W^\. : \. ^- #* V Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from The Library of Congress http://www.archive.org/details/historyofjohnsto01john 1^''":/ y^'CM^ 'He Dam Which ..av#- ^■^^.;0R/DG£^^^, . 1^ //////ii'',A«,,,,„,„,„,,u;'X' %^/"l|l|f^\\\^ :^:;#^)li:v^^"/^ s\\!.>' HER}0/\t^ SaNcHolI-O^s MAP OF THE DELUGED CONEMAUGH DISTRICT. HISTORY The Johnstown. Flood. INCLUDING ALL THE FEARFUL RECORD; THE BREAKING OF THE SOUTH FORK DAM; THE SWEEPING OUT OF THE CONEMAUGH VALLEY ; THE OVER- THROW OF JOHNSTOWN ; THE MASSING OF THE WRECK AT THE RAILROAD BRIDGE; ESCAPES, RESCUES, SEARCHES FOR SURVIVORS AND THE DEAD; RELIEF ORGANIZATIONS, STUPENDOUS CHARI- TIES, ETC., ETC. WITH FULL ACCOUNTS ALSO OF THK DESTRUCTION ON THE SUSQUEHANNA AND JUNIATA RIVERS, AND THE BALD EAGLE CREEK. tf WILLIS FLETCHER JOHNSON. ILLUSTRATED. EDGE WOOD PUBLISHING CO., 1889. Copyright, 18S9, by WILLIS FLETCHER JOPINSON. PREFACE. The summer of 1889 will ever be memorable for its appalling disasters by flood and flame. In that period fell the heaviest blow of the nineteenth century — a blow scarcely paralleled in the histories of civilized lands. Central Pennsylvania, a centre of industry, thrift and comfort, was desolated by floods unprecedented in the records of the great waters. On both sides of the Alle- ghenies these ravages were felt in terrific power, but on the western slope their terrors were infinitely multiplied by the bursting of the South Fork Reservoir, letting out millions of tons of water, which, rushing madly down the rapid descent of the Conemaugh Valley, washed out all its busy villages and hurled itself in a deadly torrent on the happy borough of Johnstown. The frightful aggravations which followed the coming of this torrent have waked the deepest sympathies of this nation and of the world, and the history is demanded in permanent form, for those of the present day, and for the generation to come. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. The Conemaugli Valley in Springtime — Johnstown and its Suburbs — Founded a Hundred Years ago — The Cambria Iron Works — His- tory of a Famous Industry — American Manufacturing Enterprise Exemplified — Making Bessemer Steel — Social and Educational Features — The Busiest City of its Size in the State, 15 CHAPTER II. Conemaugli Lake — Remains of an Old-time Canal System — Used for the Pleasure of Sportsmen — The Hunting and Fishing Club — Popular Distrust Growing into Indifference — The Old Cry of " Wolf! " — Building a Dam of Straw and Mud — Neglect Ripening into Fitness for a Catastrophe, 31 CHAPTER HI. Dawning of the Fatal Day — Darkness and Rain — Rumors of Evil — The Warning Voice Unheeded — A Whirlwind of Watery Death — Fate of a Faithful Telegrapher — What an Eye-Witness Saw — A Solid Wall of Water Rushing Down the Valley, 42 CHAPTER IV. The Pathway of the Torrent — Human Beings Swept away like Chaff — The Twilight of Terror — The Wreck of East Conemaugh — Annihilation of Woodvale — Locomotives Tossed about like Cockle-shells by the mighty Maelstrom, 51 CHAPTER V. "Johnstown is Annihilated" — Appearance of the Wreck — An Awfiil Sabbath SpecCacle — A Sea of Mud and Corpses — The City in a Gigantic Whirlpool — Strange Tokens of the Fury of the Flood — Scene from the Bridge — Sixty Acres of Debris — A Carnival of Slaughter, 66 vii viii CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. Pictures of the Flood Drawn by Eye-witnesses — A Score of Loco- motives Swallowed up — Railroad Cars Swept away — Engineers who would not Abandon their Posts — Awful Scenes from a Car Window — A Race for Life — Victims of the Flood, 81 CHAPTER VH. Some Heroes of the Flood — The Ride of Collins Graves at Williams- burg Recalled — John G. Parke's Heroic Warning — Gallant Self- sacrifice of Daniel Peyton — Mrs. Ogle, the Intrepid Telegraph Operator — Wholesale Life Saving by Miss Nina Speck, 97 CHAPTER VIII. Stories of Suffering — A Family Swept away at a Stroke — Beside a Sister's Corpse — A Bride Driven Mad — The Unidentified Dead — Courage in the Face of Death — Thanking God his Child had not Suffered — One Saved out of a Household of Thirteen — Five Saved out of Fifty-Five, 108 CHAPTER IX. Stories of Railroad Men and Travelers who were in the Midst of the Catastrophe — A Train's Race with the Wave — Houses Crushed like Eggshells — Relics of the Dead in the Tree tops — A Night of Horrors — Fire and Flood Commingled — Lives Lost for the Sake of a Pair of Shoes, ..,,,., 119 CHAPTER X. •Scenes in a House of Refuge — Stealing from the Dead — A Thousand Bodies seen Passing over the Bridge — " Kill us, or Rescue us ! " — Thrilling Escapes and Agonizing Losses — Children Born amid the Flood — A Night in Alma Hall — Saved through Fear, 135 CHAPTER XL The Flight to the Mountains — Saving a Mother and her Babe — The Hillsides Black with Refugees — An Engineer's Story — How the Dam gave away — Great Trees Snapped off like Pipe-stems by the Torrent, , . , I47 CONTENTS. IX CHAPTER XII. A Desperate Voyage — Scenes like those after a Great Battle- Mother and Babe Dead together — Praying as they Drifted to Destruction — Children Telling the Story of Death — Significant Greetings between Friends — Prepared for any News, 154 CHAPTER XIII. Salutations in the City of the Dead — Crowds at the Morgues — End- less Trains of Wagons with Ghastly Freight — Registering the Sur- vivors — Minds Unsettled by the Tragedy — Horrible Fragments of Humanity Scattered through Piles of Rubbish, 161 CHAPTER XIV. Recognizing the Dead — Food and Clothing for Destitute Survivors — Looking for the Lost — The Bereaved Burying their Dead — Drowned Close by a Place of Safety — A Heroic Editor — One who would not be Comforted, 171 CHAPTER XV. A Bird'seye View of the Ruined City — Conspicuous Features of the Disaster — The Railroad Lines — Stones and Iron Tossed about like Driftwood — An Army Officer's Valuable Services in Restor- ing and Maintaining Order, 179 CHAPTER XVI. Clearing a Road up the Creek — Fantastic Forms of Ruin — An Aban- doned Locomotive with no Rail to Run on — Iron Beams Bent like Willow Twigs — Night in the Valley — Scenes and Sounds of an Inferno, = 188 CHAPTER XVII. Sights that Greeted Visitors — Wreckage Along the Valley — Ruins of the Cambria Iron Works — A Carnival of Drink — Violence and Robbery — Camping on the Hillsides — Rich and Poor alike Benefit, 198 CHAPTER XVIII. The First Train Load of Anxious Seekers — Hoping against Hope — Many Instances of Heroism — Victims Seen Drifting down beyond the Reach of Help — Unavailing Efforts to Rescue the Prey of the Flood, 207 X CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIX. Newspaper Correspondents Making their Way in — The Railroads Helpless — Hiring a Special Train — Making Desperate Speed — First faces of the Flood — Through to Johnstown at Last, .... 2i6 CHAPTER XX. The Work of the Reporters — Strange Chronicles of Heroism and of Woe — Deadly Work of the Telegraph Wires — A Baby's Strange Voyage — Prayer wonderfully Answered — Steam against Torrent, 228 CHAPTER XXI. Human Ghouls and Vampires on the Scene — A Short Shrift for Marauders — Vigilance Committees Enforcing Order — Plunderers of the Dead Relentlessly Dispatched — Outbursts of Righteous Indig- nation, 238 CHAPTER XXII. The Cry for Help and the Nation's Answer — President Harrison's Eloquent and Effective Appeal — Governor Beaver's Message — A Proclamation by the Governor of New York — Action of the Com- missioner of Pensions — Help from over the Sea, 249 CHAPTER XXIII. The American Heart and Purse Opened Wide — A Flood of Gold against the Flood of Water — Contributions from every Part of the Country, in Sums Large and Small, « . • 265 CHAPTER XXIV. Benefactions of Philadelphia — Organization of Charity — Train loads of Food and Clothing — Generous spirit of Convicts in the Peni- tentiary — Contributions from over the Sea — Queen Victoria's sym- pathy — Letter from Florence Nightingale, 281 CHAPTER. XXV. Raising a Great Relief Fund in New York — Where the Money came from — Churches, Theatres and Prisons join in the good work — More than One Hundred Thousand Dollars a Day — A few Names from the Great Roll of Honor, , , , . , 292 CONTENTS. XI CHAPTER XXVI. page Breaking up the Ruins and Burying the Dead — Innumerable Funerals — The Use of Dynamite — The Holocaust at the Bridge — The Cam- bria Iron Works — Pulting out Ti-ees with Locomotives, 299 CHAPTER XXVII. Caring for the Sufferers — Noble Work of Miss Clara Barton and the Red Cross Society— A Peep into a Hospital — Finding Homes for the Or- phans — Johnstown Generous in its Woe — A Benevolent Eating House, 309 CHAPTER XXVIII. Recovering from the Blow — The Voice of the Locomotive Heard again — Scenes Day by Day amid the Ruins and at the Morgue — Strange Salvage from the Flood — A Family of Little Children, . . 319 CHAPTER XXIX. The City Filled with Life Again — Work and Bustle on Every Hand — Railroad Trains Coming In — Pathetic Meetings of Friends — Per- sistent Use of Dynamite to Break Up the Masses of Wreckage — The Daily Record of Work Amid the Dead, 341 CHAPTER XXX. Scenes at the Relief Stations — The Grand Army of the Republic in Command — Imposing Scenes at the Railroad Station — Cars Loaded with Goods for the Relief of the Destitute, 353 CHAPTER XXXI. General Hastings' Headquarters — Duties of the Military Staff — A Flood of Telegrams of Inquiry Pouring In — Getting the Post-office lo Work Again — Wholesale Embalming — The Morgue in the Pres- byterian Church — The Record of the Unknown Dead — A Com- memorative Newspaper Club, 358 CHAPTER XXXII. A Cross between a Military and a Mining Camp — Work of the Army Engineers — Equipping Constables — Pressure on the Telegraph Lines — Photographers not Encouraged — Sight-seers Turned Away — Strange Uses for Coffins', 370 CHAPTER XXXIIL Sunday Amid the Ruins — Services in One Church and in the Open Air — The Miracle at the Church of the Immaculate Conception — Few Women and Children Seen — Disastrous Work of Dynamite— A Happy Family in the Wreck, 378 xii CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXXIV. fagb Plans for the Future of Johnstown — The City to be Rebuilt on a Fin» Scale than Ever Before — A Real Estate Boom Looked For — En- larging the Conemaugh — Views of Capitalists, .* 387 CHAPTER XXXV. Well-known People who Narrowly Escaped the Flood — Mrs. Hal- ford's Experience — Mrs. Childs Storm-bound — Tales Related by Travelers — A Theatrical Company's Plight, 393 CHAPTER XXXVI. The Ubiquitous Reporter Getting There — Desperate Traveling through a Storm-swept Country — Special Trains and Special Teams — Climb- ing Across the Mountains — Rest for the Weary in a Hay Mow, . . 402 CHAPTER XXXVII. The Reporter's Life at Johnstown — Nothing to Eat, but Much to Do- Kindly Remembrances of a Kindly Friend — Driven from Bed by Rats — Three Hours of Sleep in Seventy-two — A Picturesque Group, 410 CHAPTER XXXVIII. Williamsport's Great Losses — Flooded with Thirty-four Feet of Water — Hundreds of Millions of Feet of Lumber Swept Away — Loss of Life — Incidents of Rescue and of Death — The Story of Garret Crouse and his Gray Horse, 421 CHAPTER XXXIX. The Juniata Valley Ravaged by the Storm — Losses at Tyrone, Hunt- ingdon and Lewistown — Destruction at Lock Haven — A Baby's Voyage Down Stream — Romantic Story of a Wedding, 435 CHAPTER XL. The Floods along the Potomac — The National Capital Submerged — A Terrible Record in Maryland — Gettysburg a Sufferer — Tidings of Devastation from Many Points in Several States, 444 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, Map of the Deluged Conemaugh District, i Johnstown as Left by the Flood, 19 Ruins of Johnstown Viewed from Prospect Hill, 37 General View of the Ruins, Looking up Stony Creek, . . . -55 Ruins, Showing the Path of the Flood, 73 Typical Scene in Johnstown, 91 Johnstown — View Corner of Main and Clinton Streets, . . 109 View on Clinton Street, Johnstown, 127 Main and Clinton Streets, Looking Southwest, 145 Ruins, corner of Clinton and Main Streets, 163 Ruins, from Site of the Hulburt House, 181 The Debris above the Pennsylvania Railroad Bridge, . . . 199 Ruins of the Cambria Iron Works, 217 Ruins of the Cambria Iron Company's Store, 235 Third Street, Williamsport, Pa., During the Flood, .... 253 Wreck of the Iron Bridge at Williamsport, Pa., 271 Wreck of the Lumber Yards at Williamsport, Pa., 289 xiii XIV LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. FASE 250,000,000 Feet of Logs Afloat in the Susquehanna 307 Last Trains in and out of Harrisburg, 325 Columbia, Pa., under the Flood, 343 Pennsylvania Avenue at Sixth Street, Washington, D. C, . 361 Seventh Street, Washington, D. C, in the Flood, 379 Fourteenth Street, Washington, D. C, in the Flood, . . . 397 The Flood in Washington, D. C, Opposite Harris's Theatre, . 415 CHAPTER I. Springtime in the mountains. Graceful slopes and frowning precipices robed in darkest green of hemlock and spruce. Open fields here and there verdant with young grass and springing grain, or moist and brown beneath the plow for the plant- ing time. Hedgerow and underwood fragrant with honeysuckle and wild blackberry bloom ; violets and geraniums purpling the forest floor. Conemaugh creek and Stony creek dash and plunge and foam along their rocky channels to where they unite their waters and form the Cone- maugh river, hastening down to the Ohio, to the Mississippi, to the Mexican Gulf. Trout and pick- erel and bass flash their bronze and silver armor in the sparkling shallows of the streams and in the sombre and placid depths of the lake up yonder behind the old mud dam. Along the val- ley of the Conemaugh are ranged villages, towns, cities : Conemaugh, Johnstown, Cambria, Sang Hollow, Nineveh, and others, happy and prosper- 15 I 6 THE. JOHNS TO WN FL OD. ous, Conemaugh nestles at the very foot of the Alleghenies ; all railroad trains eastward bound stop there to catch their breath before beginning the long climb up to Altoona. Sang Hollow nestles by the river amid almost tropical luxuri- ance of vegetation ; yon little wooded islet in mid- stream a favorite haunt of fishermen. Nineveh is rich in bog iron and coal, and the whirr of the mill-wheel is heard. Johnstown, between the two creeks at their junction, is the queen city of the valley. On either side the creek, and beyond, the steep mountain sides ; behind, the narrow valley reaching twenty miles back to the lake ; before, the Conemaugh river just beginning its romantic course. Broken hillsides streaked with torrents encompass it. Just a century ago was Johnstown founded by one Joseph Johns, a German settler. Before then its beauteous site was occupied by an Indian village, Kickenapawling. Below this was the head of navigation on the Conemaugh. Hither came the wap^oners of the Alleghenies, with huo-e wains piled high with merchandise from seaboard cities, and placed it on flat-bottomed boats and started it down the river-way to the western mar- kets. The merchandise came up from Philadel- phia and Baltimore by river, too ; up the Susque- hanna and Juniata, to the eastern foot-hills, and there was a great portage from the Juniata to the Conemaugh ; the Kittanning Trail, then the Franks THE JOHNS TO IV N FL OOD. I 7 town Turnpike. Later came the great trunk rail- road whose express trains now go roaring down the valley, Johnstown is — nay, Johnstown was ! — a busy and industrious place. The people of the town were the employees of the Cambria Iron and Steel Company, their families, and small storekeepers. There was not one rich man in the town. Three- quarters of the 28,000 people lived in small frame tenement houses on the flats by the river around the works of the Cambria Company, The Cam- bria Company owns almost all the land, and the business and professional men and the superin- tendents of the company live on the hills away up from the creeks. The creeks become the Cone- maugh river right at the end of the town, near where the big stone Pennsylvania Railroad bridge crosses the river. The borough of Johnstown was on the south bank of Conemau^h creek, and the east bank of Stony creek, right in the fork. It had only about a third of the population of the place. It had never been incorporated with the surrounding- villages, as the Cambria Company, which ovv^ned most of the villages and only part of Johnstown, did not wish to have them consolidated into one city. Conemaughwas the largest village on the creek between the lake and Johnstown, It is often 1 8 THE