water in them. Only 
 one person was known to have been drowned at Lock 
 Haven, but several lives were reported lost at Mill Hall, 
 a town about four miles from Lock Haven. 
 
 The gravest apprehensions had been felt in regard to 
 Lock Haven, and the very favorable outlook was the 
 cause of general rejoicing. 
 
 The through mails delayed at Altoona were started 
 over the mountains to Pittsburg on June 4th. One hun- 
 dred and thirty-two passengers accompanied them. 
 They came to Ebensburg via Cresson by rail, and from 
 Ebensburg to Blairville. They will travel over the 
 mountain roads in wagons, and at the latter place will 
 take the train for Pittsburg. Later on some eases of 
 destruction became known and relief was sent promptly. 
 Wagon loads of provisions and clothing were sent to
 
 160 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 White Hall, Salona, Woolrich, Queensrun and Mackey- 
 ville. 
 
 The water in the houses on Main street, and in that 
 section of Lock Haven where most of there sidences 
 were, was three feet deep, while the principal portion of 
 the town was submerged to a depth of from five to six 
 feet. All communications were by boats and rafts. The 
 water in the East-end District was eight feet deep. 
 
 HARR1SBURG. 
 
 The flood in the Susquehanna touched high water mark 
 on the first of June at 6.30 A. M. when it registered 
 twenty-six feet seven inches above low water mark, 
 or two feet two inches above the great flood of 
 1865. From that hour until 10 o'clock the water was at 
 a standstill, when it slowly began to recede. At 6 o'clock 
 p. M., it had fallen two feet. This gave great hope for 
 the night, but the water was still very high and capable of 
 doing much damage. However, there was no fear from 
 the northern waters, as the last of it reached there Mon- 
 day afternoon and the incessant stream of saw logs which 
 had been running since 7 o'clock Saturday evening 
 cleared. 
 
 The great fear among the people residing along Pax- 
 ton Creek was realized about 10 o'clock at night. The 
 waters of the creek had receded and some of the five 
 hundred flooded-out families had returned to their homes 
 and begun to fix up, not without misgivings as to the 
 backwater of the Susquehanna again flooding them. 
 
 This water came about 10 o'clock with a steady rush 
 and for a second time the Sibletown people had to fly 
 for their lives and abandon everything. Families again
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. l6l 
 
 went through their Friday night's experience of being 
 taken off in boats, and people who had remained home 
 on Friday night were forced to get out by the second 
 flood. 
 
 The Mayor's office, market houses and other places 
 were soon crowded with unfortunate flood sufferers, and 
 several hundred who were utterly destitute were at once 
 given shelter and provision made for the others. 
 
 All day Monday committees of citizens were sending 
 in supplies and money for the sufferers. 
 
 The Cumberland Valley Railroad bridge, a new iron 
 structure, was battered all night badly by large logs, 
 pieces of bridge and rafts, but was still standing Monday 
 night with the water sweeping through it, and a jam of 
 logs extended all along its upper side from the shore 
 to the island, a distance of half a mile. The foot bridge 
 piers were piled high with logs and debris, and a thou- 
 sand huge logs were jammed into the approach to the 
 Dock Street bridge. 
 
 The Pennsylvania tracks, from Harrisburg to a point 
 below Steelton, were covered with logs and sawed 
 timber jammed between the rails, and it took much hard 
 work to remove them. 
 
 The highest point on Front street reached by the flood 
 was by the back water, which almost reached the pave- 
 ment in front of General Cameron's residence 
 
 The grave of John Harris, the founder of Harrisburg, 
 which is directly in front of the Cameron residence on 
 the river bank, was covered by five feet of water and two 
 huge saw logs caught in the railing about the grave, 
 stuck up like tomb-stones. 
 II
 
 1 62 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 The residence of Mayor Fritchey was under water to the 
 second story, and he had to be rowed home in a boat. 
 
 RENOVO. 
 
 The town of Renovo suffered the loss of $250,000 by 
 the flood, and the whole country round was flooded com- 
 pletely. All of the telegraph lines were down and com- 
 munication has been completely cut off until now. The 
 water reached thirty feet above low-water mark, and on 
 Saturday morning three quarters of the town was under 
 water and several thousand people were driven from their 
 homes. Many houses with all their contents were swept 
 away, and the flooded district is almost completely gut- 
 ted. 
 
 P. H. Sullivan's Opera House, valued at $20,000, was 
 swept away after midnight on Friday, as was the South 
 Renovo bridge, valued at $25,000, while the main avenue 
 of South Renovo was swept away to within a few feet of 
 the houses located there. 
 
 At Emporium and other points the lumber industries 
 suffered losses which will run up to almost a million 
 dollars, while all of the surrounding towns and hamlets 
 were away under water. One life lost is reported at 
 Lock Haven, but none here. Many of the people are 
 much in need of aid. 
 
 COLUMBIA, PA. 
 
 At Columbia where the Pennsylvania Railroad strikes 
 the Susquehanna, lumber yards, planing mills, rolling 
 mills and boat-houses were surrounded. The Pennsyl- 
 vania Canal, the Pennsylvania Railroad and the river 
 were merged in one. 
 
 Viewed from Chickies rock, several hundred feet
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 163 
 
 above the water level, for many miles above Columbia 
 nothing can be seen of the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks 
 or canal and all passenger trains for the West are backed 
 off here and those for the East are made up at Columbia. 
 
 On the tide water canal the boats have been lifted like 
 so many toys on to the banks. The Williamsport and 
 Lock Haven booms arrived at Columbia, and the river 
 from shore to shore and as far as the eye could reach, 
 was covered with floating timber, wrecked bridges, 
 dwellings, and animals. . 
 
 The blast furnaces along the river at Marietta and 
 Chickies banked their fires. At these points the damage 
 to property was greatest. The water in these two towns 
 reached Front street and overflowed the ground floors 
 of dwellings and business houses. Much apprehension 
 was felt and the people living along the lower streets 
 were making hurried preparations to leave their homes 
 should the river continue rising. The Columbia and 
 Port Deposit Railroad from Peach Bottom to Frazer Sta- 
 tion was covered with water. 
 
 IN MCKEAN COUNTY. 
 
 The New York, Lake Erie and Western's new iron 
 bridge across the Genesee at Belmont, New York, was 
 swept away by the flood, and two men who were on the 
 bridge were carried away and drowned. The Allegheny 
 was making havoc with the monster iron tanks of the 
 National Transit Company on the flats at Olean, where 
 are located a regular army of tanks, each having a capac- 
 ity 35,000 barrels. The water on the flats was all the 
 way from five to fifteen feet deep, and seven of the 
 jumbo tanks were floating helplessly about in the flood.
 
 1 64 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 Four of the tanks have drifted several rods from their 
 grades. 
 
 The tanks are provided with patent safety valves, and 
 the oil could not escape into the torrent unless the tanks 
 are broken. 
 
 SUNBURY. 
 
 The water rose at the rate of two inches an hour all 
 night, and hundreds of citizens were up all night. 
 
 About 2 A. M., with a grind and a crash, a large por- 
 tion of a wooden bridge struck the Philadelphia and 
 Reading iron structure, and down went a third span of it 
 in the hissing and foaming torrent. Parts of barns, 
 whole piles of boards and debris of all descriptions 
 ground and crashed against the bridge the whole night 
 long weakening several other spans and moving them 
 out of position. 
 
 At Spruce street, at the lower end of the city, a din oi 
 blowing trumpets about 2.30 A. M. caused the crowd to 
 rush there, and it was found that the river was up to the 
 top of the bank. The residents were shoveling dirt and 
 wheeling it to stay the angry waters, but to no effect. 
 The river broke through the bank and soon the whole 
 lower end of the city was under water clear up to the 
 Philadelphia and Reading embankment. Above that 
 point it also burst a sewer and the yards soon filled 
 around there and along the river front to Market street. 
 
 BEDFORD. 
 
 Not since the flood of 1847, so says the oldest citizens 
 of the town, has Bedford been so inundated as it is. The 
 rain had on that memorable Friday night been con- 
 stantly falling for the past twenty-four hours. In the
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 1 65 
 
 morning families living in the western part of the town, 
 known as Texas, were compelled to move out of the 
 houses. At noon cattle, hogs and sheep were carried 
 down the river. 
 
 Traffic and mails were all at a stand. The beautiful 
 lawn at the Springs Hotel, which was just put in readi- 
 ness for the opening was entirely submerged. Four new 
 iron bridges recently erected by the county have been 
 swept away. At Cessna Station, eight miles north, 200 
 sheep were lost. At Everett, eight miles east, traffic 
 was carried on all day by the use of flats. Ex-Sheriff 
 Lashley, proprietor of the Lopalace Hotel, was com- 
 pelled to close his hotel, the water being two feet deep in 
 his barroom. 
 
 The railroad bridges between Bedford and Cumber- 
 land had been damaged to such an extent that no trains 
 had reached Bedford from the south that day. Super- 
 intendent Meyers left on an engine Saturday and was 
 held up somewhere between here and Hyndman, not 
 being able to get either way. A party of commercial 
 men tried to reach Everett by coach, but were compelled 
 to return over the tops of fences. Gardens in the west- 
 ern part of the town have all been ruined. Several fine 
 trout ponds near the town have gone with the wreck. 
 
 The damages to bridges alone in the county will 
 reach $50,000.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 WILLIAMSPORT. 
 
 SINCE June 1st the city of Williamsport was flooded 
 with 34 feet of water, having the Susquehanna boom 
 taken out with 200,000,000 feet of logs, over 40,000,000 
 feet of sawed lumber taken, mills carried away and others 
 wrecked, business and industrial establishments wrecked 
 and a large number of lives lost. A flood nearly seven 
 feet higher than the great high water of 1865. 
 
 Early on Friday news was received there of the flood 
 at Clearfield, but it was not before 2 o'clock Saturday 
 morning that the swelling water began to become prom- 
 inent, the river then showing a rise averaging two feet to 
 the hour. Steadily and rapidly thereafter the rise con- 
 tinued. The rain up the country had been terrific, and 
 from Thursday afternoon throughout the night and dur- 
 ing Friday and Friday night, the rain fell here with but 
 little interruption. After midnight, Friday, it came 
 down in absolute torrents until nearly daylight Saturday 
 morning. As a result of this rise Griffin's run, a small 
 stream running through the city from northwest to 
 so-utheast, was raised until it flooded the whole territory 
 on either side of it worse than ever before occurred. 
 
 Soon after daylight, the rain having ceased, it began 
 to subside, and as the river had not then reached an 
 alarming height, very few persons were concerned over 
 the outlook. The water kept getting higher and higher, 
 and spreading out over the lower streets. 
 
 At about 9 o'clock in the forenoon the logs began to 
 (166)
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN \FLOOD. 167 
 
 go down, filling the stream from bank to bank. The 
 water had by this time reached almost the stage .of 1865. 
 It was coming up Third street, near the Court House, 
 and was up Fourth street to Market. Not long after it 
 reached Third street and William and advanced up 
 Fourth street to Pine. Its onward progress did not stop, 
 however, as it rose higher on Third and soon began to 
 reach Fourth street, both at Elmira and Locust streets. 
 No one along Fourth, between William and Hepburn, 
 had any conception that it would trouble them, but the 
 sequel proved their mistake. 
 
 Soon after noon the water began crossing the railroad 
 at Walnut and Campbell streets, and rapidly the country 
 all north of the railroad was soon submerged, that part 
 along the run being flooded for the second time during 
 the day. The rise kept on until 9 o'clock at night, and 
 after that hour it began to go slowly the other way. 
 
 By daylight Sunday morning it had fallen two feet, 
 and the receding continued during the day. When the 
 water was at its highest the memorable sight was to be 
 seen of a level surface of water, extending from the 
 northern line of the city, from Rural avenue, on Locust 
 street, entirely across the city to the mountain on the 
 south side. This meant that the water was six feet deep 
 on the floors of buildings in Market Square, and over 
 four feet deep in the station of the Pennsylvania Rail- 
 road at the Park Hotel. Fully three quarters of the city 
 was submerged. The First Presbyterian, Christ Church 
 and Trinity each had their organ badly damaged by the 
 water. In St. Paul's Lutheran Church the electric motor 
 that pumps the organ was flooded, and a large number 
 of new books of worship, which had but recently been
 
 168 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 received, were damaged by the flood. Among the 
 other churches that suffered were the Mulberry Street 
 Methodist, Market Street Lutheran and Immanuel's 
 Reformed Church of the Disciples. The City Mission 
 foundation walls were injured, and the edifice is now badly 
 out of plumb. 
 
 The loss was necessarily enormous. The business 
 houses throughout the city all lose heavily, many of 
 them over $20,000 each. The loss falls heaviest on the 
 lumber men. All the logs are lost and a large share of 
 the cut lumber. The loss of life has also been heavy. 
 Two children of Charles Edwards were drowned, and 
 three children of a family named Shultz and a child of 
 William Deitrich, a man named Mitchler and an 
 unknown man also perished, all in the city. At Nippe- 
 nose, 12 miles up the river, 12 persons were drowned, 
 members of the families of George and William Young- 
 man and two young lady visitors. 
 
 The loss of property has been very heavy in all places 
 around Williamsport. Morris, Tioga county, is a total 
 wreck. The mills and part of the logs of Mr. Landis, 
 the Dover Mill and the Blackwells Mill are gone. Many 
 dwellings and other buildings are swept away The 
 Pince Creek Railroad has suffered greatly. The track 
 is torn away and a large amount of the embankment was 
 washed out just west of this city, and all along up to 
 Blackwells and beyond. At Salladesburg much damage 
 was done. Houses and mills were flooded, and in some 
 instances moved and greatly injured. The plank road 
 was torn up, bridges carried away, and great destruction 
 caused at every point. 
 
 The tannery at Salladesburg was greatly damaged and
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 169 
 
 considerable bark lost. The grist mill just above the 
 site of the Larrys Creek Woolen Mills suffered serious 
 damage and the dam was taken out. The farmers along 
 the creek suffered very much in the loss of fences and 
 outbuildings, and in some instances the soil was washed 
 from a portion of the fields and the growing crops 
 ruined. The Larrys Creek region has suffered from 
 floods before, but never to the extent it has on this occa- 
 sion. In one instance several persons only saved their 
 lives by clinging to the branches of trees until rescued. 
 The iron road bridge near the mouth of the creek is 
 turned around and rendered impassible, but the old canal 
 aqueduct is still there. There was much other damage 
 done along the stream. All along the line of the Phila- 
 delphia and Reading track through the city destruction 
 met the eye. Many cars were lifted from the track and 
 torn in pieces. The number of houses taken away or 
 toppled into heaps of rubbish cannot yet be stated, but 
 is quite large. Along the entire river front, going west 
 from Pine street, debris is piled, and in some places ex- 
 tends up to Third street, even further into the heart of 
 the city. On Pine street, near Third, a large outhouse 
 lies on the street and sidewalk, while on Third street, 
 above Hepburn, lumber and other drift are piled half as 
 high as the houses. The force of the water can be im- 
 agined when it is stated that a car, loaded with coal, was 
 carried a distance of five miles and left sticking on top 
 of a piece of the boom. A number of boom cribs were 
 cut off as smoothly as if by a knife. Many families 
 showed wonderful courage in remaining in their houses 
 after the water entered the second stories. In some cases 
 their only chance to get out of the buildings would have
 
 I/O THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 been through the trap doors in the roofs. It was often 
 more dangerous to try to get out than to remain, and 
 many boats, loaded with those seeking to escape, were 
 overturned in the angry waters. 
 
 The clothing which had been called for was badly 
 needed, as so many have lost all but what they had on, 
 that being wet, and no chance being afforded to dry it. 
 
 A child was born in a saw mill occupied by a number 
 of homeless people, the mother being wholly without 
 necessary accommodations, and the committee found a 
 sick woman in a distressing condition on the second 
 story of a building that had been flooded, who was there 
 without fire or other comforts. 
 
 Word has been received from the Crescent Nail Works, 
 on the Northern Central Railroad, that the place has 
 been nearly all washed away. Many of the houses and 
 a part of the nail works are gone. The water was up to 
 the roofs of most of the houses. The population took 
 refuge in a church on the side hill and in such buildings 
 as were not too much in water. The people were left 
 entirely destitute. 
 
 A TELEGRAPHIC CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 The following telegraphic correspondence passed 
 between Governor Beaver and Mayor Foresman, of 
 Williamsport: 
 
 WILLIAMSPORT, Pa., June 4th, 1889. To Governor 
 Beaver : The situation expressed in a few words is this. 
 The boom has been cleaned of logs. From the princi- 
 pal yards along the river front the manufactured timber 
 has been swept away. The houses of the poor people 
 nearest the river have been carried away, with all they
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 171 
 
 possessed. Thousands of people are homeless and with- 
 out anything but the clothes upon their backs. Provis- 
 ions are scarce and most needed quick. Many of our 
 people are in absolute want for the necessities of life. 
 Although bereft of property themselves, our business 
 men have responded nobly for present necessities. At a 
 meeting called yesterday $7000 in cash was raised. We 
 badly need disinfectants. Dead animals and all kinds of 
 filth are strewed upon the streets, and grave fears of an 
 epidemic are entertained. Stocks of goods of stores in 
 the centre of the city are ruined. It is impossible to 
 estimate the loss and damage to different kinds of prop- 
 erty. Five million "dollars is a low estimate of the loss 
 on lumber alone; other losses larger. The surrounding 
 country has suffered just as badly. Booms, bridges 
 and villages have been swept away, and the loss 
 of life has been considerable. Judge Cummins is treas- 
 urer of the Relief Fund, and will see personally to the 
 faithful distribution of all contributions. Responsible 
 relief committees are now organized in each ward of the 
 city, and aid is administered as fast as we get it. Please 
 God, we are not dismayed, and rely on His guidance, 
 the generosity of our own State and country to aid us 
 in this the hour of our dire necessity. 
 
 One thousand military tents will afford the greatest 
 possible relief to our people, who are now without 
 shelter, and the lumber all having gone other temporary 
 shelter cannot be provided soon enough. The tents 
 that you might send will be taken charge of by the 
 Mayor, and taken care of and returned in as good condi- 
 tion as possible. Send us several large mess tents where 
 we can feed the people in large numbers. -The low
 
 1 72 THE JOHNS TO WN FLOOD. 
 
 ground where many of these people reside is an unfit 
 place for them to return to for sanitary reasons. 
 
 MAYOR FORESMAN. 
 
 HARRISBURG, June 4th, 1889. Mayor of Williams- 
 port, Pa. : Be of good cheer. Your reliance is not mis- 
 placed. God and the country will sustain you. Will 
 reach with help as soon as Montgomery bridge can be 
 crossed. I am loading cars here with flour and grocer- 
 ies, notwithstanding the pressure of our own stricken 
 people. Will telegraph Philadelphia at once for pro- 
 visions and disinfectants. Put your unemployed men to 
 work removing debris and cleansing your city. I will 
 furnish means for paying them reasonable wages, and 
 this will answer the double purpose of preventing disease 
 and the lawlessness which springs from idleness. May 
 not be able to send you tents. The State has no large 
 tents such as you desire. Better use your market house and 
 other public buildings. May be able, when communica- 
 tion is established, to send you a carload of ordinary 
 canvass. The country is responding nobly to human- 
 ity's call, and the address sent out last night will give a 
 better idea of the situation, so that I have no fear of any 
 lack of means for furnishing all needed help. Commu- 
 nicate with me directly and freely as to your needs and 
 how I can co-operate in supplying them. 
 
 JAMES A. BEAVER, Governor. 
 
 WILLIAMSPORT, Pa., June 4, 1889. Governor Beaver: 
 With the tents asked for, furnish a supply of blankets 
 and camp equipage. 
 
 J. S. FORESMAN, MAYOR. 
 
 The estimated loss of the merchants in the city is
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 173 
 
 $885,000, and that of the lumbermen is estimated at 
 $5,000,000. The lumbermen's Exchange appointed Log 
 and Lumber Committees for the protection of the lum- 
 ber that has been caught on the banks. Fifty million 
 feet of lumber have been caught above the boom and 
 will be sawed here this Summer. The Taylor Mill, 
 which floated off bodily, lodged about two miles below 
 the city and will be returned. One firm has traced 29,- 
 000,000 feet of sawed lumber. If the present period can 
 be tided over the city will recover. Contributions have 
 been received from the cities from New York to Omaha, 
 Neb., and the citizens were greatly cheered over the 
 interest that is taken by the outside world. 
 
 It is estimated that three-fourths of the 200,000,000 
 feet of timber which floated away from Williamsport, 
 Pa., is floating about the Chesapeake or lying on its 
 shores. The " Stray Log Committee," from the Lumber 
 Exchange of that city, are now here surveying the situ- 
 ation. 
 
 It is probable that they will erect several saw mills on 
 the shores of the bay to work up the stray logs, most 
 of which have drifted upon the eastern shore. 
 
 Mr. Frank Gowan, who lives at Legoes Point, at the 
 mouth of Bush river, says that several bodies have pass- 
 ed down the bay during the last few days. On Sunday 
 he found the body of a man wedged between some tim- 
 ber and endeavered to extricate it, but could not. The 
 body was that of^a white man, of medium size, wearing 
 a black goatee. He was about 30 years of age. Float- 
 ing near the body were two houses, one a one-story, and 
 the second a neat two-story cottage, freshly painted. 
 The second story was above water, and Mr Gowan
 
 1 74 THE JO HNS TO WN FLOOD. 
 
 climbed into it and found it nicely furnished, the furni- 
 ture, wearing apparel, &c., being in just such positions 
 as they were when the flood started the cottage on its 
 voyage. 
 
 One of the heaviest losers by the Williamsport flood 
 is Mr. Henry James, the lumber dealer, of Baltimore. 
 It is estimated that 15.000,000 feet of his timber floated 
 away, a part of which will be recovered, with other tim- 
 ber, in the bay, and will probably greatly reduce his 
 loss, which is now approximated at $250,000. 
 
 The work of replacing the lost spans of the Sunbury 
 bridge has been completed and through rail communica- 
 tion between Philadelphia and Williamsport has been 
 restored, and on the /th., day of June President Corbin 
 issued the following notice : 
 
 " The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad will receive 
 and forward free of charge any consignments of provi- 
 sions or clothing for the sufferers by the flood at Wil- 
 liamsport. Such consignments to be marked to order of 
 the Station Agent of the Philadelphia and Reading Rail- 
 road Company at Williamsport and will be subject to 
 the disposition of the relief committee of that city." 
 
 THE BELL'S GAP ROAD. 
 
 A report from Bellwood, Pa., gives this information in 
 regard to the condition of the Bell's Gap Railroad and 
 Clearfield and Jefferson Railroad : 
 
 " The culverts, roadbed and small bridges washed out 
 have been repaired, and the main line of railroad from 
 Bellwood to Punxsutawney is in operation again. Loaded 
 coal and coke cars are awaiting shipment over the main 
 line of Pennsylvania Railroad. Telegraphic communi-
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 175 
 
 cation is again established over the line. Individual 
 losses have been greatest at Irvona, Coalport and Blair 
 City." 
 
 HUNTINGDON COUNTY. 
 
 From Bedford to Huntingdon, on the Rosstown 
 branch, and in Lewistown, on the Juniata river, the devas- 
 tation was the greatest in Central Pennsylvania, except, 
 of course, in Johnstown. 
 
 Not a house was left that stood within reach of the 
 swollen streams there. The damage to property will 
 reach $500,000, while the other towns in the county 
 have suffered correspondingly. At Mapleton, the im- 
 mense tannery of L. A. Roberts was damaged to the 
 extent of $200,000, and the loss to other property will 
 reach $100,000 more. The Powell furnace, at Saxton, 
 sustained a loss of $300,000, and at that place both the 
 railroad bridges were swept away, leaving railroad com- 
 munication with Bedford cut off. The Huntingdon and 
 Broad Top Railroad sustained but slight damage. For 
 a distance of three miles below Huntingdon four miles 
 of the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks were destroyed, 
 with bridges gone at Manayunk and Lewistown, the lat- 
 ter having gone down during a heavy storm last night. 
 