JOHNSTO WN FL O OD. spoken of as part of Johnstown, though its rail- road station is two or three miles up the creek from the Johnstown station. The streets of the two towns run into each other, and the space between the two stations is well built up along the creek. Part of the Cambria Iron and Steel Company's works are at Conemaugh, and five or six thou- sand of the workinemen and their families lived there. The business was done in Johnstown borough, where almost all the stores of Johns- town city were. The works of the Cambria Company were strung along from here down into Johnstown proper. They were slightly isolated to prevent a hre in one spreading to the others, and because there was not much flat land to build on. The Pennsylvania road runs along the river, and the works were built beside it. Between Conemaugh and Johnstown borough was a strino- of tenements along- the river which was called Woodvale. Possibly 3000 workmen lived in them. They were slightly built of wood, many of them without cellars or stone foundations. There were somxe substantially built houses in the borougrh at the fork. Here the fiats widen out somewhat, and they had been still further increased in extent by the Cambria Company, which filled up part of the creek beds with refuse and the ashes from their works. This narrowed the beds THE JOHNSTO WN FL OOD. 21 of the creeks. The made land was not far above the water at ordinary times. Even during the ordinary spring- floods tlie waters rose so high that It flowed into the ceUars of the tenements, and at times into the works. The natural land was occupied by the business part of the town, where the stores were and the storekeepers had their residences. The borough had a population of about 9000. On the north bank of the river were a third as many more people living in tene- ments built and owned by the Cambria Company. Further down, below the junction of the two creeks, along both banks of the Conemaugh river, were about 4000 employees of the Cam- bria Company and their families. The place where they lived was called Cambria or Cambria City. All these villages and boroughs made up what Is known as the city of Johnstown. The Cambria Company employed about 4000 men In its works and mines. Besides these were some railroad shops, planing mills, flour mills,, several banks and newspapers. Only the men employed by the Cambria Company and their families lived on the flats and made ground. The Cambria Company owned all this land, and made it a rule not to sell it, but to lease it. The com- pany put rows of two-story frame tenements close together, on their land close to the works, the cheaper class of tenements in solid blocks, to 2 2 THE JOHNSTO WN FL O OD. cheapen their construction. The better tenements were separate buildings, with two famihes to the house. The tenements rented for from ^5 to ^15 a month, and cost possibly, on the average, $500 to build. They were all of wood, many of them without cellars, and were built as cheaply as pos- sible. The timbers were mostly pine, light and inflammable. It was not an uncommon thing for a fire to break out and to burn one or two rows of tenements. But the different rows were not closely bunched, but were sprinkled around in patches near the separate works, and it was cheaper for the company to rebuild occasionally than to put up brick houses. Besides owning the flats, the Cambria Company owned the surrounding hills. In one of the hills is limestone, in another coal, and there is iron ore not far away. The company has narrow-gauge roads runnino- from its mines down to the works. o The city was at the foot of these three hills, which meet in a double V shape. Conemaugh creek flowing down one and Stony creek flowing down the other. The hills are not so far distant that a man with a rifle on any one could not shoot to either of the others. They are several hundred feet high and so steep that roads run up them by a series of zigzag grades. Few people live on these hills except on a small rise of ground across the river from Johnstown. In some places the THE JOHNSTO WiY FL OOD. 23 company has leased the land for dwelling houses, but It retains the ownership of the land and of the coal, iron and limestone in it. The flats having all been occupied, the company In recent years had put up some tenements of a better class on the north bank of the river, higher up than the flood reached. The business part of the town also was higher up than the works and the tene- ments of the company. In normal times the river is but a few hundred feet wide. The bottom is stony. The current is so fast that there is little deposit along the bank. It is navigable at no time, though in the spring a good canoeist might go down It if he could steer clear of the rocks. In the summer the volume of water diminishes so much that a boy with a pair of rubber boots on can wade across without get- ting his feet wet, and there have been times when a good jumper could cross the river on the dry stones. Below Johnstown, after Stony creek has joined the Conemaugh creek, the volume of water increases, but the Conemaugh throughout its whole leno-th Is nothino; but a mountain stream, dry in the summer and roaring In the spring. It runs down Into the KIskiminltas river and into the Allegheny river, and then on to Pittsburgh. It is over TOO miles from Johnstown to Pittsburgh fol- lowing the windlnos of the river, twice as far as the stralg-ht line. o 24 THE JOHNSTO WN FL O OD. Johnstown was one of the busiest towns of its size in the State, Its tonnage over the Pennsyl- vania and Baltimore and Ohio roads was larger than the tonnage of many cities three times its size. The Iron and Steel Company is one of the largest iron and steel corporations in the world. It had its main rolling mills, Bessemer steel works, and wire works at Johnstown, though it also has works in other places, and owns ore and coal mines and leases in the South, in Michigan, and in Spain, besides its Pennsylvania works. It had in Johnstown and the surrounding villages 4000 or 5000 men usually at work. In flush times it has employed more than 6000. So important was the town from a railroad point of view that the Balti- more and Ohio ran a branch from Rockwood, on its main line to Pittsburgh, up to Johnstown, forty- five miles. It was one of the main freight stations on the Pennsylvania road, though the passenger business was so small in proportion that some ex- press trains do not stop there. The Pennsylvania road recently put up a large brick station, which was one of the few brick buildings on the flats. Some of the Cambria Company's offices were also of brick, and there was a brick lodging house for young men in the employ of the company. The Pennsylvania road had repair shops there, which employed a few hundred men, and the Baltimore and Ohio branch had some smaller shops. THE JOHNS TO WN FL OOD. 25 Johnstown had several CathoHc and Presbyte- rian, Methodist, Baptist, and Lutheran churches. It had several daily and weekly papers. The chief were the Tribune, the Democrat, and the Freie Presse. The Cambria Iron Works, the great industry of Johnstown, originated in a few widely separated charcoal furnaces built by pioneer iron workers in the early years of the century. As early as 1803 General Arthur St. Clair engaged in the iron business, and erected the Hermitage furnace about sixteen miles from the present site of Johnstown. In 1809 the working of ores was begun near Johnstown. These were primitive furnaces, where charcoal was the only fuel employed, and the raw material and product were transported entirely on wagons, but they marked the beginning of the manufacture of iron in this country. The Cambria Iron Company was chartered under the general law in 1852, for the operation of four old-fashioned charcoal furnaces in and near Johnstown, which was then a village of 1300 in- habitants, to which the Pennsylvania railroad had just been extended. In 1853 the construction of four coke furnaces was begun, but it was two years before the first was finished. England was then shipping rails into this country under a low duty, and the iron industry here was struggling for existence. The company at Johnstown was 2 6 THE JOHNS TO VVN FLOOD. aided by a number of Philadelphia merchants, but was unable to continue in business, and suspended in 1854. At a meeting of the creditors in Phila- delphia soon afterward a committee was appointed, with Daniel J. Morrell as Chairman, to visit the works at Johnstown and recommend the best means, if any, to save themselves from loss. In his report, Mr. Morrell strongly urged the Phila- delphia creditors to invest more money and con- tinue the business. They did so, and Matthew Newkirk was made President of the company. The company again failed in 1855, and Mr. Mor- rell then associated a number of gentlemen with him, and formed the firm of Wood, Morrell & Co., leasing the works for seven years. The year 1856 was one of great financial depression, and 1857 was worse, and, as a further discouragement, the large furnace was destroyed by fire in June, 1857. In one week, however, the works were in operation again, and a brick building was soon constructed. When the war came, and with it the Morrill tariff of 1861, a broader field was opened up, and in 1862 the present company was formed. The years following the close of the war brought about an unprecedented revival in railroad build- ing. In 1864 there were but 33,908 miles of rail- road in the United States, while in 1874 there were 72,741 miles, or more than double. There was a great demand for English steel rails, which ad- THE JOHNS TO WN FL OOD. 2 J vanced to $170 per ton. Congress imposed a duty of ^28 a ton on foreign rails, and encour- aged American manufacturers to go into the busi- ness. The Cambria Company began the erection of Bessemer steel works in 1869, and sold the first steel rails in 1871, at $104 a ton. The company had 700 dwelling-houses, rented to employees. The works and rolling mills of the company were situated upon what was originally a river fiat, where the valley of the Conemaugh expanded somewhat, just below Johnstown, and now part of Millville. The Johnstown furnaces, Nos. I, 2, 3 and 4, formed one complete plant, with stacks 75 feet high and 16 feet in diameter at the base. Steam was generated in forty boilers fired by furnace gas, for eight vertical, direct-acting blowing engines. Nos. 5 and 6 blast furnaces formed together a second plant, with stacks 75 feet high and 19 feet in diameter. The Bessemer plant was the sixth started in the United States (July, 1871). The main building was 102 feet in width by 165 feet in length. The cupolas were six in number. Blast was supplied from eight Baker rotary pressure blowers, driven by engines 16x24 inches at iio revolutions per minute. The Bessemer works were supplied with steam by a battery of twenty-one tubular boilers. The best average, although not the very highest work done in the Bessemer department, was 103 heats 2 8 THE JOHNS TO WN FL O OD. of 8^ tons each for each twenty-four hours. The best weekly record reached 4847 tons of ingots, and the best monthly record 20,304 tons. The best daily output was 900 tons of ingots. All grades of steel were made in the converters, from the softest wire and bridge stock to spring stock. The open-hearth building, 120X 155 feet, contain- ing three Pernot revolvino- hearth furnaces of fif- teen tons capacity each, supplied with natural gas. The rolling mill was 100 feet in width by 1900 feet in length, and contained a 24-inch train of two stands of three-high rolls, and a ten-ton trav- eling crane for changing rolls. The product of the mill was 80,000 pounds per turn. The bolt and nut works produced 1000 kegs of finished track bolts per month, besides machine bolts. The capacity of the axle shop was 100 finished steel axles per day. The " Gautier steel depart- ment" consisted of a brick building 200 x 50 feet, where the wire was annealed, drawn and finished ; a brick warehouse 373x43 feet, many shops, offices, etc. ; the barb-wire mill, 50 x 250 feet, where the celebrated Cambria link barb wire was made, and the main merchant mill, 725 x 250 feet. These mills produced wire, shafting, springs, plough- shares, rake and harrow teeth, and other kinds of agricultural implement steel. In 1887 they pro- duced 50,000 tons of this material, which was marketed mainly in the Western States. Grouped THE JOHNS TO WN FLOOD. 29. with the principal mills thus described were the foundries, pattern and other shops, draughting offices and time offices, etc., all structures of a firm and substantial character. The company operated about thirty-five miles of railroad tracks, employing in this service twenty- four locomotives, and owned 1500 cars. To the large bodies of mountain land connected with the old charcoal furnaces additions have been made of ores and coking coals, and the company now owns in fee simple 54,423 acres of mineral lands. It has 600 beehive coke ovens in the Connellsville district, and the coal producing capacity of the mines in Pennsylvania owned by the company is 815,000 tons per year. In continuation of the policy of Daniel J. Mor- rell, the Cambria Iron Company has done a great deal for its employees. The Cambria Library was erected by the Iron Company and presented to the town. The building was 43 x 68^ feet, and con- tained a library of 6914 volumes. It contained a large and valuable collection of reports of the United States and the State, and it is feared that they have been greatly damaged. The Cambria Mutual Benefit Association is composed of em- ployees of the company, and is supported by it. The employees receive benefits when sick or injured, and in case of death their families are provided for. The Board of Directors of this association 30 THE JOHNS TO WN FL OD. also controls the Cambria Hospital, which was erected by the Iron Company in 1866, on Prospect Hill, in the northern part of the town. The com- pany also maintained a club house, and a store which was patronized by others, as well as by its employees. CHAPTER II. Twenty miles up Conemaugh creek, beyond the workingmen's villages of South Fork and Mineral Point, was Conemaugh lake. It was a part of the old and long disused Pennsylvania Canal system. At the head of Conemaugh creek, back among the hills, three hundred feet or more above the level of Johnstown streets, was a small, natural lake. When the canal was building, the engineers took this lake to supply the western division of the canal which ran from there to Pitts- burgh. The Eastern division ended at Hollidays- burgh east of the summit of the Alleghanies, where there was a similar reservoir. Between the two was the old Portage road, one of the first railroads constructed in the State. The canal was abandoned some years ago, as the Pennsylvania road destroyed its traffic. The Pennsylvania Company got a grant of the canal from the State. Some years after the canal was abandoned the Hollidaysburgh reservoir was torn down, the 31 3 2 THE JOHNS TO WN FLOOD. water gradually escaping into the Frankstown branch of the Juniata river. The people of the neighborhood objected to the existence of the reservoir after the canal was abandoned, as little attc ntion was paid to the structure, and the farmers in the valley below feared that the dam would break and drown them. The water was all let out of that reservoir about three years ago. The dam above Johnstown greatly increased the small natural lake there. It was a pleasant drive from Johnstown to the reservoir. Boating and fishing parties often went out there. Near the reservoir is Cresson, a summer resort owned by the Pennsylvania road. Excursion parties are made up in the summer time by the Pennsylvania Company, and special trains are run for them from various points to Cresson. A club called the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club was organ- ized some years ago, and got the use of the lake from the Pennsylvania Company. Most of the members of the club live in Pittsburgh, and are prominent iron and coal men. Besides them there are some of the officials of the Pennsylvania road among the members. They increased the size of the dam until it was not far from a hundred feet in height, and its entire length, from side to side at the top, was not far from nine hundred feet. This increased the size of the lake to three miles in length and a mile and a quarter in width. It THE JOHNS TO WN FLOOD. 33 was an irregular oval in shape. The volume of water in it depended on the time of the year. Some of the people of Johnstown had thought for years that the dam might break, but they did not think that its breaking would do more than flood the flats and damage the Vv^orks of the Cam- bria Company. When the Hunting and Fishing Club bought the site of the old reservoir a section of 150 feet had been washed out of the middle. This was rebuilt at an expense of ^17,000 and the work was thought to be very strong. At the base it was ■ii'^o feet thick and gradually tapered until at the top it was about 35 feet thick. It was con- sidered amply secure, and such faith had the mem- bers of the club in its stability that the top of the dam was utilized as a driveway. It took two years to complete the work, men being engaged from '79 to '81. While it was under process of con- struction the residents of Johnstown expressed some fears as to the solidity of the work, and requested that it be examined by experts. An engineer of the Cambria Iron Works, secured through Mr. Morrell, of that institution, one pro- vided by Mr. Pitcairn, of the Pennsylvania Rail- road, and Nathan McDowell, chosen by the club itself, made a thorough examination. They pro- nounced the structure perfectly safe, but suggested some precautionary measures as to the stopping 3 4 '^HE JOHNSTOWN FL OD. of leaks, that were faithfully carried out. The members of the club themselves discovered that the sewer that carried away the surplus or over- flow from the lake was not large enough in times of storm. So five feet of solid rock were cut away in order to increase the mouth of the lake. Usually the surface of the water was 15 feet below the top of the dam, and never in recent years did it rise to more than eight feet. In 1881, when work was going on, a sudden rise occurred, and then the water threatened to do what it did on this occasion. The workmen hastened to the scene and piled debris of all sorts on the top and thus prevented a washout. For more than a year there had been fears of a disaster. The foundations of the dam at South Fork were considered shaky early in 1888, and many Increasing leakages were reported from time to time. "We were afraid of that lake," said a gentle- man who had lived in Johnstown for years ; " We were afraid of that lake seven years ago. No one could see the immense height to which that artificial dam had been built without fearino- the tremendous power of the water behind It. The dam must have had a sheer height of 100 feet, thus forcing the water that high above its natural bed, and making a lake at least three miles long and a mile wide, out of what could scarcely be THE JOHNS TO WN FLOOD. 35 called a pond. I doubt if there is a man or woman in Johnstown who at some time or other had not feared and spoken of the terrible disaster that has now come. " People wondered, and asked why the dam was not strengthened, as it certainly had become weak ; but nothing was done, and by and by they talked less and less about it, as nothing happened, though now and then some would shake their heads as if conscious the fearful day would come some time when their worst fears would be tran- scended by the horror of the actual occurrence." There is not a shadow of doubt but that the citizens of Cambria County frequently complained, and that at the time the dam was constructed a vigorous effort was made to put a stop to the work. It is true that the leader in this movement was not a citizen of Johnstown, but he was and is a large mine owner in Cambria County. His mine ad- joins the reservoir property. He was frequently on the spot, and his own engineer inspected the work. He says the embankment was principally of shale and clay, and that straw was used to stop the leaking of water while the work was going on. He called on the sheriff of Cambria County and told him it was his duty to apply to the court for an injunction. The sheriff promised to give the matter his attention, but, instead of going before court, went to the Cambria Company for consul- 3 6 THE JOHNS TO WN FL OD. tatlon. An employee was sent up to make an in- spection, and as his report was favorable to the res- ervoir work the sheriff went no further. But the gentleman referred to said that he had not failed to make public his protest at the time and to re- new it frequently. This recommendation for an injunction and protest were spoken of by citizens of Altoona as a hackneyed subject. Confirmation has certainly been had at South Fork, Conemaugh, Millvale and Johnstown. The rumor of an expected break was prevalent at these places, but citizens remarked that the rumor was a familiar incident of the annual freshets. It was the old classic story of " Wolf, wolf." They gave up the first floors to the water and retired up- stairs to wait until the river should recede, as they had done often before, scouting the oft-told story of the breaking of the reservoir. An interesting story, involving the construction and history of the Conemaugh lake dam, was related by J. B, Montgomery, who formerly lived in West- ern Pennsylvania, and is now well known in the W^est as a railroad contractor. " The dam," said he, " was built about thirty-five years ago by the State of Pennsylvania, as a feeder for the western division of the Pennsylvania Canal. The plans and specifications for the dam were furnished by the Chief Enorineer of the State. I am not sure, but it is my impression, that Colonel William Mil- THE JOHNS TO WN FL OOD. 39 nor Roberts held the office at the time. Colonel Roberts was one of the most famous engineers in the country. He died several years ago in Chili. The contractors for the construction of the dam were General J. K. Moorhead and Judge H. B. Packer, of Williamsport, a brother of Governor Packer. General Moorhead had built many dams before this on the rivers of Pennsylvania, and his work was always known to be of the very best. In this case, however, all that he had to do was to build the dam according to the specifications fur- nished by the State. The dam was built of stone and wood throughout, and was of particularly solid construction. There is no significance in the discovery of straw and dirt among the ruins of the dam. Both are freely used when dams are being built, to stop the numerous leaks. " The dam had three waste-gates at the bottom, so arranged that they could be raised when there was too much water in the lake, and permit the escape of the surplus. These gates were in big stone arches, through which the water passed to the canal when the lake was used as a feeder. "In 1859 the Pennsylvania Railroad Company purchased the canal from the State, and the dam and lake went into the possession of that company. Shortly afterward the Pennsylvania Company abandoned the western division of the canal, and the dam became useless as a feeder. For twenty- 3 40 THE JOHNS TO WN FLOOD. five years the lake was used only as a fish-pond, and the dam and the ^ates were forg-otten. Five years ago the lake was leased to a number of Pittsburgh men, who stocked it with bass, trout, and other game fish. I have heard it said that the waste-gates had not been opened for a great many years. If this is so, no wonder the dam broke. Naturally the fishermen did not want to open the gates after the lake was stocked, for the fish would have run out. A sluiceway should have been built on the side of the dam, so that when the water reached a certain height the surplus could escape. The dam was not built with the intention that the water should flow over the top of it under any circumstances, and if allowed to escape in that way the water was bound to undermine it in a short time. With a dam the heio;"ht of this the pressure of a quantity of water great enough to overflow it must be something- tremendous. "If it is true that the waste-gates were never opened after the Pittsburgh men had leased the lake, the explanation of the bursting of the dam is to be found right there. It may be that the dam had not been looked after and strengthened of late years, and it was undoubtedly weakened in the period of twenty-five years during which the lake was not used. After the construction of the dam the lake was called the Western Reservoir. The south fork of the Conemaugh, which fed the THE JOHNS TO WN FLO OD. 4 1 lake, is a little stream not over ten feet wide, but even when there were no unusual storms it carried enough water to fill the lake full within a year, showing how important it was that the gates should be opened occasionally to run off the surplus." Mr. Montgomery was one of a party of engi- neers who inspected the dam when it was leased by the Pennsylvania Company, five years ago. It then needed repairs, but was in a perfectly safe condition if the water was not allowed to flow over it. CHAPTER III. Friday, May 31st, 1889. The day before had been a solemn holiday. In every village veterans of the War for the Union had gathered ; in every cemetery flowers had been strewn upon the grave- mounds of the heroic dead. Now the people were resuming the every-day toil. The weather was rainy. It had been wet for some days. Stony Creek and Conemaugh were turbid and noisy. The litde South Fork, which ran into the upper end of the lake, was swollen into a raging tor- rent. The lake was ' higher than usual ; higher than ever. But the valley below lay in fancied security, and all the varied activities of life pur- sued their wonted round, Friday, May 31st, 1889. Record that awful date in characters of funereal hue. It was a dark and stormy day, and amid the darkness and the storm the angel of death spread his wings over the fated valley, unseen, unknown. Midday comes. Disquiedng rumors rush down the val- ley. There is a roar of an approaching storm — 42 THE JOHNS TO WN FLOOD. 43 approaching doom ! The water swiftly rises. A horseman thunders down the valley: "To the hills, for God's sake ! To the hills, for your lives ! " They stare at him as at a madman, and their hesitating feet linger in the valley of the shadow of death, and the shadow swiftly darkens, and the everlasting hills veil their faces with rain and mist before the scene that greets them. This is what happened : — The heavy rainfall raised the lake until its water began to pour over the top of the dam. The dam itself — wretchedly built of mud and boulders — saturated through and through, began to leak copiously here and there Each watery sapper and miner burrowed on, followers swiftly enlaro-inof the murderous tunnels. The whole mass became honeycombed. And still the rain poured down, and still the South Fork and a hundred minor streams sent in their swelling floods, until, with a roar like that of the opening eates of the Inferno belchingf forth the les^ions of the damned, the wall gave way, and with the rush of a famished tiger into a sheepfold, the whirlwind of water swept down the valley on its errand of destruction — " And like a horse unbi-oken, When first he feels the rein, The furious river struggled hard, And tossed his tawny mane, 44 THE JOHNS TO WN FL OD, And burst the curb, and bounded, Rejoicing to be free, And, whirling down in mad career. Battlement and plank and pier, Rushed headlong to the sea ! " According to the statements of people who lived in Johnstown and other towns on the line of the river, ample time was given to the inhabitants of Johnstown by the railroad officials and by other gentlemen of standing and reputation. In hun- dreds of cases this warning was utterly disre- garded, and those who heeded it early in the day were looked upon as cowards, and many jeers were uttered by lips that now are cold. The people of Johnstown also had a special warning in the fact that the dam in Stony Creek, just above the town, broke about noon, and thousands of feet of lumber passed down the river. Yet they hesi- tated, and even when the wall of water, almost forty feet high, was at their doors, one man is said by a survivor to have told his family that the stream would not rise very high. How sudden the calamity is illustrated by an incident which Mr. Bender, the night chief opera- tor of the Western Union in Pittsburgh, relates: "At 3 o'clock that Friday afternoon," said he, "the girl operator at Johnstown was cheerfully ticking away that she had to abandon the office on the first floor, because the water was three feet deep THE JOHNSTO VVN FLOOD. 45 there. She said she was telegraphing from the second story and the water was gaining steadily. She was frightened, and said many houses were flooded. This was evidently before the dam broke, for our man here said something encouraging to her, and she was talking back a-s only a cheerful girl operator can, when the receiver's skilled ear caught a sound on the wire made by no human hand, which told him that the wires had grounded, or that the house had been swept away in the flood from the lake, no one knows which now. At 3 o'clock the girl was there, and at 3.07 we might as well have asked the grave to answer us." The water passed over the dam about a foot above its top, beginning at about half-past 2. Whatever happened in the way of a cloud-burst took place in the night. There had been little rain up to dark. When the workmen woke in the morning the lake was full, and rising at the rate of a foot an hour. It kept on rising until 2 p. m., when it began breaking^ over the dam and under- minino- it. Men were sent three or four times during the day to warn people below of their dan- ger. When the final break came at 3 o'clock, there was a sound like tremendous and continued peals of thunder. Trees, rocks and earth shot up into mid -air in great columns and then started down the ravine. A farmer who escaped said that the water did not come down like a wave, but 46 THE JOHNSTO WN FL OD. jumped on his house and beat it to fragments in an instant. He was safe on the hillside, but his wife and two children were killed. Herbert Webber, who was employed by the Sportsmen's Club at the lake, tells that for three ' days previous to the final outburst, the water of the lake forced itself out through the interstices of the masonry, so that the front of the dam re- sembled 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, particu- larly three of them, more nearly resembled tor- rents 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 that Friday morning, Webber says he was attending to a camp about a mile back from the dam, when he noticed that the sur- face 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 undoubt- edly well founded. He ran across the country to the dam, and there saw, he declares, the water of the lake wellinof out from beneath the foundation stones 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 JOHNS TO WN FL OOD. 47 According to his reckoning it was 2.45 when the stones in the centre of the dam began to sink because of the undermining, and within eight min- utes 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 stu- pendous power. By 3 o'clock the toppling masonry, which before had partaken somewhat of the form of an arch, fell in, and then the re- mainder 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 recov- ered sufficient power of observation to notice this, but he does not think that more than five minutes passed. Webber says that had the dam been re- paired after the spring freshet of 1888 the disaster would not have occurred. Had it been g-iven ordi- o nary attention in the spring of 1887 the probabili- ties are that thousands of lives would have been saved. Imagine, if you can, a solid piece of ground, thirty-five feet wide and over one hundred feet high, and then, again, that a space of two hundred feet is cut out of it, through which is rushing over 48 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. seven hundred acres of water, and you can have only a faint conception of the terrible force of the blow that came upon the people of this vicinity like a clap of thunder out of a clear sky. It was irre- sistible in its power and carried everything before it. After seeing the lake and the opening through the dam it can be readily understood how that out- break came to be so destructive in its character. The lake had been leaking, and a couple of Ital- ians were at work just over the point where the break occurred, and in an instant, without warning, it gave way and they went down in the whirling mass of water, and were swept into eternity. Mr. Crouse, proprietor of the South Fork Fish- ing Club Hotel, says: "When the dam of Cone- maugh lake broke the water seemed to leap, scarcely touching the ground. It bounded down the valley, crashing and roaring, carrying every- thing before it. For a mile its front seemed like a solid wall twenty feet high." The only warning given to Johnstown was sent from South Fork village by Freight Agent Dechert. When the great ivalL that held the body of water began to crujnble at the top he sent a message begging the people of Johns town for God's sake to take to the hills. He reports no serious accidents at South Fork. Richard Davis ran to Prospect Hill when the water raised. As to Mr. Dechert's message, he THE JOHNS TO WN FLOOD. 