 From Huntingdon to the junction of the Juniata and 
 Susquehanna rivers the sweep of the flood extended, fill- 
 ing this once beautiful valley with desolation and ruin. 
 Growing crops in the lowlands were destroyed, and in 
 Smith's Valley, this county, the farming lands, compris- 
 ing an area twelve by two miles, have been stripped of 
 every vestige of soil. As far as known 300 houses have 
 been destroyed in this county. Relief committees are
 
 176 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD, 
 
 now engaged and are seeking assistance for the desti- 
 tute. 
 
 IN THE CUMBERLAND VALLEY. 
 
 A heavy storm visited the entire length of the Cumber 
 land Valley Railroad. The storm went over the river 
 from the Maryland side and left ruin and desolation in 
 its path. A barn belonging to a man named Criswell, 
 of Falling Waters, was blown down, as was also part of 
 his house. A number of other buildings were destroyed. 
 A man named Powell took shelter at a corn-crib, which 
 blew over and crushed him to death. John Vogel was 
 caught in the storm and being carried along for a con- 
 siderable distance was hurled against a fence with such 
 force as to kill him instantly. 
 
 CARLISLE. 
 
 In Carlisle the shock was felt in every quarter of the 
 town. Several persons were injured, one severely. 
 Miss Kelly, of Springfield, near Newville, was walking 
 from the Farmers' Bank toward Kramer's, and was 
 struck by lightning and is in a critical condition. E. L. 
 Kramer had his head and neck burned into a blister. 
 Emma Eversman was burned upon the hand. A num- 
 ber of others were slightly injured. It injured the First 
 Presbyterian Church tower and tore up pavements, 
 chimneys, etc. The loss in Cumberland Valley will foot 
 up very heavy. 
 
 TYRONE AND CLEARFIELD. 
 
 The Juniata river overflowed its banks at Tyrone and 
 flooded the entire southern portion of the city, causing 
 great destruction to property and the streets. People 
 living in the flooded districts had to be removed from
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. \Tj 
 
 their homes in wagons to places of safety. All the rail- 
 roads centering in this place are badly damaged by the 
 floods. The water was never known to be so high at 
 this place. At Curwensville one man was drowned and 
 at Clearfield two young ladies. 
 
 The Susquehanna river overflowed its banks at 
 Clearfield and the entire place was under water and all 
 means of escape cut off. Many people gathered in the 
 court house and opera house as a place of safety. 
 
 12
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 ON his way home from the Conemaugh Valley, by the 
 Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, a correspondent had to 
 pass through the valley of the Potomac. He had not 
 heard of any other flood than that in the Conemaugh 
 Valley, and it was in the nature of a surprise to have 
 new instances of distress presented to him. The evi- 
 dence of another flood appeared as soon as the Potomac 
 came in sight. Its usually pretty banks were lined with 
 debris of every description. Lumber, boards, fences and 
 pieces of houses were lodged in trees, and all were bent 
 in one direction, many of them being uprooted by the 
 raging torrent that passed over it on Friday, May 3ist. 
 For a distance of over one hundred miles the trees along 
 the shore were skinned of their bark from the roots up 
 to some of the highest branches, and were yellowish in 
 appearance. Away back over tree tops to the slope of 
 the mountains and hills, sometimes stretching away for 
 a mile, there were evidences of the flood's fury in the 
 collections of rubbish and lumber marking the highest 
 point reached by the water. Railroad shanties and rail- 
 road ties were scattered in all directions, and sometimes 
 it appeared that the railroad tracks themselves must 
 have been thirty feet under water. 
 
 A small settlement known as Sir Johns, south of Cum- 
 berland, was in a bad condition. Its houses were swept 
 hither and thither, and suggested a miniature Cambria 
 City. Railroad water tanks were broken and thrown 
 out of place, and small shanties for railroad purposes 
 (178)
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 179 
 
 were wrecked. The water poured all over Sir Johns, 
 and the debris from the river lodged all around it. 
 Further along, where the railroad had been repaired, 
 telegraph poles about four feet high had been set up 
 temporarily for miles, in the place of the regular poles 
 swept down. Frequent washouts were noticed, and a 
 most remarkable levelling of the trees along the banks. 
 Wherever there were houses the people were engaged 
 in digging the mud and debris away from the premises, 
 hanging carpets and clothing out to dry and cleaning 
 and airing the furniture and bedding. In one place a 
 railroad house a quarter of a mile away from the river 
 was overturned and wreckage piled up against it. 
 
 A BALTIMORE RELIEF COMMITTEE ON BOARD. 
 
 When the train reached Hancock, about 105 miles 
 above Washington, it was boarded by a Relief Commit- 
 tee from Baltimore that had been on the road since 
 Thursday, making personal inquiry as to the distress 
 and needs of the people, and extending such aid as 
 seemed necessary. This committee consisted of Colonel 
 William H. Love, representing the city of Baltimore, 
 and Colonel John C. Legg and Mr. Adolph Dresel, 
 representing the Board of Trade and the Hour Exchange 
 of that city. Accompanying the committee was Mr. D. 
 K. Houck, travelling Freight Agent of the Baltimore 
 and Ohio Railroad. From this committee the corres- 
 pondent obtained a full report of the result of its inves- 
 tigations all along the river from Point of Rocks, below 
 Harper's Ferry, where it began its work, up to Hancock, 
 where the investigation temporarily ended. Colonel 
 Love said the committee was appointed after the Johns-
 
 180 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 town relief agitation began, and was sent out at once, so 
 that the suffering of the people near at hand might not 
 be forgotten in the general desire to send all relief to 
 Johnstown. Never before, he said, had there been such 
 a flood along the Potomac, the water having risen to a 
 height of nearly 40 feet, and some of the smaller houses 
 having been submerged for 48 hours. He said the peo- 
 ple along the river did not become alarmed at first, 
 because of their experience in previous floods, and that 
 many of them for that reason had to be taken out of 
 their houses in boats at the last minute. Fortunately, he 
 said, the committee had not heard of any deaths along 
 the whole course of the stream. 
 
 POINT OF ROCKS AND OTHER POINTS. 
 
 At Point of Rocks, 12 miles below Harper's Ferry, 
 the committee relieved 31 families, spending $1010. 
 Robert Ivory, a colored man who lost his own house, 
 was given $50 and commended for his heroism in making 
 three trips in a boat through the flood and driftwood to 
 rescue a family of five members, named Fox. This 
 place, which contains about 1 50 small houses, was liter- 
 ally covered with mud. Houses were overturned and 
 swept away and the streets were converted into high 
 mud banks. At the lower end of the town an immense 
 cornfield, which was said to have been the pride of the 
 State, was denuded of all vegetation and polished, as it 
 appeared from the train, as smooth as the floor of a danc- 
 ing academy. Heater's Island, where Heater and Apple 
 fought a duel to the death with penknives, was tenanted 
 by Robert Cornwell. He lost his house, one horse, two 
 colts, five calves, 65 sheep, 4 hogs, 57 acres of corn and
 
 THE JOHNSTO WN FLOOD. 1 8 1 
 
 68 acres of wheat. Not only these, but nearly all of the 
 soil of the island were washed away. Sixteen families 
 were relieved at Berlin, which is four or five miles from 
 Harper's Ferry. They needed both money and cloth- 
 ing. The damage, as observed from the train, was very 
 great. The water had risen nearly 40 feet on some of 
 the houses, and had smashed and torn others apart. 
 Gardens were ruined, fence's and sheds carried away, and 
 trees and lumber piled in heaps all over the place. At 
 Knoxville there was but little damage, and also at 
 Weverton and Sandy Hook. Relief, however, was ex- 
 tended where needed there. 
 
 HISTORIC GROUND SUBMERGED. 
 
 Harper's Ferry was found to be in bad shape, many 
 of the houses of the poor people being completely 
 wrecked. The well-to-do-people living on Bolivar 
 Heights escaped the wreckage sustained by those in the 
 lower parts of the town. The residence portion of the 
 latter appeared to be pretty well thrown over on to 
 Shenandoah street. The old arsenal, with John Brown's 
 Fort close by, was submerged for a long time, and 
 Green's Hotel was drenched to the second story. The 
 committee found that 24-inch brick walls in this town 
 had been crushed like egg shells, and that considerable 
 distress prevailed among the homeless. The local com- 
 mittee, it is reported, was at work in the Catholic school- 
 house, the only building then available for the purpose. 
 When the committee arrived, three car loads of pro- 
 visions and clothing that had come from Philadelphia 
 were being distributed, and the wants of people were
 
 1 82 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 being readily covered. The Baltimore committee left 
 $300 with the local committee. 
 
 HARPER'S FERRY. 
 
 The flood about Harper's Ferry appeared to have been 
 extremely violent. The railroad Y bridge seemed to be 
 all right, but the Shenandoah bridge, over which Stone- 
 wall Jackson passed during the war, was partly swept 
 away. Above the ferry a canal boat was left standing 
 against the rocks along the river road. It contained 
 3800 bushels of wheat, and, although it was at one time 
 within a few hundred feet of the bridge, against which it 
 would have been dashed to pieces, the captain stood by 
 the helm until the boat was hauled in to the shore by 
 engines. At Island Park, above Harper's Ferry, the 
 wreckage was almost complete. The park was a free 
 resort, something like what Ridgway Park, Philadelphia, 
 used to be, and the pavilions, grand stand and other 
 fancy structures were scattered in all directions, many of 
 them lodging on tree tops. Eight lives were lost there 
 in the flood. Four of them, two women and two men, 
 were cooped up in one house. Finally it gave way 
 before the pressure of the water and the inmates were 
 lost. There is great damage done in the town. 
 
 The bridge of the Shenandoah Valley Railroad across 
 the Potomac, at Shepherdstown, was destroyed. At 
 Williamsport, Washington county, Md., the flood was 
 seven feet higher than the highest previous record, and 
 great damage resulted. Between Williamsport and dam 
 No. 6 over 20 houses were washed away, and innumer- 
 able barns, out-houses and fences went down in the
 
 THE JOHXST01VN FLOOD. 183 
 
 flood. The damage in Washington county is about 
 $150,000. 
 
 Frederick county, Md., will lose, in the destruction of 
 bridges, $100,000, and between Knoxville and Harper's 
 Ferry the loss will be $500,000. The railroad tracks 
 between Weaverton and Sandy Hook were badly washed 
 away, and in places covered with two to eight feet of 
 boulders, earth and trees from landslides. Considerable 
 damage was also done to the new bridge being con- 
 structed by the Point of Rocks Bridge Company, of 
 which Joseph D. Baker is President. It was ready for 
 delivery by the contractors, but four spans of it were 
 carried away. 
 
 Washington county, Md., is damaged over $150,000; 
 Frederick county, over $200,000; Allegheny county, 
 over 200,000. At Cumberland the main streets were 
 covered by four feet of water, and all the railroads were 
 greatly damaged, the West Virginia Central being the 
 heaviest loser. Many miles of tracks and four heavy 
 iron bridges over the Potomac River were swept away. 
 The loss will be enormous. 
 