49 says just such have been sent down at each flood since the lake was made. The wamiing so often proved useless thai little attention was paid to it this time. "I cannot describe the mad rush," he said, "At first it looked like dust. That must have been the spray. I could see houses going down before it like a child's play blocks set on edge in a row. As it came nearer I could see houses totter for a moment, then rise and the next moment be crushed like ^//,fj- (cash), $100; cash items, ^321.20; Ben- nett Building, I105. Shortly after the opening of the New York Stock Exchange a subscription was started for the benefit of the Johnstown sufferers. The Govern- Inof Committee of the Exchano^e made Albert King treasurer of the Exchange Relief Fund, and, although many leading members were absent from the floor, as is usual on Monday at this sea- son of the year, the handsome sum of ^14,520 was contributed by the brokers present at the close of business. Among the subscriptions re- ceived were : Vermilye & Co., ^1,000; Moore & Schley, $1,0005 L. Von Hoffman & Co., $500; N. S. Jones, $500; Speyer & Co., $500; Homans & Co., $500; Work, Strong & Co., $250 ; Washington E. Connor, $250 ; Van Emberg & Atter- bury, $250; Simon Borg & Co., $250; Chauncey & Gwynne Bros., ^250; John D. Slayback, $250; Woerishoffer & Co., ^250; S. V. White, $250; I. & S. Wormser, ^250; Henry Clevvs & Co., $250; Ladenberg, Thalmann & Co., $250; John H. Davis & Co., ;^20o; Jones, Kennett & Hopkins, $200; H. B. Goldschmidt, $200; other subscriptions, $7,170. Generosity rose higher still on Tuesday. Early in the day ^5,000 was received by cable from the London Stock Exchange. John S. Kennedy 2 g 5 THE yOHNSTO WN FL OD. also sent $5,000 from London. John Jacob Astor subscribed $2,500 and William Astor $1,000. Other contributions received at the Mayor's office were these : Archbishop Corrigan, ^250 ; Straiten & Storm, ^250; Bliss, Fabyan & Co., ;^5oo; Funk & Wagnalls, ^100 ; Nathan Straus, ^1,000; Sidney Dillon, $500; Winslow, Lanier & Co., ^1,000 ; Henry Hilton, $5,000 ; R. J. Livingston, ;^i,ooo ; Peter Marie, ;^ioo ; The Dick & Meyer Co., Wm. Dick, President, $r,ooo ; Decastro & Donner Sugar Refining Co., |i,ooo; Havemeyers & Elder Sugar Refining Co., ;g 1,000 ; Frederick Gallatin, $500 ; Continental National Bank, from Directors, $1,000 ; F. O. Mattiessen& Wiechers' Sugar Refining Co., $1,000 ; Phelps, Dodge & Co., $2,500 ; Knickerbocker Ice Co., $1,000 ; First National Bank, $1,000; Apollinaris Water Co., London, $1,000 ; W. & J. Sloane, $1,000; Tefi"t, Weller & Co., $500 ; New York Stock Ex- change, $20,000 ; Board of Trade, $1,000 ; Central Trust Co., $1,000 ; Samuel Sloan, $200. The following contributions were made in ten minutes at a special meeting of the Chamber of Commerce : Brown Brothers & Co., $2,500 ; Morton, Bliss & Co., $1,000 ; H. B. Claflin & Co., $2,000; Percy R. Pyne, $1,000; Fourth National Bank, $1,000 ; E. D. Morgan & Co., $1,000 ; C. S. Smith, $500 ; J. M. Ceballas, $500 ; Barbour Brothers & Co., $500 ; Naumberg, Kraus & Co., $500 ; Thos. F. Rowland, $500 ; Bliss, Fabyan & Co., $500 ; William H. Parsons & Co., $250 ; Smith, Hogg & Gardner, $250 ; Doe- run Lead Company, $250 ; A. R. Whitney & Co., $250 ; Williams & Peters, $100 ; Joy, Langdon & Co., $250 ; B. L. Solomon's Sons, $100 ; D. F. Hiernan, $100; A. S. Rosen- THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 297 baum, ^100 ; Henry Rice, |ioo ; Parsons & Petitt, ^100 ; Thomas H. Wood & Co., ^100 ; T. B. Coddington, ^100 ; John I. Howe, ^50 ; John Bigelow, $50 ; Morrison, Herri- man & Co., ^250 ; Frederick Sturges, ^250 ; James O. Car- penter, $50 ; C. H. Mallory, 1^500 ; George A. Low, $25 ; Henry W. T. Mali & Co., ^500 ; C. Adolph Low, ^50 j C. C. Peck, $20. Total, ^15, 295. Thousands of dollars also came In from the Produce Exchange, Cotton Exchange, Metal Ex- change, Coffee Exchange, Real Estate Exchange, etc. The Adams Express Co. gave ^5,000, and free carrlao-e of all croods for the sufferers. The Mutual Life Insurance Co., gave ^10,000. And so all the week the gifts were made. Jay Gould, gave ^1,000; the Jewish Temple Emanuel, ^1,500; The Hide and Leather Trade, ^5,000; the Commercial Cable Co., $500 ; the Ancient Order of Hibernians, $270; J. B. & J. H. Cor- nell, ^1,000; the New York Health Department, ^500 ; Chatham National Bank, $500 ; the boys of the House of Refuge on Randall's Island, $258.22. Many gifts came from other towns and cities. Kansas City, $12,000 ; Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, $22,106; Washington Post Office, $600 ; Boston, $94,000; AVillard (N. Y.) Asylum for Insane, $136; Washington Government Printing Office, $1,275 ; Saugerties N. Y., $850; Ithaca, N. Y., $1,600 ; Cornell University, $1,100; White- hall, N. Y., $600 ; Washington Interior Department, $2,280; Schenectady, N. Y., $3,000; Albany, $10,500; 2q3 the JOHNSTOWN flood. Washington Treasury Department, ^2,070; Augusta, Ga., ;^i,ooo; Charleston, S. C, ^3,500; Utica, N. Y., |6,ooo; Little Falls, N. Y., $700; Ilion, N. Y., $1,100; Trenton, N. J., ;^i2,oooj Cambridge, Mass., $3,500; Haverhill, Mass., $1,500; Lawrence, Mass., $5,000; Salem, Mass., $r,ooo; Taunton, Mass., $1,010; New London, Conn., $1,120; Newburyport, Mass., $1,500. No attempt has been made above to give any- thing more than a few random and representative names of givers. The entire roll would fill a volume. By the end of the week the cash con- tributions in New York city amounted to more than ^600,000. Collections in churches on Sun- day, June 9th, aggregated ^15,000 more. Benefit performances at the theatres the next week brought up the grand total to about ^700,000. CHAPTER XXVI. AND now begins the task of burying the dead and caring for the living. It is Wednesday morning. Scarcely has daylight broken before a thousand funerals are in progress on the green hill- sides. There were no hearses, few mourners, and as litde solemnity as formality. The majority of the cofhns were of rough pine. The pall-bearers were strong ox-teams, and instead of six pall- bearers to one coffin, there were generally six coffins to one-team. Silently the processions moved, and silendy they unloaded their burdens in the lap of mother earth. No minister of God was there to pronounce a last blessing as the clods rattled down, except a few faithful priests who had followed some representatives of their faith to the crrave. All day long the corpses were being hurried below ground. The unidentified bodies were grouped on a high hill west of the doomed city, where one epitaph must do for all, and that the word " unknown." 299 ^QQ THE yOHNSTOWN FLOOD. Almost every stroke of the pick in some por- tions of the city resuhed in the discovery of an- other victim, and, although the funerals of the morning relieved the morgues of their crush, before night they were as full of the dead as ever. Wherever one turns the melancholy view of a coffin is met. Every train into Johnstown was laden with them, the better ones being generally accompanied by friends of the dead. Men could be seen staggering over the ruins with shining mahogany caskets on their shoulders. In the midst of this scene of death and deso- lation a relentinof Providence seems to be exert- ing a subduing influence. Six days have elapsed since the great disaster, and the temperature still remains low and chilly in the Conemaugh valley. When it Is remembered that in the ordinary June weather of this locality from two to three days are sufficient to bring an unattended body to a degree of decay and putrefaction that would render it almost impossible to prevent the spread of disease throughout the valley, the Inestimable benefits of this cool weather are almost beyond appreciation. • The first body taken from the ruins was that of a boy, Willie Davis, who was found In the debris near the bridge. He was badly bruised and burned. The remains were taken to the under- taking rooms at the Pennsylvania Railroad THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. -qj Station, where they were identified. The boy's mother has been making a tour of the different morgues for the past few days, and was just going througfh the undertaking rooms when she saw the remains of her boy being brought in. She ran up to the body and demanded it. She seemed to have lost her mind, and caused quite a scene by her actions. She said that she had lost her hus- band and six children in the flood, and that this was the first one of the family that had been re- covered. The bodies of a little girl named Bracken and of Theresa and Katie Downs of Clinton Street were taken out near where the re- mains of Willie Davis were found. Two hundred experienced men with dynamite, a portable crane, a locomotive, and half a dozen other appliances for pulling, hauling, and lifting, toiled all of Wednesd-a)^ at the sixty-acre mass of debris that lies above the Pennsylvania Railroad bridge at Johnstown. " As a result," wrote a correspondent, " there is visible, just in front of the central arch, a little patch of muddy water about seventy-five feet long by thirty wide. Two smaller patches are in front of the two arches on each side of this one, but both together would not be heeded were they not looked for especially. Indeed, the whole effect of the work yet done would not be noticed by a person who had never seen the wreck before. The solidity of the wreck 302 THE JOHNS TO WN FLOOD. and the manner in which it is interlaced and locked together exceeds the expectations of even those who had examined the wreck carefully, and the men who thought that with dynamite the mass could be removed in a week, now do not think the work can be done in twice this time. The work is in charge of Arthur Kirk, a Pittsburg contractor. Dynamite is depended upon for loosening the mass, but it has to be used in small charges for fear of damaging the bridge, which, at this time, would be another disaster for the town. As it is, the south abutment has been broken a httle by the explosions. "After a charge of dynamite had shaken up a portion of the wreck in front of the middle arch, men went to work with long poles, crowbars, axes, saws, and spades. All the loose pieces that could be o-ot out were thrown into the water under the bridge, and then, beginning at the edges, the bits of wreck were pulled, pushed and cut out, and sent floating away. At first the work of an hour was hardly perceptible, but each fresh log of timber pulled out loosened others and made bet- ter progress possible. When the space beneath the arch was cleared, and a channel thus made through which the debris could be floated off, a huge portable crane, built on a flat-car and made for raising locomotives and cars, was run upon the bridge over the arch and fastened to the track THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. oq^ with heavy chains. A locomotive was furnished to pull the rope, instead of the usual winch with a crank handle. A rope from the crane was fas- tened by chains or grapnels to a log, and then the locomotive pulled. About once in five times the log came out. Other times the chain slipped or something else made the attempt a failure. Whenever a big stick came out men with pikes pushed off all the other loosened debris that they could oret at. Other men shoveled off the dirt and ashes which cover the raft so thickly that it is almost as solid as the ground. " When a ten-foot square opening had been .:iade back on the arch, the current could be seen gushing up like a great spring from below, show- ing that there was a large body of it being held clown there by the weight of the debris. The current through the arch became so strong that the heaviest pieces in the wreck were carried off readily once they got within its reach. One reason for this is that laborers are filling up the gaps on the railroad embankment approaching the bridge in the north, through which the river had made itself a new bed, and the water thus dammed back has to go through or under the raft and out by the bridge-arches. This both buoys up the whole mass and provides a means of carrying off the wooden part of the debris as fast as it can be loosened. 204 ^-^^ JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. " Meanwhile an attack on the raft was belnsf made through the adjoining arch in another way. A heavy winch was set up on a small island in the river seventy-five yards below the bridge, and ropes run from this were hitched to heavy timbers in the raft, and then pulled out by workmen at the winch. A beginning for a second opening in the raft was made in this way. One man had some bones broken and was otherwise hurt by the slip- ping of the handle while he was at work at the winch this afternoon. The whole work is danger- ous for the men. There is twenty feet of swift water for them to slip Into, and timbers weighing tons are swinging about In unexpected directions to crush them. " So far it is not known that any bodies have been brought out of the debris by this work of removal, though many logs have been loosened and sent off down the river beneath the water without being seen. There will probably be more bodies back toward the centre of the raft than at the bridge, for of those that came there many were swept over the top. Some went over the arches and a great many were rescued from the bridge and shore. People are satisfied now that dynamite is the only thing that can possibly re- move the wreck and that as It Is belno- used it Is not likely to mangle bodies that may be in the debris any more than would any other means of THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. ^05 removing it. There are no more protests heard agamst its use. Bodies continue to be dug out of the wreck in the central portion all day. A dozen or so had been recovered up to nightfall, all hideousl}^ burned and mangled. In spite of all the water that has been thrown upon it by fire engines and all the rain that has fallen, the debris is still smouldering in many spots. Work was begun in dead earnest on Wednes- day on the Cambria Iron Works buildings. The Cambria people gave out the absurd statement that their loss will not exceed ^100,000. It will certainly take this amount to clean the works of the debris, to say nothing of repairing them. The buildings are nearly a score in number, some of them of enormous size, and they extend along the Conemaugh River for half a mile, over a quarter of a mile in width. Their lonely chim- neys, stretching high out of the slate roofs above the brick walls, make them look not unlike a man- of-war of tremendous size. The buildings on the western end of the row are not damaged a great deal, though the torrent rolled through them, turning the machinery topsy-turvy ; but the build- ings on the eastern end, which received the full force of the flood, fared badly. The eastern ends are utterly gone, the roofs bent over and smashed in, the chimneys flattened, the walls cracked and broken, and, in some cases, smashed entirely. 2o6 "^^^ JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. Most of the buildino-s are filled with drift. The workmen, who have clambered over the piles of logs and heavy drift washed In front of the build- ings and inside, say that they do not believe that the machinery In the mills is damaged very much, and that the main loss will fall on the mills them- selves. Half a million may cover the loss of the Cambria people, but this Is a rather low estimate. They have nine hundred men t work getting things In shape, and the manner In which they have had to go to work Illustrates the force with which the flood acted. The trees jammed in and before the buildings were so big and so solidly wedged In their places that no force of men could pull them out, and temporary railroad tracks were built up to the mass of debris. Then one of the engines backed down from the Pennsylvania Railroad yards, and the workmen, by persistent effort, man- aged to get big chains around parts of the drift. These chains were attached to the engine, which rolled off puffing mightily, and In this way the mass of drift was pulled apart. Then the laborers gathered up the loosened material, heaped It in piles a distance from the buildings, and burned them. Sometimes two engines had to be attached to some of the trees to pull them out, and there are many trees which cannot be extricated In this manner. They will have to be sawed Into parts, and these parts lugged away by the engines. CHAPTER XXVIT. UPON a pretty little plateau two hundred feet above the waters of Stony Creek, and directly in front of a slender foot-bridge which leads into Kernsville, stands a group of tents which represents the first effort of any national organization to give material sanitary aid to the unhappy survivors of Johnstown. It is the camp of the American National Asso- ciation of the Red Cross, and is under the direc- tion of that noble woman. Miss Clara Barton of Washington, the President of the organization in this country. The camp is not more than a quar- ter of a mile from the scene of operations in this place, and, should pestilence attend upon the horrors of the flood, this assembly of trained nurses and veteran physicians will be known all over the land. That an epidemic of some sort will come, there seems to be no question. The only thing which can avert it is a succession of cool days, a possibility which is very remote. Miss Barton, as soon as she heard of the catas- i8 309 3IO THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. trophe, started preparations for opening head- quarters in this place. By Saturday morning she had secured a staff, tents, supplies, and all the necessary appurtenances of her work, and at once started on the Baltimore and Ohio Road. She arrived here on Tuesday morning, and pitched her tents near Stony Creek. This was, however, a temporary choice, for soon she removed her camp to the plateau upon which it will remain until all need for Miss Barton will have passed. With her <:ame Dr. John B. Hubbell, field agent ; Miss M. L. White, stenographer ; Gustave Ang- erstein, messenger, and a corps of fifteen physi- cians and four trained female nurses, under the direction of Dr. O'Neill, of Philadelphia. Upon their arrival they at once established quartermaster and kitchen departments, and in less than three hours these divisions were fully equipped fOr work. Then when the camp was formally opened on the plateau there were one large hospital tent, capable of accommodating forty persons, four smaller tents to give aid to twenty persons each, and four still smaller ones which will hold ten patients each. Then Miss Barton organized a house-to-house canvass by her corps of doctors, and began to show results almost immediately. The first part of the district visited was Kerns- ville. There great want and much suffering were THE JOHNS TO WN FLOOD. y I discovered and prompdy relieved. Miss Barton says that in most of the houses which were visited were several persons suffering from nervous pros- tration in the most aggravated form, many cases of temporary insanity being discovered, which, if neglected, would assume chronic conditions. There were a large number of persons, too, who were bruised by their battling on the borders of the flood, and were either ignorant or too broken- spirited to endeavor to aid themselves in any par- ticular. The majority of these were not suffi- ciently seriously hurt to require removal from their homes to the camp, and so were given medicines and practical, intelligent advice how to use them. There were fifteen persons, however, who were removed from Kernsville and from a district known as the Brewery, on the extreme east of Johnstown. Three of the number were women and were sadly bruised. One man, Caspar Walthaman, a German operative at the Cambria Iron Works, was the most interesting of all. He lived in a little frame house within fifty yards of the brewery. When the flood came his house was lifted from its foundations and was tossed about like a feather in a gale, until it reached a spot about on a line with Washington Street. There the man's life was saved by a great drift, which completely surrounded the house, and which forced the structure against the Prospect Hill ^ J 2 THE JOHNS TO WN FLOOD. shore, where the shock wrecked it. Walthaman was sent flying through the air, and landed on his right side on the water-soaked turf. Fortunately the turf was soft and springy with the moisture, and Walthaman had enough consciousness left to crawl up the hillside, and then sank into uncon- sciousness. At ten o'clock Saturday morning some friends found him. He was taken to their home in Kerns- ville. He was scarcely conscious when found, and before he had been in a place of safety an hour he had lost his mind, the reaction was so great. His hair had turned quite white, and the places where before the disaster his hair had been most abund- ant, on the sides of his head, were completely de- nuded of it. His scalp was as smooth as an apple-cheek. The physicians who removed him to the Red Cross Hospital declared the case as the most extraordinary one resulting from fright that had ever come under their observation. Miss Barton declares her belief that not one of the per- sons who are now under treatment is seriously in- jured, and is confident they will recover in a few days. Her staff was reinforced by Mrs. and Dr. Gard- ner, of Bedford, who, during the last great West- ern floods, rendered most excellent assistance to the sufferers. Both are members of the Relief Association. The squad of physicians and nurses THE "JOHNS TO WN FLOOD. o i ^ was further added to by more from Philadel- phia, and then Miss Barton thought she was pre- pared to cope with anything in the way of sick- ness which mio^ht arise. The appearance of the tents and the surround- ings are exceedingly inviting. Everything is ex- quisitely neat, the boards of the tent-floors being almost as white as the snowy linen of the cots. This contrast to the horrible filth of the town, with its fearful stenches and its dead-paved streets, is so invigorating that it has become a place of re- fuge to all who are compelled to remain here. The hospital is an old rink on the Bedford pike, which has been transformed into an inviting re- treat. Upon entering the door -the visitor finds himself in a small ante-room, to one side of which is attached the general consultIna--room. On the other side, opposite the hall, is the apothecary's department, where the prescriptions are filled as carefully as they would be at a first-class drug- gist's. In the rear of the medical department and of the general consultation-room are the wards. There are two of them — one for males and the other for females. A long, high, heavy curtain divides the wards, and insures as much privacy as the most modest person would wish. Around the walls in both wards are ranged the regulation hospital beds, with plenty of clean and comfort- able bed- clothes. ojj^ THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. Patients in the hospital said they couldn't be better treated if they were paying the physician for their attendance. The trained nurses of the Red Cross Society carefully look after the wants of the sick and injured, and see that they get everything they wish. People who have an ab- horrence of going into these hospitals need have no fear that they will not be well treated. The orphans of the flood — sadly few there are of them, for it was the children that usually went down first, not the parents — are looked after by the Pennsylvania Children's Aid Society, which has transferred its headquarters for the time being from Philadelphia to this city. There was a thriv- ing branch of this society here 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 Thursday morning, 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 ofiflce, and there were about fifty children looked after before evening. In most cases these were children with relatives or friends in or near Johns- town, and the society's work has been to identify them and restore them to their friends. THE J OHNSTO WN FL O OD. ^ I jr 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 ben- efit in systematizing" the care of the children who are left homeless. Besides this, there are many orphans who have been living in the families of neighbors since the flood, but for whom perma- nent homes must be found. One family has cared for one hundred and fifty-seven children saved from the flood, and nearly as many are staying with other families. There will be no difficulty about providing for these little ones. The society already has offers for the taking of as many as are likely to be in need of a home. The Rev. Morgan Dix, on behalf of the Leake and Watts Orphan Home in New York, has tele- graphed an offer to care for seventy-five orphans. Pittsburg is proving itself generous in this as in all other matters relating to the flood, and other places all over the country are telegraphing offers of homes for the homeless. Superintendent Pier- son, of the Indianapolis Natural Gas Company, has asked for two ; Cleveland wants some ; Al- toona would like a few ; Apollo, Pa., has vacan- cies the orphans can fill, and scores of other small places are sending in similar offers and requests. A queer thing is that many of tho. officers are re- stricted by curious provisions as to the religious belief of the orphans. The Rev. Dr. Griffith, for oi5 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. instance, of Philadelphia, says that the Angora (Pa.) Home would like some orphans, " especially Baptist ones," and Father Field, of Philadelphia, offers to look after a few Episcopal waifs. The work of the society here has been greatly assisted by the fact that Miss Maggie Brooks, for- merly Secretary of the local society here, but living in Philadelphia at the time of the flood, has come here to assist the general officers. Her ac- quaintance with the town is invaluable. Johnstown is generous in its misery. What- ever it has left it gives freely to the strangers who have come here. It is not much, but it shows a good spirit. There are means by which Johns- town people might reap a rich harvest by taking advantage of the necessities of strano-ers. It is necessary, for instance, to use boats in getting about the place, and men in light skiffs are poling about the streets all day taking passengers from place to place. Their services are free. They not only do not, but will not accept any fee. J. D. Haws & Son own larofe brick-kilns near the l^ridge. The newspaper men have possession of Qne of the firm's buildings and one of the firm §pends most of his time in running about trying to piake the men comfortable. A room in one of ^he firm's barns filled with straw has been set apart solely for the newspaper men, who sleep there wrapped in blankets as comfortably as in THE JOHNSTO WN FLOOD. ^ I 7 beds. There is no charge for this, although those who have tried one night on the floors, sand-piles, and other usual dormitories of the place, would willingly pay high for the use of the straw. Food for the newspaper and telegraph workers has been hard to get except in crude form. Canned corned beef, eaten with a stick for a fork, and dry crackers were the staples up to Tuesday, when a house up the hill was discovered were anybody who came was welcome to the best the house afforded. There was no sugar for the coffee, no vinegar for the lettuce, and the apple butter ran out before the sieee was raised, but the defect was in the circum- stances of Johnstown, and not in the will of the family. "How much?" was asked at the end of the meal. They were poor people. The man probably earns a dollar a day. "Oh!" replied the woman, who was herself cook, waiter, and lady of the house, " we don't charge anything in times like these. You see, I went out and spent ten dollars for groceries at a place that wasn't washed away right after the flood, and we've been living on that ever since. Of course we don't ask any of the relief, not being washed out. You men are welcome to all I can give." She had seen the last of her ten dollars worth of provisions gobbled up without a murm^ir, and yet ^jg THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. didn't " charge anything in times Hke these." Her scruples did not, however, extend so far as to re- fusing tenders of coin, inasmuch as without it her larder would stay empty. She filled it up last night, and the news of the place having spread, she has been o-etting- a continual meal from five in the morninof until late at nio^ht. Althouo-h she makes no charge, her income would make a regu- lar restaurant keeper dizzy. So far as the Signal Service is concerned, the amount of rainfall in the region drained by the Conemaugh River cannot be ascertained. Mrs. H. M. Ogle, who had been the Signal Service representative in Johnstown for several years and also manager of the Western Union office there, telegraphed at eight o'clock Friday morning to Pittsburg that the river marked fourteen feet, rising ; a rise of thirteen feet in twenty-four hours. At eleven o'clock she wired : " River twenty feet and rising, higher than ever before ; water in first floor. Have moved to second. River gauges carried away. Rainfall, two and three-tenth inches." At twenty-seven minutes to one p. m. Mrs. Ogle wired: "At this hour north wind ; very cloudy ; water still rising." Nothing more was heard from her by the bu- reau, but at the Western Union office at Pittsburg later in the afternoon she commenced to tell an operator that the dam had broken, that a flood THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. ^jg was coming-, and before she had finished the con- versation a singular chck of the instrument an- nounced the breaking of the current. A moment afterward the current of her hfe was broken for- ever. Sergeant Stewart, in charge of the Pittsburg bureau, says that the fail of water on the Cone- maugh shed at Johnstown up to the time of the flood was probably two and five-tenth inches. He believes it was much heavier in the mountains. The country drained by the little Conemaughand Stony Creek covers an area of about one hundred square miles. The bureau, figuring on this basis and two and five-tenth inches of rainfall, finds that four hundred and sixty-four million six hundred and forty thousand cubic feet of water was pre- cipitated toward Johnstown in its last hours. This is independent of the great volume of water in the lake, which was not less than two hundred and fifty million cubic feet. It is therefore easily seen that there was ample water te cover the Conemaugh Valley to the depth of from ten to twenty-five feet. Such a volume of water was never known to fall in that country in the same time. Colonel T. P. Roberts, a leading engineer, esti- mates that the lake drained twenty-five square miles, and gives some interesting data on the probable amount of water in contained. He ^ 2 o THE JOHNS TO WN FL OD. says: " The dam, as I understand, was from hill to hill, about one thousand feet long and about eighty-five feet high at the highest point. The pond covered above seven hundred acres, at least for the present I will assume that to be the case. We are told also that there was a waste-weir at one end seventy-five feet wide and ten feet below the comb or top of the dam. Now we are told that with this weir open and discharging freely to the utmost of its capacity, nevertheless the pond or lake rose ten inches per hour until finally it overflowed the top, and, as I understand, the dam broke by being eaten away at the top. "Thus we have the elements for very simple calculation as to the amount of water precipitated by the flood, provided these premises are accurate. To raise seven hundred acres of water to a height of ten feet would require about three hun- dred million cubic feet of water, and while this was rising the waste-weir would discharge an enormous volume — it would be difficult to say just how much without a full knowledge of the shape of its side-walls, approaches, and outlets — but if the rise required ten hours the waste-weir might have discharged perhaps ninety million cubic feet- We would then have a total of flood water of three hundred and ninety million cubic feet. This would indicate a rainfall of about eight inches over the twenty-five square miles. THE JOHNSTO WN FLOOD. ^21 As that much does not appear to have fallen at the hotel and dam it is more than likely that even more than eight inches was precipitated in places farther up. 