 Along the Potomac and the Chesapeake and the Ohio 
 Canal the water was seven feet higher than was ever 
 known before. Between forty and fifty houses along 
 these water-courses were swept away. Little George- 
 town is annihilated. 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 The damage to Washington and vicinity was large, 
 but fortunately no lives were lost. The rise in the Poto- 
 mae caused it to overflow its banks and that section of 
 the city between the Washington Monument and the
 
 1 84 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 Capitol lying along the Tiber Creek sewer was inundated, 
 the water reaching the north side of Pennsylvania ave- 
 nue at several points. From Third to Ninth street, 
 Pennsylvania avenue was flooded to a depth of from one 
 to three feet, the water reaching the floors of the street 
 cars. The Pennsylvania Railroad Station, which is in 
 the line of Tiber Creek, was flooded to a depth of five feet, 
 the water covering the streets a distance of at least 1000 
 feet north and south of the station. Persons were carried 
 across the stream, which was a third of a mile wide, in 
 vehicles of every description, whose owners made large 
 sums of money in this manner. Rowboats were also 
 used to carry passengers, and, during the morning, 
 when the tide was high in the river, boating excursions, 
 in which ladies participated, were made up on Pennsyl- 
 vania avenue and the cross streets in the inundated dis- 
 trict. Travel by street cars was not interrupted on 
 Pennsylvania avenue, but the crosstown lines could go 
 no further than the avenue. The damage to private 
 property by the inundation will reach at least $500,000, 
 and the Government will, perhaps, lose as large a sum 
 in the damage and destruction of the river improvements 
 now in progress. The dredging and other machinery 
 used in this work was swept from the various moorings 
 against the Long Bridge where it is now held. Fears 
 were entertained for the safety of the Long Bridge.but it 
 survived the flood. The middle section was submerged, 
 the water rising about 12 inches over the floor. 
 For the purpose of assisting the structure to resist the 
 tremendous pressure of the current the Pennsylvania 
 Railroad Company placed a train of freight cars heavily
 
 THE JOHNSTO WN FLOOD. 1 85 
 
 packed with coal, lumber, stones, etc., upon the track on 
 the bridge. 
 
 The cellars of all the stores on both sides of the lower 
 part of Pennsylvania avenue and the streets south of it 
 were flooded, and a great deal of damage was done to 
 perishable property. The first street car that started 
 across from the south to the north side of the city 
 plowed its way through several feet of water and the pas- 
 sengers were obliged to perch on the backs of seats to 
 protect their feet and legs. After that experience the 
 cars were stopped at the edge of the flood and passen- 
 gers who did not care to go around the obstruction paid 
 workmen or the drivers of high hung wagons for trans- 
 portation across. The cars running up and down the 
 avenue continued to plow through the water all day. 
 
 High water mark was reached about noon ; from that 
 time the water receded gradually. The point reached 
 by the flood was three feet six inches higher than 
 the highest recorded flood mark. All Washington 
 was driving up and down the river in the afternoon. The 
 President came out for a time in the White House car- 
 riage accompanied by Mr. McKee and " Baby " McKee 
 and drove around the circle behind the White House 
 where the water was not very deep. 
 
 The loss will be enormous. Some place it at $1,000,- 
 ooo, but no reliable figures can be given. 
 
 The city was shut off from communication with 
 the west and south for two days, and there will be a 
 scarcity of milk and other supplies until the roads were 
 repaired sufficiently to allow railroad trains and wagons 
 to enter the city. The prolonged severe rainy season 
 of the last month and the reports from the Signal Office
 
 1 86 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 of rising waters in the upper Potomac and Shenandoah 
 had in a measure prepared river men for the freshet, and 
 the loss is, therefore, not so great as would otherwise 
 have been, but the actual occurrence so far exceeded 
 their expectations that much property was lost that 
 might have been saved. 
 
 Below the Aqueduct bridge as far as Rock Creek, the 
 river's bank is lined with business places of all descrip- 
 tions, including coal dumps, warehouses, fertilizing man- 
 ufactories, cement works, boat houses and mills. The 
 owners of these places worked hard to save their prop- 
 erty and succeeded to a considerable extent, but the 
 waters gained on them so rapidly that they were forced 
 to desist before they had accomplished all that they de- 
 sired. One of the heaviest losers is Mr. H. C. Winship, 
 whose wharf at the mouth of Rock Creek was badly 
 wrecked. He lost a large quantity of coal, and is prob- 
 ably poorer by $25,000. The Analostan Boat Club lose 
 about the same amount. Their boathouse was valued at 
 $12,000, and fronted sixty-two feet on the water, with a 
 depth of seventy-eight feet. It had been fitted up at an 
 expense of about $2000 and was stored with barges, 
 shells and pleasure craft, besides a considerable amount 
 of personal effects. It withstood the fury of the waves 
 until the evening when the underpinning gave way and 
 it rocked to and fro for about an hour, when it capsized 
 and was swept down stream, smashing against the Long 
 Bridge and going completely to pieces. This club is the 
 oldest in the district and its whole property is gone at 
 this swoop of the angry waters. 
 
 The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company are the 
 heaviest losers. Their loss can not be less than $100,000.
 
 THE JOHNS TO WN FLOOD. 187 
 
 The Washington Monument was surrounded on all 
 sides by water, which stretched far up in the White 
 House lot. 
 
 FREDERICK, MD. 
 
 In the neighborhood of Frederick, the wheat and corn 
 fields have been generally destroyed. All the county 
 bridges have been swept away, and there was no con- 
 nection by rail for several days. Just beyond the 
 bridge 300 feet of bank and steel track went with the 
 flood. The loss sustained by the storm will be almost 
 half a million of dollars. The only loss of life near here 
 was that of Mrs. Charles McFadden and Miss Carrie 
 Moore at Taneytown, who, in attempting to cross the 
 stream, were swept from their vehicle and drowned. 
 
 PORT DEPOSIT, MD. 
 
 The Susquehanna river rose considerably ; the current 
 was very swift, and the surface of the stream was thick 
 with logs. The town of Port Deposit was flooded from 
 stem to stern. 
 
 The total loss of life by the flood in Maryland is 1 1. 
 John T. Ford has offered his theatre for a benefit for the 
 Johnstown people. At Lutherville Female Seminary 
 many of the students come from Johnstown and. that 
 neighborhood. The pupils are in a state of wild alarm 
 for the safety of their parents and other relatives and 
 special religious services were held there Sunday. 
 
 NEAR LANCASTER, PA. 
 
 An enormous quantity of boom logs have gone down 
 the Susquehanna, and were gorged at Turkey Hill, 
 below Columbia. At Marietta all of Front street was under
 
 1 88 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 water, and the Pennsylvania bridge at Chickies was under 
 four feet of water. The Pennsylvania Canal, at and 
 above Columbia, was greatly damaged, and all the rolling 
 mills and planing mills were submerged. Serious danger 
 was threatened at Washington borough. 
 
 Two men passed Columbia on a raft Saturday morning 
 and were carried over the dam, and are believed to have 
 beendrowned. The lumber yards at Marietta were all swept 
 away. 
 
 Sixty-five rafts broke loose from their moorings, near 
 Wrightsville, and were carried down the Susquehanna, 
 involving a loss of over $50,000. 
 
 SHAMOKIN, PA. 
 
 The heavy rain caused great damage to property in 
 this vicinity. Seven bridges and twenty houses have 
 been swept away. The damage to mining property can- 
 not be estimated. A number of collieries were flooded 
 and many were completely wrecked. It was two weeks be- 
 fore the miners could resume. The Reading Coal and 
 Iron Company will be the greatest sufferer. The losses 
 are estimated at $250,000. There were no fatalities. 
 
 RICHMOND, VA. 
 
 The flood in the James River showed a height of a 
 little over 26 feet at Rockets' wharves, which was within 
 2 1/2 feet of the unprecedented flood of 1877. 
 
 At Cameron's run, Va.,25O yards of the Virginia Mid- 
 land track was washed away. There is also a washout 
 at Seminary Crossing. The culvert at Four Mile Run, 
 between Washington and Alexandria, is washed away. 
 
 The only large bridge between Quantico and Rich-
 
 THE JOHNS TO WN FL OOD. \ 89 
 
 mond, on the Richmond and Fredericksburg Railroad, 
 has been washed away. 
 
 ELMIRA N. Y. 
 
 The water at Elmira was 12 to 18 inches higher than 
 ever before. Two bodies floated down the river. A 
 roof upon which three persons were clinging is said to 
 have passed by the city. 
 
 The Erie Railroad bridge was anchored in its place 
 by two trains of loaded freight cars. The water rose to 
 the cars which with the bridge acted as a dam and 
 forced the water back through the city on the north side. 
 
 A considerable portion of the village of Canascraga 
 was inundated. The Main street iron bridge was car- 
 ried forty rods down the stream. It is completely 
 wrecked. At Andover a dozen bridges were washed 
 away and all growing crops are ruined. Several bridges 
 on the outskirts of Hornellsville are gone. The high- 
 ways at that city are impassable. The railroads will suf- 
 fer greatly, particularly the Erie, whose property in the 
 vicinity of the shops at Hornellsville were completely 
 submerged, work being totally abandoned. 
 
 Similar reports were received from Belmont, Danville, 
 Portageville, Olean, Mount Morris, Rochester, Haver- 
 straw and Nyack, N. Y.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 If tears and sympathy and money could have brought 
 back to the bereaved and sorrowing people of the Cone- 
 maugh Valley, and the other inundated districts, their 
 loved ones and their homes and property, they would 
 not now be mournful. When the news of the calamity 
 was first flashed over the wires, the one thought of the 
 American people was, " How shall we help them ? " and 
 immediately every one began to think of the only means 
 left to help the living. There was no necessity for 
 appeals to the people, they knew what was required and 
 they responded generously. 
 
 More than two millions of dollars in cash, and goods 
 to the value of another half a million were contributed 
 to the Relief Fund within fourteen days, and the sub- 
 scriptions are still coming in from every part of the 
 United States. 
 
 There is yet sad destruction and suffering in the inun- 
 dated districts, but the desolation is gradually passing 
 away. The cry for bread, raiment and shelter has been 
 silenced and one industrial establishment after the other, 
 one store after another are re-opening and soon those 
 who have been spared by the floods will find employ- 
 ment. The death roll has steadily diminished as the 
 truth became better understood. At first it was thought, 
 that from 12,000 to 15,000 lives had been lost by this 
 dreadful calamity, but it is believed now that from 5000 
 to 7000 will cover the whole list. That is sad enough, 
 indeed, but it is a mournful satisfaction to know that
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 191 
 
 fully one half of those who were reported as having per- 
 ished are saved. The clouds are passing away thanks 
 to the generous benevelence of the American people. 
 
 A RETROSPECT. 
 
 Both the gathering of news and the writing and 
 transmission of dispatches have been carried on at Johns- 
 town under extraordinary difficulties. The readers can 
 hardly imagine at what cost of energy and effort, of 
 hard work and endurance, of actual peril and privation, 
 the daily report from the scene of the great disaster have 
 been furnished them. The early dispatches may have 
 been inadequate, but it is a wonder that they came 
 at all. 
 
 Great events which call large numbers of correspon- 
 dents together are usually anticipated and provided for, 
 but here the whole attention of the world was suddenly 
 concentrated upon an isolated and almost inacessible 
 spot, where mere existence was a hardship, and where 
 the facilities for correspondence had been practically 
 obliterated. 
 
 The strain has fallen upon the telegraph operators not 
 less than upon the reporters, and the telegraph and 
 railroad companies are entitled to the warmest acknowl- 
 edgement for the energy with which they have striven 
 to meet the extraordinary requirements so abruptly 
 thrown upon them. Successful newspaper work is 
 largely dependent upon telegraphic facilities. In this 
 case its limitations were those imposed by the destruc- 
 tion of most of the direct wires, and what was accom- 
 plished would have been impossible without the earnest 
 efforts made by all the companies and their officials.
 
 192 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 Under such circumstances it was inevitable that the 
 reports of an occurrence so stupendous as this flood and 
 so far beyond all experience or imagination, should be 
 more or less fragmentary. No man could take in the 
 whole magnitude of the scene at once, and there was no 
 time to gather up the infinitude of details into one com- 
 prehensive picture. Each man could but report what he 
 himself saw or heard, and while many of the dispatches 
 have been admirably intelligent and clear, and many of 
 the incidents have been brilliantly described, the whole 
 great story of the flood could not be told in that way. 
 