'Ihese figures I hold tentatively, but I am much inclined to believe that there was a cloud burst." Of course, the Johnstown disaster, great as it was, was by no means the greatest flood in his- tory, since Noah's Deluge. The greatest of modern floods was that which resulted from the overflow of the great Houng-Ho, or Yellow River, in 1887. This river, which has earned the title of " China's Sorrow," has always been the cause of great anxiety to the Chinese Government and to the inhabitants of the country through which it flows. It is oruarded with the utmost care at grreat expense, and annually vast sums are spent in repairs of its banks. In October, 1887, a number of serious breaches occurred in the river's banks about three hundred miles from the coast. As a result the river deserted its natural bed and spread over a thickly-populated plain, forcing for itself finally an entire new road to the sea. Four or five times in two thousand years the great river had chanoed its bed, and each time the chan<^e had entailed great loss of life and property. In 1852 it burst through its banks two hundred and fifty miles from the sea and cut a new bed through the northern part of Shaptung into the 222 ^-^^ JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. Gulf of Pechili. The isolation in which foreigners lived at that time in China prevented their obtain- ing any information as to the calamitous results of this change, but in 1887 many of the barriers against foreigners had been removed and a gen- eral idea of the character of the inundation was easily obtainable. For several weeks preceding the actual over- flow of its banks the Hoang-Ho had been swolkn from its tributaries. It had been unusually wet and stormy in northwest China, and all the small streams were full and overflowine. The first break occurred in the province of Honan, of which the capital is Kaifeng, and the city next in import- ance is Ching or Cheng Chou. The latter is forty miles west of Kaifeng and a short distance above a bend in the Hoang-Ho. At this bend the stream is borne violently against the south shore. For ten days a continuous rain had been soaking the embankments, and a strong wind increased the already great force of the current. Finally a breach was made. At first it extended only for a hundred yards. The guards made frantic efforts to close the gap, and were assisted by the fright- ened people in the vicinity. But the beach grew rapidly to a width of twelve hundred yards, and through this the river rushed with awful force. Leaping over the plain with incredible velocity, the water merged into a small stream called the THE JOHNS TO WN FLOOD. ^ 2 ■? Lu-chia. Down the valley of the Lu-cliia the tor- rent poured in an easterly direction, overwhelming everything in its path. Twenty miles from Cheng Chou it encountered Chungmou, a walled city of the third rank. Its thousands of inhabitants were attending to their usual pursuits. There was no telegraph to warn them, and the first intimation of disaster came with the muddy torrent that rolled down upon them. Within a short time only the tops of the high walls marked where a flourishing city had been. Three hundred villages in the district disappeared utterly, and the lands about three hundred other villages were inundated. The flood turned south from Chungmou, still keeping to the course of the Lu-chia, and stretched out in width for thirty miles. This vast body of water was from ten to twenty feet deep. Several miles south of Kaifengf the flood struck a largfe river which there joins the Lu-chia. The result was that the flood rose to a still greater height, and, pouring into a low-lying and very fertile plain which was densely populated, submerged upward of one thousand five hundred villages. Not far beyond this locality the flood passed into the province of Anhui, where it spread very widely. The actual loss of life could not be com- puted accurately, but the lowest intelligent esti- mate placed it at one million five hundred thou- o 2 4 ^-^^ y Of INS TO WN FL O OD. sand, and one authority fixed it at seven million. Two million people were rendered destitute by the flood, and the sufFerinor that resulted was frightful. Four months later the inundated prov- inces were still under the muddy waters. The government officials who were on guard when the Hoang-Ho broke its banks were condemned to severe punishment^ and were placed in the pillory in spite of their pleadings that they had done their best to avert the disaster. The inundation which may be classed as the second greatest in modern history occurred in Holland in 1530. There have been many floods in Holland, nearly all due to the failure of the dikes which form the only barrier between it and the sea. In 1530 there was a general failure of the dikes, and the sea poured in upon the low lands. The people were as unprepared as were the victims of the Johnstown disaster. Good au- thorities place the number of human beings that perished in this flood at about four hundred thou- sand, and the destruction of property was in pro- portion. In April, 1421, the River Meuse broke in the dikes at Dort, or Dordrecht, an ancient town in the peninsula of South Holland, situated on an island. Ten thousand persons perished there and more than one hundred thousand in the vicinity. In January, 1861, there was a disastrous flood in THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD, ^27 Holland, the area sweeping- over forty thousand acres, and leaving thirty thousand villages desti- tute, and again in 1876 severe losses resulted from inundations in this country. The first flood in Europe of which history gives any authentic account occurred in Lincolnshire, England, A. D. 245, when the sea passed over many thousands of acres. In the year 353 a flood m Cheshire destroyed three thousand human lives and many cattle. Four hundred families were drowned in Glasgow by an overflow of the Clyde in 758. A number of English seaport towns were destroyed by an inundation in 1014. In 1483 a terrible overflow of the Severn, which came at night and lasted for ten days, covered the tops of mountains. Men, women, and children were car- ried from their beds and drowned. The waters settled on the lands and were called for one hun- dred years after the Great Waters. A flood in Catalonia, a province of Spain, oc- curred in 1617, and fifty thousand persons lost their lives. One of the most curious inundations in history, and one that was looked upon at the time as a miracle, occurred in Yorkshire, England, I in 1686. A large rock was split assunder by some hidden force, and water spouted out, the stream reaching as high as a church steeple. In 1 771 another flood, known as the Ripon flood> ■•occurred in the same province. 228 ^-^^ JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. In September, 1687, mountain torrents inun- dated Navarre, and two thousand persons were drowned. Twice, in 1787 and in 1802, the Irish Liffey overran its banks and caused great damsge. A reservoir in Lurca, a city of Spain, burst in 1802, in much the same way as did the dam at Johnstown, and as a result one thousand persons perished. Twenty-four villages near Presburg, and nearly all their inhabitants, were swept away in April, 181 1, by an overflow of the Danube. Two years later large provinces in Austria and Poland were flooded, and many lives were lost. In the same year a force of two thousand Turkish soldiers, who were stationed on a small island near Widdin, were surprised by a sudden over- flow of the Danube and all were drowned. There were two more floods in this year, one in Silesia, where six thousand persons perished, and the French army met such losses and privations that its ruin was accelerated ; and another in Poland, where four thousand persons were supposed to have been drowned. In 18 16 the melting of the snow on the mountains surrounding Strabane, Ireland, caused destructive floods, and the over- flow of the Vistula in Germany laid many villages under water. Floods that occasioned ereat suf- fering occurred in 1829, when severe rains caused the Spey and Findhorn to rise fifty feet above their ordinary level. The following year the THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. ^30 Danube again ouerflowed its banks and inundated the houses of fifty thousand inhabitants of Vienna, The Saone overflowed in 1840, and poured its turbulent waters iuto the Rhine, causing a flood which covered sixty thousand acres, Lyons was flooded, one hundred houses were swept away at Avignon, two hundred and eighteen at La Guil- lotiere, and three hundred at Vaise, Marseilles, and Ninies, Another great flood, entailincr much suffering, occurred in the south of France in 1856. A flood in Mill River valley in 1874 was caused by the bursting of a badly constructed dam. The waters poured down upon the villages in the val- ley much as at Johnstown, but the people received warning in time, and the torrent was not so swift. Several villages were destroyed and one hundred and forty-four persons drowned. The rising of the Garonne in 1875 caused the death of one thousand persons near Toulouse, and twenty thousand persons were made homeless in India by floods in the same year. In 1882 heavy floods destroyeda largeamount of property and drowned many persons in the Mississippi and Ohio valleys. The awful disaster in the Conemaugh Valley calls attention to the fact that there are many similar dams throughout the United States. Though few of these overhang- a narrow gorge like the one in which the borough of Johnstown 230 ^-^^ yOHNSTOWN FLOOD, reposed, there is no question that several of the dams now deemed safe would, if broken down by a sudden freshet, sweep down upon peaceful ham- lets, cause immense damage to property and loss of life. The lesson taug-ht bv the awful scenes at Johnstown should not go unheeded. Croton Lake Dam was first built with ninety feet of masonry overfall, the rest being earth em- bankment. On January 7th, 1841, a freshet car- ried away this earth embankment, and when re- built the overfall of the dam was made two hund- red and seventy feet long. The foundation is two lines of cribs, filled with dry stone, and ten feet of concrete between. Upon this broken range stone masonry was laid, the down-stream side beinor curved and faced with eranite, the whole being backed with a packing of earth. The dam is forty feet high, its top is one hundred and sixty- six feet above tidewater, and it controls a reser- voir area of four hundred acres and five hundred million gallons of water. The Boyd's Corner Dam holds two million seven hundred and twenty- seven thousand gallons, and was built during the years 1866 and 1872. It stands twenty-three miles from Croton dam, and has cut-stone faces filled between with concrete. The extreme height is seventy-eight feet, and it is six hundred and seventy feet long. Although this dam holds a body of water five times greater than that at THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. ,^j Croton Lake, it is claimed by engineers that should it give way the deluge of water which would follow would cause very little loss of life and only destroy farming lands, as below it the countrv is comparatively level and open. Middle Branch Dam holds four billion four hundred thousand gallons, and was built during 1874 and 1S78. It is composed of earth, with a centre of rubble masonry carried down to the rock bottom. It is also considered to be in no danger of caus- ing destruction by sudden breakage, as the down- pour of water would spread out over a large area of level land. Besides these there are other Croton water storage basins formed by dams as follows: East Branch, with a capacity of 4,500,- 000,000 gallons; Lake Mahopac, 575,000,000 gallons ; Lake Kirk, 565,000,000 gallons ; Lake Gleneida, 1 65,000,000 gallons : Lake Gilead, 380,- 000,000 gallons ; Lake Waccabec, 200,000,000 gallons ; Lake Lonetta, 50,000,000 gallons ; Bar- rett's ponds, 170,000,000 gallons; China pond, 105,000,000 gallons ; White pond, 100,000,000 gallons ; Pines pond, 75,000,000 gallons ; Long pond, 60,000,000 gallons ; Peach pond, 230,000,- 000 o-allons ; Cross pond, 110,000.000 gallons, and Haines pond, 125,000,000 gallons, thus com- pleting the storage capacity of the Croton watrr system of 1 4fOOO,ooo.ooo gallons. The engineers claim that none of these last-named could cause ^ ^ 2 ^^-^ yOHNS TO WN ILOOD. loss of life or any great damage to property, be- cause there exist abundant natural outlets. At Whitehall, N. G., there is a reservoir created by a dam three hundred and twenty feet long across a valley half a mile from the village and two hundred and sixty-six feet above it. A break in this dam would release nearly six million gallons, and probably sweep away the entire town. Norwich, N. Y., is supplied by an earthwork dam, with centre puddle-wall, three hundred and twenty- three feet long and forty feet high. It imprisons thirty million gallons and stands one hundred and eighty feet above the village. At an elevation of two hundred and fifty feet above the townof Olean N. Y., stands an embankment holding in check two million, five hundred thousand gallons. Oneida, N. Y., is supplied by a reservoir formed by a dam across a stream which controls twenty- two million, three hundred and fifty thousand gallons. The dam is nearly three miles from the villaofe and at an altitude of one hundred and ninty feet above it. Such are some of the reser- voirs which threaten other communities of our fair land. CHAPTER XXVIII. Ir is now the Thursday after the disaster, and amid the ruins of Johnstown people are begin- ning- to get their wits together. They have quit the aimless wandering about amid the ruins, that marked them for a crushed and despairing peo- ple. Everybody is getting to work and forget- ting something of the horror of the situation in the necessity of thinking of what they are doing. The deadly silence that has prevailed throughout the town is ended, giving place to the shouts of hundreds of men pulling at ropes, and the crash of timbers and roofs as they pull wrecked build- ings down or haul heaps of debris to pieces. Hundreds more are making an almost merry clang with pick and shovel as they clear away mud and gravel, opening ways on the lines of the old streets. Locomotives are puffing about, down into the heart of the town now, and the great whisde at the Cambriadron Works blew for noon (.233) -^. THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD, yesterday and to-day for the first time since the flood silenced it. To lighten the sombre aspect of the ruined area, heightened by the cold gray clouds hanging low about the hills, were acres of flame, where debris is being got rid of. Down in what was the heart of the city the soldiers have gone into camp, and litde flags snap brightly in the hieh wind from their acres of white tents. The relief work seems now to be pretty thor- oughly organized, and thousands of men are at work under the direction of the committee. The men are in gangs of about a hundred each, under foremen, with mounted superintendents riding about overseeing the work. The first effort, aside from that being made upon the gorge at the bridge, is in the upper part of the city and In Stony Creek 'Gap, where there are many houses with great heaps of debris cov- erlnor and surroundlngr them. Three or four hun- dred men were set at work with ropes, chains, and axes upon each of these heaps, tearing It to pieces as rapidly as possible. Where there are only smashed houses and furniture In the heap the work is easy, but when, as in most instances, there are long logs and tree-trunks reaching In every direction through the mass, the task of get- ting them out Is a slow and difficult one. The lighter parts of the wreck are tossed Into heaps in the nearest clear space and set on fire. Horses THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 335 haul the logs and heavier pieces off to add them to other blazing piles. Everything of any value is carefully laid aside, but there is little of it. Even the strongest furniture is generally in little bits when found, but in one heap this morning were found two mirrors, one about six feet by eight In size, without a crack in it, and with its frame little damaged ; the other one, about two feet by three in size, had a little crack at the bot- tom, but was otherwise all rlofht. Every once in a while the workmen about these wreck-heaps will stop their shouting and straining at the ropes, gather into a crowd at some one spot in the ruins, and remain idle and quiet for a little while. Presently the group will stir itself a little, fall apart, and out of it will come six men bearing between them on a door or other im- provised stretcher a vague form covered with a canvas blanket. The bearers go off along the irregular paths worn into the muddy plain, to- ward the different morgues, and the men go to work again. These little groups of six, with the burden be- tween them, are as frequent as ever. One runs across them everywhere about the place. Some- times they come so thick that they have to form in line at the morgue doors. The activity with which work was prosecuted brought rapidly to light the dark places within the ruins in which - ^ 5 ^^-^ JOHNS TO WN FLOOD. remained concealed those bodies that the previous desultory searching had not brought to light. Many of the disclosures might almost better have never seen the light, so heart-rending were they. A mother lay with three children clasped in her arms. So suddenly had the visitation come upon them that the little ones had plainly been snatched up while at play, for one held a doll clutched tighdy in its dead hand, and in one hand of an- other were three marbles. This was right oppo- site the First National Bank building, in the heart of the city, and near the same spot a family of five — father, mother, and three children — were found dead toofethen Not far off a roof was lift- ed up, and dropped again in horror at the sight of nine bodies beneath it. There were more bodies, or fragments of bodies, found, too, in the gorge at the bridge, and from the Cambria Iron Works the ghastly burden-bearers began to come In with the first contributions of that locality to the death list. The passage of time is also bring- ing to the surface bodies that have been lying be- neath the river further down, and from Nineveh bodies are continually being sent up to Morrell- ville, just below the iron works, for identificadon. Wandering about near the ruins of Wood, Mor- rell & Co.'s store a messenger from Morrellville found a man who looked like the pictures of the Tennessee mountaineers in the Century Maga- THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. -^^y zine, with an addition of woe and misery upon his gaunt, hairy face that no picture could ever Indicate. He was tall and thin, and bent, and, from his appearance, abjectly poor. He was tell- ing two strangers how he had lived right across from the store, with his wife and eight children. When the hio;h water came and word was brouo-ht that the dam was In danger, he told his wife to get the children together and come with him. The water was deep In the streets, and the passage to the bluff would have been difficult. She laug-hed at him and told him the dam was all rlo^ht. He urged her, ordered her, and did everything else but pick her up bodily and carry her out, but she would not come. Finally he set the example and dashed out, himself, through the water, calling to his wife to follow. As his feet began to touch rising ground, he saw the wall of water coming down the valley. He climbed In blind terror up the bank, helped by the rising water, and, reach- ing solid ground, turned just in time to see the water strike his house. "When I turned my back," he said, ''I couldn't look any longer." Tears ran down his face as he said this. The messenger coming up just then said :•— " Your wife has been found. They got her down at Nineveh. Her brother has gone to fetch her up." ^ -, 3 "^HE JOHNS TO WN FL O OD. The man went away with the messenger. " He didn't seem much rejoiced over the good news about his wife," remarked one of the stran- gers, who had yet to learn that Johnstown people speak of death and the dead only indirectly when- ever possible. It was the wife's body, not the wife, that had been found, and that the messenger was to fetch up. The bodies of this man's eight children have not yet been found. He is the only survivor of a family of ten. Queer salvage from the flood was a cat that was taken out alive last evening. Its hair was singed off and one eye gone, but it was able to lick the hand of the man who picked it up and carried it off to keep, he said, as a relic of the flood. A white Wyandotte rooster and two hens were also dug out alive, and with dry feathers, from the centre of a heap of wrecked buildings. The work of clearing up the site of the town has progressed so far that the outlines of some of the old streets could be faintly traced, and citi- zens were going about hunting up their lots. In many, cases it was a difficult task, but enough old landmarks are left to make the determination of boundary lines by a new survey a comparatively easy matter. The scenes in the morgues are disgusting in the highest degree. The embalmers are at work cut- THE JOIINSTOlViV FLOOD. >,-,g ting and slashing with an apathy born of four days and nights of the work, and such as they never experienced before. The boards on which the bodies He are covered with mud and sHme, in many instances. Men with dynamite, blowing up the drift at the Pennsylvania Railroad bridge, people in the drift watching for bodies, people finding bodies in the ruins and carrying them away on stretchers or sheets, the bonfires of blazing debris all over the town, the soldiers with their bayonets guarding property or taking thieves into custody, the tin- starred policemen with their base ball clubs promenading the streets and around the ruins, the scenes of distress and frenzy at the relief sta- tions, the crash of buildings as their broken rem- nants fall to the ground— this is the scene that goes on night and day in Johnstown, and will go on for an indefinite time. Still, people have worked so in the midst of such excitement, with the pressure of such an awful horror on their minds that they can get but little rest even when they wish to. Men in this town are too tired to sleep. They lie down with throbbing brains that cannot stop throbbing, so that even the sense of thinking is intense agony. The undertakers and embalmers claim that they are the busiest men in town, and that they have done more to help the city than any other 340 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. workmen. The people who attend the morgues for the purpose of identifying their friends and relatives are hardly as numerous as before. Many of them are exhausted with the constant wear and tear, and many have about made up their minds that their friends are lost beyond recovery, and that there is no use looking for them any longer. Others have gone to distant parts of the State, and have abandoned Johnstown and all in it. A little girl in a poor calico dress climbed upon the fence at the Adams Street morgue and looked wistfully at the row of coffins in the yard. Peo- ple were only admitted to the morgue in squads of ten each, and the little girl's turn had not come yet. Her name was Jennie Hoffman. She was twelve years old. She told a reporter that out of her family of fourteen the father and mother and oldest sister were lost. They were all in their home on Somerset Street when the flood came. The father reached out for a tree which went sweeping by, and was pulled out of the window and lost. The mother and children got upon the roof, and then a dash of water carried her and the eldest daughter off. A colored man on an adjoining house took off the little girls who were left — all of them under twelve years of age, ex- cept Jennie — and together they clambered over the roofs of the houses near by and escaped. CHAPTER XXIX. Day after day the work of reparation goes on. The city has been blotted out. Yet the reeking ruins that mark its site are teemino- with hfe and work more vioforous than ever marked its noisy streets and panting factories. As men and money pour into Johnstown the spirit of the town greatly revives, and the people begin to take a much more favorable view of things. The one thing that is troubling people just now is the lack of ready money. There are drafts here in any quantity, but there is no money to cash them until the money in the vaults of the First National Bank has been recovered. It is known that the vaults are safe and that about ^500,000 in cash is there. Of this sum ^125,000 belongs to the Cambria Iron Company. It was to pay the five thousand employes of the works. The men are paid off every two weeks, and the last pay-day was to have been on the Saturday after the fatal (341) 342 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. flood. The money was brought down to Johns- town, on the day before the flood, by the Adams Express Company, and deposited in the bank. After the water subsided, and it was discovered that the money was safe, a guard was placed around the bank and has been maintained ever since. When the pay-day of the Cambria Iron Com- pany does come it wiU be an impressive scene. The only thing comparable to it will be the roll- call after a great battle. Mothers, wives, and children will be there to claim the wages of sons, and husbands, and fathers. The men in the gloomy line will have few families to take their wages home to. The Cambria people do not propose to stand on any red-tape rules about paying the wages of their dead employes to the surviving friends and relatives. They will only try to make reasonably sure that they are paying the money to the right persons. An assistant cashier, Thomas McGee, in the company's store saved ^12,000 of the company's funds. The money was all in packages of bills in bags in the safe on the ground floor of the main bulldlne of the stores. When the water began to rise he went up on the second floor of the building, carrying the money with him. When the crash of the reservoir torrent came Mr. McGee clambered upon the roof, and just THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 345 before the building tottered and fell he managed to jump on the roof of a house that went by. The house was swept near the bank. Mr. McGee jumxped off and fell into the water, but struck out and managed to clamber up the bank. Then he got up on the hills and remained out all night guarding his treasure. At dawn of Thursday the stillness of the night, which had been punctured frequently by the pis- tol and musket shots of vigilant guards scaring off possible marauders, was permanently fractured by the arousing of gangs of laborers who had slept about wherever they could find a soft spot in the ruins, as well as in tents set up In the cen- tre of where the town used to be. The soldiers in their camps were seen about later, and the rail- road gang of several hundred men set out up the track toward where they had left off work the night before. Breakfast was cooked at hundreds of camp-fires, and about brick-kilns, and wherever else a fire could be got. At seven o'clock five thousand laborers struck pick and shovel and saw into the square miles of debris heaped over the city's site. At the same time more laborers be- gan to arrive on trains and march through the streets in long gangs toward the place where they were needed. Those whose work was to be pull- ing and hauling trailed along In lines, holding to their ropes. They looked like gangs of slaves 246 "^^^ JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. being driven to a market. By the time the fore- noon was well under way, seven thousand labor- ers were at work in the city under the direction of one hundred foremen. There were five hun- dred cars and as many teams, and half a dozen portable hoisting engines, besides regular loco- motives and trains of flat cars that were used in hauling off debris that could not be burned. With this force of men and appliances at work the ruined city, looked at from the bluffs, seemed to fairly swarm with life, wherever the flood had left anything to be removed. The whole lower part of the city, except just above the bridge, re- mained the deserted mud desert that the waters left. There was no cleaning up necessary there. Through the upper part of the city, where the houses were simply smashed to kindling wood and piled Into heaps, but not ground to pieces under the whirlpool that bore down on the rest of the city, acres of bonfires have burned all day. The stifling smoke, blown by a high wind, has made life almost unendurable, and the flames have twirled about so fiercely in the gusts as to scorch the workmen some distance away. Citi- zens whose houses were not damaged beyond sal- vation have almost got to work in clearing out their homes and trying to make them somewhere near habitable. In the poorer parts of the city often one story and a half frame cottages are seen THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 347 completely surrounded by heaps of debris tossed up high above their roofs. Narrow lanes driven through the debris have given the owners entrance to their homes. With all the work the apparent progress was small. A stranger seeing the place for the first time would never Imagine that the wreck was not just as the flood left it. The enormity of the task of clearing the place grows more apparent the more the work Is prosecuted, and with the force now at work the job cannot be done in less than a month. It will hardly be possible to find room for any larger force. The railroads added largely to the bustle of the place. Long freight trains, loaded with food and clothing for the suffering, were continually coming in faster than they could be unloaded. Lumber was also arriving in great quantities, and hay and feed for the horses was heaped up high alongside the tracks. Hundreds of men were swarming over the road-bed near the Pennsylvania station, strengthening and improving the line. Work was begun on frame sheds and other temporary buildings in several places, and the rattle of ham- mers added its din to the shouts of the workmen and the crash of falling wreckagfe. Some sort of organization Is being introduced into other things about the city than the clearing away of the debris. The Post-office Is established - ^3 ^-^^ JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. in a small brick building in the upper part of the city. Those of the letter carriers who are alive, and a few clerks, are the working force. The re- ception of mail consists of one damaged street letter-box set upon a box in front of the building and guarded by a carrier, who has also to see that there is no crowding in the long lines of peo- ple waiting to get their turn at the two windows where letters and stamps are served out. A wide board, stood up on end, is lettered rudely, " Post- ofhce Bulletin," and beneath is a slip of paper with the information that a mail will leave the city for the West during the day, and that no mail has been received. There are many touching things in these Post-office lines. It is a good place for acquaintances who lived in different parts of the city to find out whether each is alive or dead. "You are through all right, I see," said one man in the line to an acquaintance who came up this morning. "Yes," said the acquaintance. " And how's your folks? They all right, too ?" was the next question. "Two of them are — them two little ones sitting on the steps there. The mother and the other three have gone down." Such conversations as this take place every few minutes. Near the Post-office is the morgue for THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 349 that part of the city, and other lines of waiting people reach out from there, anxious for a glimpse at the contents of the twenty-five coffins ranged in lines in front of the school-building, that does duty for a dead-house. Only those who have business are admitted, but the number is never a small one. Each walks alon^ the lines of coffins, raises the cover over the face, glances in, drops the cover quickly, and passes on. Men bearing ghastly burdens on stretchers pass frequently into the school-house, where the undertakers prepare the bodies for identification. A little farther along is the relief headquarters for that part of the