 Our book is the result of the observations of an eye 
 witness as well as a compilation of the most intelligent 
 reports of well known correspondents and will give to 
 the reader a well digested, comprehensive and connected 
 description of the flood, and their sad results. With 
 the aid of the illustrations, gotten up from photographs, 
 it will convey a clearer idea of the event and its causes, 
 than has been possible before. 
 
 THE REPORTERS. 
 
 The Public Ledger writes about the reporters and their 
 good work as follows : 
 
 " In the final summing up of the good work which 
 was done by the noble army of men and women who 
 went to the Valley of the Conemaugh to labor for the 
 living and bury the dead sufferers by the flood, that 
 which was done by the reporters of the newspaper press 
 should not be forgotten. They were among the very 
 first to reach Johnstown, many of them starting from 
 their offices, without any preparation, immediately upon 
 receipt of the dispatches of Friday night which an-
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 193 
 
 nounced the terrible calamity. They journeyed over all 
 sorts of unaccustomed roads to their destination, walk- 
 ing, climbing hills, fording flooded streams, their cloth- 
 ing soaked by the continuous rains, and going for ten, 
 twenty or, in some cases, for thirty hours, without food. 
 Arrived at Johnstown, there were no accommodations 
 for them. They were not classed with the sufferers, nor 
 with the authorities or relief committees. They were 
 simply a private corps of observers and recorders of 
 things, with no place in the general plan of economy, 
 and, consequently, they were obliged to look after them- 
 selves. They had money, but it was only a little more 
 useful to them at times than it would have been in the 
 sands of the desert. For the sufferers and the author- 
 ized bodies of relief there were houses or tents and 
 food provided, but for the reporters nothing except what 
 they could secure by their own efforts and wit. 
 
 "There was apparently no class of strangers at Johns- 
 town who fared worse than reporters, though they were 
 treated with great courtesy and consideration by all those 
 in authority, from General Hastings to the humblest 
 subordinate, as well as by the wretched survivors, some 
 of whom gave them shelter and shared their food with 
 them. Their trouble was that they were in the valley 
 of Death as an independent, detached corps, working 
 apart from the relief corps. It is true they were work- 
 ing ostensibly for their respective newspapers, but they 
 were really doing the most valuable and efficient work 
 for the sufferers. They worked day and night, dragging 
 through the deep mud, climbing over the piles of debris, 
 visiting the morgues, the hospitals, seeking every sort 
 of information which the country desired to have regard- 
 
 '3
 
 194 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 ing the calamity. There were no men at Johnstown 
 who worked earlier or later or harder than the reporters, 
 none who, apparently, were less comfortably fed and 
 sheltered. They slept in improvised sheds, in freight 
 cars, very few of them having changes of clothing with 
 them. 
 
 " The greatest value of their work was that it revealed 
 day by day to the entire country the vastness of the 
 disaster, the greatness of the distress pervading the de- 
 vastated valley, the urgent need of relief and what things 
 were most urgently wanted. Their clear, graphic, 
 earnest accounts of the ruin that was all about them, of 
 the misery, grief, suffering which they saw, awakened 
 and kept awake the noble benevolence of the people and 
 caused it to flow in such broad and generous streams of 
 helpfulness. 
 
 " With pen and pencil the newspaper reporters illus- 
 trated in the clearest, most effective manner, the destruc- 
 tion of life and property that the flood had left behind it 
 throughout the valley. They were the faithful illus- 
 trators of the entire scene of desolation the brief, faith- 
 ful chroniclers of all the misery which prevailed and 
 which cried out to the people for relief. No one can 
 doubt that what they wrote and pictured was, in thou- 
 sands of instances, an inspiration to the charitable to 
 give freely to the great aggregate fund contributed. 
 
 " Apart from the influences they thus exerted, the 
 work of the reporters was well done. It was most 
 generally free from sensationalism, being, with most rare 
 exception, a plain, direct narrative of passing scenes and 
 events. All things considered, the work of the reporters 
 at Johnstown is deserving of high praise."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 BACK TO THE FATED VALLEY. 
 
 After the proclamation of Governor Beaver, to the State 
 Board of Health, declaring the drift in the Conemaugh to be a 
 public nuisance, which the Board had power to abate ; afu r 
 General Hastings had organized his working forces so as to 
 cut through the awful pile of drift in the river and cleanse, 
 the city in the shortest possible time ; and after the Committee 
 for the distribution of relief had been announced by the Gov- 
 ernor; every sufferer from the horrible visitation, every 
 dweller in the Stricken Valley, and every sympathetic bosom 
 throughout the land gave a sigh of relief. Now, order was to 
 take the place of confusion. Now people could take a mo- 
 ment to think. Now the threat of disease would be averted. 
 Now thought of the horror would be engrossed in repairing 
 damages under some kind of system. Now, the homeless 
 could return and engage in study of what was best for them 
 in the future. 
 
 Every aspiration and energy was turned to the work of san- 
 itation, and to earnest effort to restore the ruined valley to 
 something like its former status. By Sunday, June 16, life 
 was quite in its old routine at Johnstown, at least so far as the 
 observances of the day went. There was no Protestant Epis- 
 copal Church, but Bishop Whitehead conducted the services 
 in a school-house on the hill opposite the Penna. R. R. Station. 
 
 The Methodists congregated in the open in front of their chapel 
 (195)
 
 1 96 THE JOHNSTO WN FL OD. 
 
 and there praised God with full hearts. The Presbyterians held 
 open-air services, and the Catholics gathered in the unde- 
 stroyed churches above and below Johnstown. 
 
 The voices of prayer and the strains of hymns were 
 mingled with the echoes of the fearful dynamite blasts which 
 were being employed to widen the breach in the gorge of de- 
 bris. Hundreds of men pushed their way into the unex- 
 plored crannies of the town in search for the dead. Barrel 
 after barrel of coal oil was rolled upon the debris, and there 
 emptied as a preliminary to those fires which had now been 
 found the most efficacious way of disposing of the matter which 
 composed the gorge. All these were interruptions to the solemn 
 worship of the day, but such had to be. The valley of death 
 was coining to life. Let who might stop to pray, but let who 
 must work unceasingly. 
 
 In speaking of the criticism of the heavy charges of dyna- 
 mite which he fired, Major Philips, engineer in charge, said : 
 " It was absolutely necessary to fire heavy charges to open a 
 channel through the gorge. No one will attempt to say that 
 the opening of that gorge was not of paramount importance. 
 It was not only endangering the health of the people in the 
 valley, but as long as it was closed there was the additional 
 danger of the river rising and washing out all the people who 
 are living in tents on the flats. The river was very high last 
 night, and if that channel had not been through every tent in 
 the flat would probably have been washed away. I admit 
 that we fired a charge of 500 pounds and that is the charge 
 which opened the gorge. 
 
 The report that the bodies were blown into the air along
 
 THE JOHNSTO WN FL OD. 1 97 
 
 with the debris is without foundation. I had the men make 
 a careful inspection of the surroundings before each charge 
 was fired. Occasionally they found a body, but it was so 
 badly decomposed that it was unrecognizable. I myself found 
 a couple of heads which had been severed from the bodies. I 
 also found the leg of a boy in a gum boot. The leg had been 
 burned off at the thigh. These were all removed and buried. 
 As soon as I was informed that the heavy charges were shak- 
 ing the buildings in the town I at once ordered the men to 
 reduce them to 200 pounds. To-morrow I will begin to fire 
 charges of 100 pounds each near the bridge. The firing will 
 be kept up all day, and will loosen a great deal of debris that 
 is now buried in the river." 
 
 TIP AT THE MIGHTY DAM. 
 
 A three days' visit to the fatal dam and its vicinity by a 
 correspondent, revealed the fact that the overflow of the lake 
 and consequent destruction of the breast of the dam were as 
 much due to natural as artificial causes. Each person was 
 willing to make affidavit that he had never before seen so 
 much rain. Several were quite sure that the fall of water 
 on the day preceding the bursting of the dam utterly 
 precluded the possibility of saving it, and, most important 
 point of all, two distinct water spouts were located. They did 
 immense damage, one tearing a hole in the ground almost ten 
 feet d-eep, and both Avashing away bridges and flooding acres 
 of good farming land. 
 
 On the mountain ridges the earth had been washed from 
 the roads, and the rocks loom up jagged and angry. Out on
 
 198 THE JOHNSTO WN FL OD. 
 
 the mountain brow, forming an irregular semi-circle above the 
 late Lake Conemaugh, farmers engaged repairing their wagon- 
 ways, building bridges, filling in washouts, and otherwise re- 
 storing the damage done on the memorable night of Thursday, 
 May 30. Milldams were burst like bubbles and Muddy Run 
 and South Fork Creek, in the memory of the proverbial oldest 
 resident, were never known to be so high. Six inches of 
 water is the usual depth of these streams before they flow into 
 the basin, once the reservoir. On the day preceding the 
 flood they rose in a few hours to a height of from four to five 
 feet. Their conduct was considered inexplicable until the 
 rain-spout and cloud-burst discoveries provided ample ex- 
 planation. 
 
 About 10.20 on Thursday night, May 30, Mr. Heidenfelter 
 and his family, while wrapped in slumber, were suddenly 
 awakened by a rumbling roaring sound, emanating from an 
 indefinable object 300 feet in front of the house. The dwelling 
 stands on a gentle slope. Between this slope and the one op- 
 posite is a lowland four or five acres in extent. The Heiden- 
 felter family were badly frightened by the strange sound, but 
 the next moment were even more startled, for succeeding the 
 noise a tremendous downpour of water occurred. A heavy 
 fall of rain descended on the housetop, but it was in the bot- 
 tom, a few feet away, that the force of the deluge was spent. 
 The water roared and hissed, and evidently came down the 
 side of the opposite hill in a torrent. For an hour the 
 Heidenfelter family lay quaking in their beds, and until 
 morning the rain poured down. 
 
 "Indeed I thought the last day had come," said Mi's.
 
 THE JOHNSTO WN FL OD. 199 
 
 Heidenfelter seriously, when questioned as to the occurrence. 
 " I never heard anything like it in my life. I wanted my 
 husband to get up and see Avhat the matter was, but it was 
 dark and he could have done no good. In the morning, a"s 
 soon as AVC could see, the fields were covered with water four 
 or five feet deep. Up at Mr. Heidenf'elter's new tannery the 
 sand was piled over almost everything. People say the noise 
 we heard was a water-spout, but I've never seen one and don't 
 know how they act. One thing I do know, and that is I 
 thought the day of judgment had come when the roaring and 
 the awful rain happened. It sounded just as if a big tank 
 had opened at the bottom, and all the water was falling out 
 at once. The rain tore big holes in the ground. While we 
 were sorry for the damage done to our oat fields, tannery and 
 milk, we thought ourselves lucky to get off with our lives. It 
 was a good thing it didn't touch our house." 
 
 Several hundred yards up the little valley alluded to, a hole 
 in the earth almost ten feet deep may be found. It is scooped 
 out of the loom and clay, and was the work of the water-spout. 
 It looks as if a powerful shovel, with an area of many feet, 
 had been dashed into the ground by some mighty force and 
 with a twirl had torn out an immense chunk of earth. 
 
 Said Mr. Cole, a neighbor of Mrs. Heidenfelter : " I never 
 saw so much rain in- all my life. You've heard of the great 
 wet seasons in California in ; 52 and '62 ? Well, I was there,- 
 and through them both, but never did I see so much falling 
 water as here. It came down in sheets and saturated the 
 ground for acres. About 10.30 o'clock we could hear the 
 cloud burst. There must have been two away up in the
 
 200 THE JOHNSTO WN FL OD. 
 
 mountain, beside the one on Mr. Heidenfeiter's place. 
 Sounded something like thunder? Yes, they did, but there 
 was a difference, and I knew what the noises meant. Well, 
 the cloud-bursts announced the rain and it fell steadily until 
 morning. When we got up this road we're on you can see 
 it slants was the bed of a turbulent creek, and nobody 
 could venture out of the house." 
 
 Mr. Varner stated that for thirty-seven years they had 
 never had such water experience. 
 
 " You can imagine what it was," said he, " when on Friday 
 morning, every one up here felt sure the dam would go. No, 
 sir, never before did we have any such fear, but the way 
 it had rained, and the manner in which the creeks were 
 acting, was enough to make us feel sure that no dam could 
 stand against such pressure. John Rhodes, whose father 
 owns a mill two miles up the South Fork, says they never 
 knew of such a rain there." 
 
 It would appear that the winds causing the cloud-bursts or 
 water-spouts, had commenced to whirl at 8 o'clock on Thurs- 
 day evening, on the northern edge of Lake Conemaugh. From 
 this point they evidently circled around the eastern side, and 
 probably finished their journey at Heidenfeiter's on the west 
 of the lake, in the middle of the night. It was doubtless the 
 cloud-burst at the latter place that filled Stony Creek to over- 
 flowing. 
 
 HOMES ONCE MORE. 
 
 The 2500 men which General Hastings had at work up to 
 the 17th of June had now widened the breach in the debris so
 
 THE JOHNSTO WN FL OD. 201 
 
 as to admit of the passage of boats up and down the channel 
 of the river, and avert all fear in case of a freshet in the 
 stream. In the five districts, into which he had divided the 
 flooded section, the laborers were working with such industry 
 as to warrant the thought that temporary homes were now in 
 order. An enterprising Chicago firm had already offered to 
 ship 100 frame dwellings to the scene, which could be erected 
 almost in a twinkling, and whose cost would not exceed $200 
 each. This offer was accepted by General Hastings, and he 
 fully expected to see one hundred families comfortably housed 
 inside a week. He said : " We shall put all the carpenters 
 we can get to work building new houses on lots from which 
 buildings were taken by the flood as soon as the lumber 
 arrives. It will begin to come this week, and I think Johns- 
 town will look very much like a city by next fall. When the 
 houses shall have been erected I will furnish the householders 
 with cooking utensils, cots, bedding and such articles as they 
 need to begin with again, and when they get ready they can 
 build better houses." 
 
 The arrangements for securing and distributing provisions 
 were now in permanent working order. All the improvised 
 camps for soldiers and civilians were placed under severe 
 inspection and their sites changed where found necessary. On 
 the night of the 17th a big blaze shot through one of the 
 cupolas of the Cambria Iron Works. " Hello !" remarked 
 General Hastings, who was sitting in front of his head-quarters, 
 " that is the first flame since the flood. It looks like old times 
 again." The blaze came from the first blasting furnace that 
 had been put in operation since the day the flood swept
 
 202 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 through the valley. It told plainer than words of the progress 
 the Cambria Company was making in putting the works in 
 order for the employment of 5000 or 6000 men, the majority 
 of whom had been engaged in clearing away the debris, 
 which was packed seven or eight feet deep in the yards. It was 
 in one of the lower mills, which had not been so badly dam- 
 aged, that the blasting furnace was started in that night. The 
 fitful flame that shot through the cupola was a most welcome 
 sight to the people of Cambria City and Johnstown. It 
 recalled the days, not long ago, when this was a prosperous 
 valley instead of a great stretch of sand covered with rocks 
 and debris, and when scores of such flames were illuminating 
 the mountains which surround the works. 
 
 THE EPIDEMIC. 
 
 Fears became rife that the scourge of epidemic would be 
 added to the horrors of flood. Hundreds of people fled the 
 scene entirely ; others remained to croak over a devastation 
 which in their imaginations was more appalling than any other. 
 Workmen performed their labors with the utmost difficulty 
 among the sickening debris, and the smells of decaying animal 
 matter were alarming indeed. But the doctors belonging to 
 the State Board of Health arrived on the scene, and their 
 presence was assuring. They put new heart into the people 
 by declaring that there was no danger of an epidemic if only 
 all would act prudently. They poured disinfectants into the 
 valley, and every danger-spot got its dose. Says Dr. Mat- 
 thews : " We are distributing tons of disinfectants daily, and 
 the kinds are legion. Every man who wants his disinfectant
 
 THE JOHNSTO WN FL OD. 203 
 
 used is sending it here in large quantities. We have a large 
 supply, but still we must have more. The people call for it 
 just as they go to the different relief stations for food and cloth- 
 ing. Sometimes there are a hundred people in line waiting 
 for their turn to get a supply of disinfectants." 
 
 All the morgues Avere consolidated into one. The workmen 
 on the debris were encouraged to burn everything that was 
 inflammable. Butcher shops were opened in proximity to 
 Johnstown in order that a supply of fresh meats might be 
 secured, and the danger from the salt meats which had been so 
 largely contributed by friends, might be avoided. Of his 
 work on June 17, Col. Spangler said : "There is great need 
 of shoes here. Many of the people are reported to be almost 
 barefooted, and there are but ninety-six cases of shoes in the 
 commissary department. Up to, and including to day, he has 
 been furnishing the contractors with provisions for their men. 
 The contractors have promised to have their own provisions 
 here to morrow. This will relieve the relief committee of the 
 necessity of feeding about twenty-five hundred men. Here is 
 the list of people supplied with food and clothing to-day; 
 Cambria City, 575 families, 2515 ; Conemaugh Borough, 550 
 families, 4500 ; Morrellville, 431 families, 2574 ; Johnstown, 
 1500 families, 6000 ; Franklin Borough, 145 families, 725 ; 
 Kernville Borough, 510 families, 2838 ; total, 3651 families, 
 19,212. 
 
 And of her highly useful work in connection Avith the 
 " Ladies' Aid Society," Mrs. Mclntyre, said : It is not the 
 policy of the Children's Aid Society to send orphans away 
 from JohnstoAvn to find permanent homes. There are any
 
 204 THE JOHNSTO WN PL OD. 
 
 number of good people in this place who are willing and 
 anxious to care for all destitute children. We will be glad to 
 send them away temporarily, but they will all find homes in 
 Johnstown. I think it is a reflection upon the good people 
 here to talk of sending the children away to seek homes in 
 strange cities. They will all be cared for right here." 
 
 The Philadelphia firemen were at w r ork all of to-day. Nine 
 engines were in different parts of the city. One was engaged 
 in pumping out the gas well and had nearly all the water out 
 of it to-night. The other two Philadelphia engines were over 
 near Kernville pumping out wells. The Philadelphia boys 
 are receiving great credit for the work they are doing. 
 
 Many of the property owners here have decided to give the 
 tenants the use of their house for one month free. Rent will 
 be resumed at the expiration of that time, and it is understood 
 there will be no reduction. 
 
 Seventeen more bodies were dug from the wreckage here 
 to-day. Among them was the body of Mrs. Annie Bates, of 
 Racine, "VVis. She was a passenger on the day express. Be- 
 sides a gold watch and chain and several rings, a draft for 
 $64, and $65 in money were found on her person. She was 
 buried promptly, as were all the other bodies found. Among 
 those found were the three children of James Clark. They 
 were tangled and entwined about each other, and were horri- 
 bly decomposed. All the others are as yet unidentified. 
 
 On this date (June 17), the Commission appointed bv (Joy. 
 Beaver, to distribute the donations to the flood sufferers, 
 started on its tour of inspection. It had in hand a highly im- 
 portant and delicate mission, and a munificent sum at its dis-
 
 THE JOHNSTO WN FL OD. 205 
 
 posal. How to dispense this grand offering of a charitable 
 people, so as to best meet the object of the donors, and at the 
 same time deal impartially with the afflicted in all the flooded 
 sections, required a close inspection and a mature judgment. 
 They went about their work very deliberately, and resolved 
 not to distribute any money till the wants of all sections had 
 been considered. Meanwhile the fund at their command was 
 growing daily, and on the day of their start the showing for 
 Philadelphia alone was $945,244, besides the trains of provi- 
 sions and clothing already shipped. 
 
 One fortunate thing about the Johnstown situation, was that 
 so many of its people were members of local insurance and 
 fraternal societies. This secured for them a direct .relief, 
 which was both timely and substantial, and gave a pleasing 
 illustration of the value of these humanitarian organizations 
 in time of emergency. 
 
 On June 18, the Johnstown Councilmen met for the first 
 time since the flood to co-operate with General Hastings in his 
 work of cleansing an<t restoring. It was a most solemn and 
 in many respects an extraordinary meeting, as they looked out 
 on a city with three-fourths of its houses and 33 per cent of its 
 inhabitants gone. Three of their small membership were not 
 present. Their city treasurer had joined the majority in com- 
 pany with their clerk. Tears and silence characterized the 
 early part of the proceedings. Members grasped each other's 
 hands and had nothing to say. The municipal building has 
 gone. The streets, market-houses, city prison, public buildings 
 even their city was gone, and their very meeting appeared 
 to be a mockery and a work of superrogation. General Hast-
 
 206 THE J OHNSTO WN FL OD. 
 
 ings came in, and in a voice of almost womanly tenderness 
 urged upon them the work of manly action and judgment. 
 He offered them all that himself and the State could do. He 
 told them that he was ready to put carpenters and workmen at 
 work the next morning upon 100 business buildings upon the 
 public square and would help every man who had a lot to 
 erect upon it a substantial house and furnish it. 
 
 They granted their square for 18 months for building pur- 
 poses, and thoroughly reorganized their body and the munic- 
 ipal government. The announcement was made that the Relief 
 Committee on the part of the State was already on its way 
 thither from Williamsport and would arrive on the 19th. The 
 debris still continued to give up its dead, eighteen bodies 
 having been found, most of them in the gorge at the Pennsyl- 
 vania bridge. In the evening the body of a young lady, richly 
 attired in a dark blue dress was taken out of the river near the 
 gorge. The ears held handsome earrings ; a gold watch was 
 in the watch fob of the dress ; three handsome gold rings were 
 on her fingers, and other evidences of wealth and breeding were 
 not wanting. It was thought to be the body of Miss Jennie 
 Poulson of Pittsburgh, who was drowned from the Pennsyl- 
 vania train in company with Miss Bryan, of Philadelphia, on 
 the day of the flood. 
 
 THE COMMISSION AT HAND. 
 
 On June 19, the State Relief Committee or Commission, saw 
 the whole of the devastated valley. At 8 o'clock A. M., the 
 party came out of their car and looked up the South Fork, 
 where the water from the dam first struck the valley. Then
 
 THE JOHNSTO WN FL OD. 207 
 
 they re-entered their car and started for the run down the 
 valley. 
 
 When Conemaugh was reached at 10 o'clock the committee 
 got the first glimpse of where hundreds of houses had been 
 washed away. There was nothing to indicate that houses ever 
 stood there. It was a dead flat, covered with rocks and peb- 
 bles, with a locomotive, baggage and freight cars buried in it. 
 This track of waste was followed up to the stone railroad 
 bridge, when the train stopped. Here again the party alighted 
 to see the work of removing the debris. 
 
 " This is excellent, this is excellent," said Gov. Beaver to 
 General Hastings. " You have done great work. I would not 
 recognize this as the same place that I visited ten days ago." 
 
 The commissioners returned to the station. Gov. Beaver, 
 Francis B. Reeves, Robert C. Ogden, Judge Cummin, General 
 Hastings and Colonel Douglass, chief engineer, took horses 
 and rode for two hours through the devastated boroughs. 
 Johnstown, Conemaugh, "Woodvale, Millville, Cambria were 
 all visited. Far up Stony Creek Gov. Beaver saw the ban- 
 ners of the Red Cross flying from their tents, and lie invited 
 the gentlemen with him to call on Miss Barton. He intro- 
 duced them to her in person, and warmly congratulated her 
 upon the magnitude of her work and the rare judgment she 
 had exercised in its performance. 
 
 The party next stopped at the head-quarters of the State 
 Board of Health and consulted with Dr. Lee and his assist- 
 ants concerning the health of the city and its environs, and 
 about the means of sanitation in use. 
 
 Cyrus Elder, James McMillan and Mr. Moxham, represent-
 
 208 THE JOHNSTO WN FL OD, 
 
 ng the citizens of Johnstown, joined the commissioners and 
 laid before them their immediate needs. At the conclusion of 
 this conference the commission organized by electing Gov. 
 Beaver chairman. One of the first acts of the Board after its 
 organization, was to authorize Gov. Beaver to purchase 500 
 portable houses, erect them and place in them such furniture 
 as is absolutely necessary. 
 
 The commission next adopted a resolution which declared 
 that all the money which has been subscribed, all that is in 
 sight and all that will be subscribed will not be enough 
 
 o o 
 
 adequately to relieve the suffering and restore to comfortable 
 homes the victims of the flood. In a word, the commission 
 can not, in its opinion, receive too much money. Mayor Fit- 
 ler was appointed as the sub-committee for Philadelphia and 
 Mr. Marvin for Pittsburg. General Hastings was authorized 
 to carry out the plans of erecting small shops in the public 
 squares for the business men. The commissioners could not 
 speak too highly of General Hastings and the work he had 
 done here. They are amazed at the wonderful progress he 
 had made. 
 
 June 20, was an eventful day in the flooded district, on 
 account of dissatisfaction and a threatened strike among the 
 workmen. But the iusubordinates were paid off and summarily 
 dismissed by General Hastings, and quiet was speedily restored. 
 June 21, was the most stirring business day since the flood. It 
 was pay day at the Cambria Iron Works and at the Gautier 
 Wire Works. Checks for nearly $100,000 were distributed to 
 the workingmen by these two companies. Many hundreds of 
 jnen were missing from the pay-rolls of both companies, and their
 
 THE JOHNSTO WN FL OD. 209 
 
 _<mey was drawn by their wives or legal representatives. Many 
 were there for the first time since the night of the horror. It 
 was interesting to note how these rough but tender hearted men 
 softened their inquiries about families and friends. 
 
 "Why, how are you Jack?" said a hard-fisted laborer as he 
 grasped the hand of a friend in the line at the Cambria win- 
 doAV. "I thought you had gone down. Are your folks all 
 well?" , 
 
 "Oh, yes, they're all right. We all came through." 
 
 This was only one of the hundred questions at the Cambria 
 and the Gautier offices. They were all of a similar character. 
 The officers of both companies, who at first thought the money 
 to pay the workingmen had been lost, announced that the cash 
 had been saved. It was placed in the First National Bank 
 just before the flood. Over $200,000 were on deposit there. 
 
 A correspondent thus reflects the situation on the 21st of 
 June : " The effect of the flood is beginning to tell sorely 
 upon outlying towns. For a time aid from the surrounding 
 agricultural districts has been given them, but there are many 
 in need. To-day the burgess and several of the leading citi- 
 zens of South Fork sent word to General Hastings that they 
 were in need of food and clothing. He at once sent an aid 
 with abundance of both to the town, and will continue to 
 supply it and other towns till assistance shall no longer be 
 needed. 
 
 One hundred portable houses will be here to-morrow morn- 
 ing, and scores of carpenters, under the direction of W. V. 
 Hughes, of Pittsburg, master carpenter, will immediately go to 
 work placing them on their foundations. Monday the scores
 
 210 THE JOHNSTO WN FL OD. 
 
 of carpenters will be increased to hundreds, and the utmost 
 expedition will be used iii order to induce people to domesti- 
 cate themselves and become civil factors again. The plan of 
 erection is simplicity itself. The houses will arrive on cars 
 at the Johnstown station. The cars will be run onto sidings 
 and from them the houses will be loaded into huge wagons, 
 which will take them to the sites selected for them. The 
 matter of sites has been already largely arranged for by the 
 Citizens' Committee, which has been very busy for several 
 days in receiving and passing upon applications, and the 
 necessity of discrimination in the matter of awards has been 
 exhaustively considered. 
 
 The houses will be erected after the most approved sanitary 
 principles. Dr. Lee, of the State Board of Health, was 
 directed by General Hastings to look into this matter, and he 
 has been doing it. He summarizes his recommendations as 
 follows 
 
 The State Board of Health considers it inexpedient, from a 
 sanitary point of view, to place these houses in any of the 
 following districts at the present time : The flooded districts 
 of Johnstown, including Homers town and Conemaugh bor- 
 ough ; Kernville, in the sections bounded as follows : both 
 sides of Morris street from its origin at Cobaugh's to South 
 
 
 
 Street, out South to Napoleon, down Napoleon to Dibert, out 
 Dibert to foot of hill, along hill to river, and along river to 
 place of starting ; "VVoodvale, between the tracts and the hill- 
 side on the North ; East Conemaugh, the immediate neigh- 
 borhood of the railroad and the camp of the railroad em- 
 ployees ; districts below the stone bridge. Our inspectors for
 
 THE JOHNSTO WN FL OD. 211 
 
 ne3e districts have not reported on this subject, but as soon as 
 they do so the Board will furnish the desired information. It 
 will be understood that these recommendations refer to the 
 present time, and that in the course of a week the situation 
 at certain points may be materially altered. 
 
 As soon as the houses are in shape for their purposes a 
 committee appointed by Council will take charge of them and 
 by lot distribute them among the business men who wish to 
 re-establish themselves and to grow up again with the revivi- 
 fied city. It has already developed that not a few men with 
 means from other points are willing to invest their money in 
 Johnstown, and their applications must be considered with 
 the others. This phase of things has been a source of great 
 pride and comfort to the old residents. Johnstown has been 
 prosperous, and the prosperity is thought to be only an inti- 
 mation of what its future will be. 
 
 The bodies of twenty-seven persons were taken from 
 various places in the wreck by the workingmen to-day. In 
 a cellar of a house near the Presbyterian Church a family of 
 six persons was discovered, the husband and wife clasped in 
 each other's arms and the little ones lying near them. All 
 were too much decomposed to be identified. 
 
 A BANK OPEN. 
 
 The opening of the First National Bank on the morning of 
 June 22d, with imposing stacks of " coin of the realm " on 
 every change counter was the most substantial symptom of 
 business resumption of all that had appeared since the flood. 
 James McMillan, the veteran president of the institution, the
 
 212 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 
 
 man who gave the order to start up the Cambria Iron Works, 
 the man who gave his credit, his influence and his personal 
 efforts to carry out schemes projected for the relief of his de- 
 vastated city, was behind the counter and narrowly scanned 
 the faces of the early callers. Some presented checks for the 
 money they had left in the bank before the flood, and others 
 had plethoric passbooks and instructed the receiving teller to 
 place the contents to their credit. This class predominated, 
 and soon Mr. McMillan withdrew to his little office satisfied 
 that his bank and himself were still at par in Johnstown. It 
 was a moment of supreme pleasure to the septuagenarian and 
 he enjoyed it to the frill for just one minute. He had 
 promised his people that they should have money at home and 
 credit abroad and he had literally kept his word. He 
 epitomized the history of the flood and his relation to it in 
 these words : 
 
 We took in more money to-day in the bank than we paid 
 out. We will be making rails in the Cambria next Monday. 
 We have two furnaces in blast there now and will blow in 
 four more next week. I tell you in less than five years 
 hence Johnstown will be a greater, more populous and more 
 prominent city than she ever was. 
 
 Mr. McMillan's ideas were those of his fellow citizens. 
 His confidence became contagious, and when the one hundred 
 business buildings shall have been erected on the public 
 square there will be a regular Oklahoma scramble for them. 
 In the meantime those who had credit and were anxious to begin 
 in an absolutely independent manner Were hustling the State 
 Authorities to hasten the clearing out of their streets and
 
 THE JOHNSTO WN FL OD. 213 
 
 their cellars in order that they might begin the erection of their 
 own buildings after their own ideas. These enterprising people 
 were not scarce, and their anxiety to do business on their own 
 behalf General Hastings regarded as the most encouraging 
 incident of his residence there. Of course, outside aid in the 
 matters of food and clothing was still indispensable and 
 should continue until houses and employment have become 
 general and stores and groceries replace the relief warehouses 
 and commissaries. 
 
 ANOTHER SABBATH. 
 
 The bright Sabbath of June 23 broke on the devastated' 
 valley like a smile. The sun and breeze quickly evaporated 
 the moisture from the freshly cleansed surfaces, and the eye 
 which had been used to desolation only caught sight of the 
 first rows of those unique Avooden homes which noted the be- 
 ginning of permanent residence upon the water-swept town 
 site at Johnstown. These dwellings are thus described by the 
 chairman of the Purchasing Committee in a letter to the 
 chairman of the Committee on Finance : " It was not until 
 yesterday that I became aware of the size and appearance ot 
 the one hundred houses which we have ordered sent to you at 
 Johnstown. These houses are portable and fold up like the 
 cover of a book. They are painted inside and out and 
 present a very neat appearance. They are one story high 
 and the floor is ten by twenty. You will find that they can 
 be very quickly set up. We expect that twenty-four of these 
 houses will arrive in Johnstown not later than Sunday morn- 
 ing. We h*"' also ordered furniture for the twenty-four
 
 2 1 4 THE JOHNS 'TO WN FL OD. 
 
 houses. It may ot arrive in Johnstown until Tuesday, as 
 some of the articles that we wanted were not here in the 
 quantity we required. However, the most important articles, 
 the mattresses, bedclothing, stoves, stove furniture and the 
 chairs, will be there possibly to-morrow. I have had a list of 
 the articles intended for each house prepared by my assistant, 
 Mr. Dilworth, and it will be forwarded to you to-night. In 
 addition to the articles enumerated Ave were prepared to 
 furnish each house with a barrel of flour, if you think it is 
 desirable and would be what you recommended. The party 
 who furnished these houses left Pittsburg last night to see 
 Governor Beaver in Harrisburg to-day. I think that inside 
 of two weeks you will have several hundred houses erected in 
 Johnstown and fully furnished. This is the outfit that will 
 go along with each house : 
 
 Five chairs, one small rocker, one pair red blankets, one 
 white blanket, two towels, eight sheets, one cooking stove, one 
 skillet, two bake pans, one iron pot, one tea kettle, three 
 joints of pipe, six knives and forks, six teaspoons, three 
 tablespoons, six cups, six saucers, six plates, one cream 
 pitcher, one two-quart pitcher, two one-and-one-half pint 
 bowls, two bedsteads, one table (with knives), two spring beds 
 (all metal), two husk and cotton mattresses, four husk pillows. 
 
 All the denominations held services, the saloons were 
 closed, work was suspended, in so far as it could be, and there 
 was more of a Sabbath air in the valley than since the 
 disaster.
 
 THE JOHNSTO WN FL OOD. 215 
 
 THE RED CROSS RELIEF. 
 
 After the distributing of relief to those immediately in need, 
 it became a special object of this magnificent charity to stand 
 the stricken people on their feet again, and revive in them that 
 spirit of independence and sacrifice that in a less brave, and 
 enterprising community would have been eternally submerged, 
 and to get them all at work again and in homes of their 
 own. 
 
 In connection with this work, Miss Barton said : " It pains 
 and annoys me to read the baseless stories concerning the 
 condition of these people that are sent out to some of the 
 influential papers of this country, and most of theaa are to the 
 effect that there is more food and more clothing coming here 
 than is needed. There can not be too much good food and 
 respectable clothing sent here. It is all needed, and it is 
 needed now, and will be needed for weeks to come. It must 
 not be forgotten that there is nothing left here. Recuperation 
 will be gradual, and it must be fostered. Men may begin on 
 nothing and make fortunes, but a whole community can not 
 begin on nothing, with empty stomachs and bare backs, and 
 sustain itself unaided. Food and clothing are therefore the 
 prime requisites, and the well-disposed people of this country 
 must take hold of this fact. I am delayed daily with letters 
 from all parts of the country asking if assistance is still needed. 
 People tell mo they have the things we want boxed up and 
 have been deterred from sending them because of these mis- 
 leading report* Johnstown is still leaning on the kindly arm 
 of her country 5 sympathy, and it must continue to be sub-
 
 216 THE JOHNSTO WN FL OD. 
 
 stantial and spontaneous for weeks to come. I wish that what 
 clothing that may come may be of the better class. Let the 
 giving continue, and let no one grow weary of it, because there 
 is still a great field for charity here." 
 
 At this date there has been but little "diminution in the 
 number of requisitions on the relief commissions. As soon as 
 they are open in the morning lines of people, numbering 
 several hundred, file past the distributing doors, present their 
 orders and receive what they call for either in clothing or 
 food. It is an animated, interesting scene a-t any time. The 
 noisy, clamorous people are readily distinguished as those 
 who have lost very little and are trying to make the most of 
 their opportunities. The other class is quiet and unobtrusive, 
 and without murmuring or remonstrating take what is given 
 them. 
 
 The commissary scheme is doing all that can be done for 
 both classes ; General Hastings has placed the posts in charge 
 of the very best officers of the National Guard, and all are at 
 work night and day. It would require a delay in the arrival 
 of supply trains of from three to six days to derange the 
 present system of distributing food, and this can not happen, 
 as provision trains have the right of way over all others and 
 there are posts at present at Conemaugh, Cambria, Morrell- 
 ville and Johnstown. These will be kept up until they are 
 no longer required. They are each officered by a member of 
 the National Guard, who is assisted by a committee of citizens 
 whose duty it is to identify the applicants and pass upon their 
 applications. It is becoming more systematic each day, and 
 by next week imposition will be impracticable.
 
 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 217 
 
 Time has located the final work of recovery from one of 
 the greatest of modern disasters in three grand agencies. The 
 first of all is the heart, head and hands of the stricken people 
 themselves. The second is the wonderful machinery which 
 humanity has placed on the ground in the shape of organized 
 Commissions, disciplined soldiery, skilled dispensation of 
 necessities, and obedient corps of workmen. The last is that 
 munificent gift of the charitable world in the form of nearly 
 two millions of money, whose direction has been placed under 
 a Commission of the State. It has been so composed that 
 the people who gave so freely and nobly for the relief of the 
 sufferers from the recent floods and disasters in this State may 
 rest with entire confidence that the immense fund will be most 
 carefully, judiciously and conscientiously expended. 
 
 A very large portion of the money raised in other States 
 was placed absolutely at the disposal of the Governor, but he 
 determined, and very naturally, that he would not individually 
 assume the responsibility of the application. He decided to 
 create a Commission of eminent citizens for that purpose, and 
 as it was plain that greater unity, efficiency and economy 
 could be secured if all the money were applied through one 
 channel, there came to be universal concurrence in the plan 
 of the Commission. 
 
 Tt has already made one apportionment of the funds among 
 the scourged districts. Thus all have helped in dire need 
 and all encouraged. Other apportionments will follow, so 
 that in the end all will get just what share they should have, 
 and the aims of charity will be fully met. Thus far the whole 
 of the work has been most intelligently and systematically
 
 218 THE JOHNS TO WN FL OD. 
 
 conducted. It involves relief from immediate want and des- 
 titution and such further aid as may be needed to enable the 
 sufferers to take care of themselves and cease to be dependent 
 on charity. It can not undertake to repair losses. It is a 
 work which will necessarily continue for a long time, and the 
 people may feel full assurance that in the hands of the Com- 
 mission, it will be faithfully and wisely conducted.
 
 CHAPTER XVIV. 
 
 FLOODS OF HISTORY. 
 
 The terrible flood in the Conemaugh Valley will be chroni- 
 cled by the historian as one of the most disastrous in the world's 
 records of such calamities. Now that the first feeling of 
 horror in connection with the Pennsylvania deluge has in a 
 measure subsided, and men can begin calmly to measure its 
 extent, one of the first thoughts which will arise in the minds 
 of many is one of comparison. Will it not rank among the 
 worst in the history of the world ? Where has a flood wrought 
 greater havoc ? How many have been more disastrous ? 
 
 The fingers of one hand will suffice to count the floods in 
 history which have been accompanied by a loss of life as great 
 or greater than the one in Western Pennsylvania. In this 
 Nineteenth Century it is hard to comprehend the extent 01 
 such a disaster ; it seems irreconcilable with the civilization 
 and progress of the age. ' The fact that there have been very 
 few as terrible floods in the whole gamut of history will aid in 
 appreciating its horrors. What have these few been ? This 
 is the short list : 
 
 At Dort, in Holland, seventy-two villages and over 100,000 
 people were destroyed on Apri? 17. 1421. 
 
 At a general inundation of nearly the whole of Holland in 
 1530, upward of 400,000 people lost their lives. 
 
 In Catalonia, in 1617, 50,000 persons perished by flood. 
 (219)
 
 220 THE JOHNSTO WN FL OD. 
 
 Six thousand perished by the floods in Silesia in 1813, and 
 4000 in Poland in the same year. 
 
 The loss of life during the recent floods in Austria-Hungary 
 and in China have never been fully reckoned, and though 
 100,000 persons are said to have perished in the Chinese 
 inundations, the figures are not regarded as trustworthy. 
 These are the only floods on record where the loss of human 
 life has been estimated at over 5000. The list of smaller 
 similar disasters is almost an endless one. 
 
 IN HOLLAND AND CHINA. 
 
 Holland, the little lowland country "redeemed from the 
 seas," has suffered worst, from the nature of its situation. 
 Protected, as it is, by dikes, which separate the land from the 
 water by artificial means, a constant vigilance has been required 
 of its people to prevent the ocean from claiming its own. In 
 both the deluges of 1421 and 1530 the immediate cause was 
 a breaking down of the dikes. The records of both are meagre, 
 although the mere lists of the drowned suffice to show how 
 awful the havoc must have been. The inundation at Dort 
 began at Dordrecht, where a heavy storm caused the dikes at 
 that point to give way. In that territory alone 10,000 people 
 were overwhelmed and perished, while the ravages of the sea 
 extended, and over 100,000 persons were killed around Dullart, 
 in Friesland and in Zealand. In the last two provinces up- 
 ward of 300 villages were overflowed, and, according to a Dutch 
 historian, the tops of their steeple.s and towns were for centuries 
 after to be seen rising out of the water. 
 
 The immense body of water known as the Zuyder Zee was
 
 THE JOHNS TO WN FL OD. 221 
 
 formed by this inundation. Reclaimed by the ocean, it was 
 never recaptured by the Hollanders. Although a fertile country 
 before that time, it has ever since been the " Zee." The sub- 
 sequent inundation of 1530 was the most frightful on record. 
 It nearly annihilated the Netherlands, and only to the indomi- 
 table pluck and industry which have ever characterized the 
 inhabitants of that country was its subsequent recovery due. 
 
 In 1108 Flanders was inundated by the sea. The submerged 
 districts comprised an enormous area, and the harbor and 
 town of Ostend were completely covered by water. The present 
 city was built above a league from the channel where the old 
 one still lies beneath the waves. 
 
 An awful inundation occurred at Dantzig on April 9, 1 829, 
 occasioned by the Vistula breaking through some of its dikes. 
 Numerous lives were lost, and, the records state, 4000 houses 
 and 10,000 head of cattle were destroyed. 
 
 A large part of Zealand was overflowed in 1717, and 1300 
 of the inhabitants were lost in the floods. Hamburg, while 
 her citizens with but few exceptions were saved, sustained an 
 almost incalculable loss to property. The same city was again 
 half flooded on January 1, 1855, and enormous damage 
 suftereu. 
 
 In the Silesian flood spoken of above the ruin of the French 
 army under MacDonald, which was in that country at the 
 time, was materially accelerated by the forces of nature. 
 
 One of the worst floods Germany ever had occurred in March, 
 1816 ; 119 villages were laid under water and a great loss of 
 life and property followed the inundation.
 
 222 THE JOHNSTO WN FL GOD. 
 
 The floods in China and that portion of the Eastern Hemi- 
 sphere, from time immemorial peculiarly subject to such 
 calamities, have always entailed losses about which little has 
 been known. No definite statistics of loss of life and damages 
 have ever been obtainable. In recent years there have been 
 floods there which are known to have been very disastrous, but 
 that is practically all that can be said. In October, 1833, 
 occurred one of the worst floods in the empire. Ten thousand 
 houses were swept away and 1000 persons perished in Canton 
 alone, while equal or perhaps greater calamity was produced 
 in other sections of the country. 
 
 At Vienna the dwellings of 50,000 inhabitants Avere laid 
 under water in February, 1830. 
 
 Two thousand persons perished in Navarre in September, 
 1787, from torrents from the mountains produced by exces- 
 sive rains. 
 
 The beautiful Danube of poetry and song has, on numer- 
 ous occasions, risen in its might, and brought disaster and dis- 
 tress to the inhabitants of the countries through which it 
 winds. Pesth, near Presburg, suffered to an enormous extent 
 from its overflow in April, 1811. Twenty-four villages were 
 swept away, and a large number of their inhabitants perished. 
 
 On the occasion of another overflow of this river, on Sep- 
 tember 14, 1813, a Turkish corps of 2000 men, who were en- 
 camped on a small island near Widdin, were surprised and 
 met instant death to a man. 
 
 A catastrophe, which in some respects brings to mind that 
 at Johnstown, occurred in Spain in 1802. Lorca, a city in
 
 THE JOHNSTO WN FL OD. 223 
 
 Murcia, was overwhelmed by the bursting of a reservoir, and 
 upwards of 1000 people were destroyed. 
 
 HOW FRANCE HAS SUFFERED. 
 
 France has on numerous occasions suffered severely from 
 floods. Its rivers have overflowed their banks at intervals for 
 centuries back, causing great loss of life and damage to 
 property. The Loire flooded the centre and Southwest of 
 France by an unprecedented rise in October, 1846, and, while 
 the people succeeded in escaping to a great extent, damages 
 aggregating over $20,000,000 were sustained. Ten years later 
 the South of France was again subjected to an inundation and 
 an immense loss sustained. 
 
 A large part of Toulouse was destroyed by a rising of the 
 Garonne in June, 1875. So sudden and disastrous was the 
 flood that the inhabitants were taken unawares and over 1000 
 lost their lives. 
 
 Awful inundations occurred in France from October 31 to 
 November 4, 1840. The Saone poured its waters into the 
 Rhone, broke through its banks and covered 60,000 acres. 
 Lyons was almost entirely submerged ; in Avignon 100 houses 
 were swept away, 218 houses were carried away at La Guil- 
 lotiere and upward of 300 at \ 7 oise, Marseilles and Nismes. It 
 was the greatest height the Saone had attained for 238 years. 
 
 At Besseges, in the South of France, a waterspout in 1861 
 destroyed the machinery of the mines and sent a torrent over 
 the edge of the pit like a cataract. The gas exploded and 
 hundreds of men and boys were buried below. It was a
 
 224 THE JOHNSTO WN FL OD. 
 
 peculiar casualty, in not having been caused by any of the 
 ordinary occasions of floods. 
 
 A thousand lives were lost in Murcia, Spain, by inundations 
 
 in 1879. 
 
 India has been the scene of numerous floods. In 186 a 
 deluge overwhelmed the fertile districts of Bengal, killing 
 hundreds and plunging the survivors into the direst poverty. 
 Famine and pestilence followed, carrying thousands away like 
 
 cattle. 
 
 Italy has not been exempt from the devastation of the waters. 
 On December 28 and 29, 1870, Rome suffered great loss., and 
 in October, 1872, the Northern portions of the kingdom were 
 Visited by great floods. There have been innumerable smaller 
 inundations. 
 
 Great Britain has a long list of inundations. It is recorded 
 that in the year 245 the sea swept over Lincolnshire and sub- 
 merged thousands of acres. In the year 353 over 3000 persons 
 were drowned in Cheshire from the same cause. Four hun- 
 dred families were destroyed in Glasgow in the year 738 by a 
 great flood. The coast of Kent was similarly afflicted in 1100, 
 and the immense bank still known as the Godwin Sands was 
 formed by the action of the sea, 
 
 While the record as given above is by no means complete, 
 it will serve for all purposes of comparison. It embraces the 
 most important disasters of the rushing waters on record, and 
 shows what a destructive force the same element has proven 
 which bubbles in noisy brooks and sings merrily as it courses 
 down the mountain sides.
 
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