city, and the streets there are packed all day long wnth women and children with baskets on their arms. So great is the demand that the people have to stand in line for an hour to get their turn. A large unfinished building Is turned Into a storehouse for clothing, and the people throng into it empty-handed and come out with arms full of underclothing and other wear- ing apparel. At another building the sanitary bureau is servlnof out disinfectants. The workmen upon the debris in what was the heart of the city have now reached well Into the ruins and are ofettino- to Avhere the valuable con- tents of jewelry and other stores may be expected to be found, and strict watch Is being kept to pre- vent the theft of any such articles by the work- 350 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. men or others. In the ruins of the Wood, Morrell & Co. general store a large amount of goods, chiefly provisions and household utensils, has been found In fairly good order. It Is piled In a heap as fast as gotten out, and the building is being pulled down. About the worst heap of wreckage In the cen- tre of the city is where the Cambria Library build- ing stood, opposite the general store. This was a very substantial and handsome building and of- fered much obstruction to the flood. It was com- pletely destroyed, but upon Its site a mass of trees, logs, heavy beams, and other wreckage was left, knotted together Into a mass only extri- cable by the use of the ax and saw. Two hun- dred men have worke-d at It for three days and It Is not half removed yet. The Cambria Iron Company have several acres of gravel and clay to remove from the upper end of Its yard. Except for an occasional corner of some big Iron machine that projects above the surface no one would ever suspect that It was not the original earth. In one place a freight car brake-wheel lies just on the surface of the ground, apparently dropped there loosely. Any one who tries to kick It aside or pick It up finds that it Is still attached to its car, which is burled under a solid mass of gravel and broken rock. Several lanes have been dug through this mass down to THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 351 the old railroad tracks, and two or three of the little yard engines of the iron company, resur- rected with smashed smoke-stacks and other liofht damage, but workable yet, go puffing about hard- ly visible above the general level of the new-made ground. The progress of the work upon the black and still smokinof mass of charred ruins above the bridge is hardly perceptible. There is clear water for about one hundred feet back from the central arch, and a little opening before the two on each side of it. When there is a good-sized hole made before all three of these arches, through which the bulk of the water runs, it is expected that the stuff can be pulled apart and set afloat much more rapidly. Dynamiter Kirk, who is oversee- ing the work, used up the last one hundred pounds of the explosive early this afternoon, and had to suspend operations until the arrival of two hundred pounds more that was on the way from Pittsburgh. The dynamite has been used in small doses for fear of damaging the bridge. Six pounds was the heaviest charge used. Even with this the stone beneath the arches of the bridge is charred and crumbling in places, and some pieces have been blown out of the heavy coping. The whole structure shakes as though with an earth- quake at every discharge. The dynamite is placed in holes drilled in logs 352 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. matted Into the surface of the raft, and Its effect being downward, the greatest force of the explo- sion is upon the mass of stuff beneath the water. At the same time each charge sent up into the air, one hundred feet or more, a fountain of dirt, stones, and blackened fragments of logs, many of them large enough to be dangerous. The rattling crash of their fall upon the bridge follows hard after the heavy boom of the explosion. One of the worst and most unexpected objects with which the men on the raft have to contend is the presence in it of hundreds of miles of telegraph wire wound around almost everything there and binding the whole mass together. No bodies have yet been brought to the sur- face by the operations with dynamite, but indica- tions of several buried beneath the surface are evident. A short distance back from where the men are not at work, bodies continue to be taken out from the surface of the raft at the rate of ten or a dozen a day. The men this afternoon came across hundreds of feet of polished copper pipe, which Is said to have come from a Pullman car. It was not known until then that there was a Pullman car in that part of the raft. The rem- nants of a vestibule car are plainly seen at a point a hundred feet away from this. CHAPTER XXX. The first thing that Johnstown people do In the mornnig is to go to the reUef 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 man- ner of dispensing the food and clothing to the suf- ferers. 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 sta- tions. Now the whole matter of receivlngf and ^ dispensing relief supplies has been placed in the hands of the Grand Army of the Republic men. Thomas A. Stewart, commander of the Depart- ment of Pennsylvania, G. A, R., arrived with his staff and established his headquarters in a tent near the headquarters of the Citizens Committee, (353) 354 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. and opposite the temporary post-office. Over this tent floats Commander Stewart's flag, with pur- ple border, bearing the arms of the State of Pennsylvania. The members of his staff" are : Quartermaster-General Tobin Taylor and his as- sistant H. J. Williams, Chaplain John W. Sayres, and W. V. Lawrence, quartermaster-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 Kern- ville, the Pennsylvania depot, Cambria City, and Jackson and Somerset Street, 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 com- mittee of women to assist them in their work. The women go from house to house, ascertaining the number of people quartered there, the num- ber of people lost from there in the flood, and the exact needs of the people. It was found neces- sary 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 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 355 before the flood, but who now is penniless, 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 rail- road 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 cookine uten- sils, 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 arrived from Plttsburg-h this morninof, and it is said that more are comlngf. At both the depots where the supplies are re- ^1-5 THE JOHNS TO WN FL O OD. o ceived and stored a big" rope-line incloses them in an impromptu 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 ap- peals 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 line is fringed with soldiers, Pittsburgh police- men, and deputy sheriffs, who see that the chil- dren 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. One night something in the nature of a raid was made by Father McTahney, one of the Cath- olic priests here, on the houses of some people whom he suspected of having imposed upon the THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. ^r>^ relief committee. These persons represented that they were destitute, and sent their cliildren with baskets to the reHef stations, each child get- ting supplies for a different family. There are unquestionably many such cases. Father Mc- Tahney found that his suspicions were correct in a great many cases, and he brought back and made the wrong-doers bring back the provisions which they had obtained under false pretenses. The side tracks at both the Pennsylvania and Baltimore and Ohio Railroad depots are filled with cars sent from different places, bearing relief supplies to Johnstown. The cars are nearly all freight cars, and they contain the significant in- scriptions 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 re- lief for Johnstown." "The contributions of Beaver Falls to Johnstown." The cars from Pittsburgh had no inscriptions. Some cars had merely the inscription. In great big black letters on a white strip of cloth running the length of the car, "Johnstown." One car reads on it: "Sta- tions along the route fill this car with supplies for Johnstown, and don't delay it." CHAPTER XXXI. At the end of the week Adjutant-General Hastings moved his headquarters from the signal tower and the Pennsylvania Railroad depot to the eastern end of the Pennsylvania freight depot. Here the general and his staff sleep on the hard floor, with only a blanket under them. They have their work systematized and in good shape, though about all they have done or will do is to prevent strangers and others who have no busi- ness here from entering the city. The entire regiment which is here is disposed around the city in squads of two or three men each. The men are scattered up and down the Conemaugh, away out on the Pennsylvania and Baltimore and Ohio Railaoad tracks, along Stony Creek on the southern side of the town, and even upon the hills. It is impossible for any one to get into town by escaping the guards, for there is a cor- don of soldiers about it. General Hastings rides (558) THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 359 around on a horse, Inspecting the posts, and the men on guard present arms to him In due form, he returning the salute. The sight Is a singular one, for General Hastings is not in uniform, and in fact wears a very rusty civilian's dress. He wears a pair of rubber boots covered with mud, and a suit of old, well-stained, black clothes. His coat is a cutaway. His appearance among his staff officers is still more dramatic, for the latter, being ordered out and having time to prepare, are In gold lace and feathers and glittering uni- forms. General Hastings came here right after the flood, on the spur of the moment, and not in his official capacity. He rides his horse finely and looks every inch a soldier. He has established In his headquarters In the freight depot a very much-needed bureau for the answerlngf of tele- grams from friends of Johnstown people making Inquiries as to the latter s safety. The bureau is in charge of A. K. Parsons, who has done good work since the flood, and who, with Lieutenant George Miller, of the Fifth Infantry, U. S. A., General Hastings' right-hand man, has been with the general constantly. The telegrams In the past have all been sent to the headquarters of the Citizens Committee, In the Fourth Ward Hotel, and have laid there, along with telegrams of every sort, in a little heap on a little side table in one ogo ^'-^-^^ JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. corner of the room. Three-quarters of them were not called for, and people who knew that telegrams were there for them did not have the patience to look through the heap for them. Fi- nally some who were not worried to death took the telegrams, opened them all, and pinned them in separate packages in alphabetical order and then put them back on the table again, and they have been pored over, until their edges are frayed, by all the people who crowded Into the little low- roofed room where Dictator Scott and his mes- sengers are. There were something like three thousand telegrams there In all. Occasionally a few are taken away, but in the majority of cases they remain there. The persons to whom they were sent are dead or have not taken the trouble to come to headquarters and see if their friends are inquiring after them. Of course the Western Union Telegraph Company makes no effort to deliver the messages. This would be impossible. The telegrams addressed to the Citizens Com- mittee headquarters are all different in form, of course, but they all breathe the utmost anxiety and suspense. Here are some samples : — Is Samuel there ? Is there any hope ? Answer me and end this suspense. Sarah. To anybody i?i yohnstown : Can you give me any Information of Adam Brennan ? Mary Brennan. THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. ^5-, Are any of you alive ? James. Are you all safe ? Is it our John Burn that is dead? Is Eliza safe ? Answer. It is worth repeating again that the majority of these telegrams will never be answered. The Post-office letter carriers have only just be- gun to make their rounds in that part of the town which is comparatively uninjured. Bags of first- class mail matter are alone brouorht into town. It will be weeks before people see the papers in the mails. The supposition is that nobody has time to read papers, and this is about right. The let- ter carriers are making an effort, as far as they can, to distribute mail to the families of the de- ceased people. Many of the letters which arrive now contain money orders, and while great care has to be taken in the distribution, the postal au- thorities recognize the necessity of getting these Irtteis to the parties addressed, or else returning them to the Dead Letter Office as proof of the death of the individuals In question. It is no doubt that In this way the first knowledge of the death of many will be transmitted to friends. It is fair to say th it the best part of the ener- gies of the State of Pennsylvania at present are ah turned upon Johnstown. Here are the leading physicians, the best nurses, some of the heaviest contractors, the brightest newspaper men, all the military geniuses, and, if not the actual presence, -y^A THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. at least the attention, of the capitalists. The newspapers, medical reviews, and publications of all sorts teem with suggestions. Johnstown is a compendium of business, and misery, and despair. One class of men should be given credit for thor- ough work in connection with the calamity. These are the undertakers. They came to Johns- town, from all over Pennsylvania, at the first alarm. They are the men whose presence was impera- tively needed, and who have actually been forced to work day and night in preserving bodies and preparing them for burial. One of the most act- ive undertakers here is John McCarthy, of Syra- cuse, N. Y., one of the leading undertakers there, and a very public-spirited man. He brought a letter of introduction from Mayor Kirk, of Syra- cuse, to the Citizens Committee here. He said to a reporter: — " It is worthy of mention, perhaps, that never before in such a disaster as this have bodies re- ceived such careful treatment and has such a wholesale embalming been practiced. Everybody recovered, whether identified or not, whether of rich man or poor man, or of the humblest child, has been carefully cleaned and embalmed, placed in a neat cofifin, and not buried when unidentified until the last possible moment. When you re- flect that over one thousand bodies have been treated in this way it means something. It is to THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. ogt be regretted that some pains were not taken to keep a record of the bodies recovered, but the undertakers cannot be blamed for that. They should have been furnished with clerks, and that whole matter made the subject of the work of a bureau by itself. We have had just all we could do cleaninor and embalmincr the bodies." The unsightliest place in Johnstown is the morgue in the Presbyterian Church. The edifice is a large brick structure in the centre of the city, and was about the first church building In the city. About one hundred and seventy-five people took refug-e there durinof the flood. After the first crash, when the people were expecting another every instant, and of course that they would per- ish, the pastor of the church, the Rev. Mr. Beale, began to pray fervently that the lives of those in the church might be spared. He fairly wrestled in prayer, and those who heard him say that it seemed to be a very death-struggle with the de- mon of the flood itself. No second crash came, the waters receded, and the lives of those in the church were spared. The people said that it was all due to the Rev. Mr. Beale's prayer. The pews in the church were all demolished, and the Sunday-school room under it was flooded with the angry waters, and filled up to the ceiling with debris. The Rev. Mr. Beale Is now general morgue director In Johnstown, and has the au- ,55 ^^^^ JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. thority of a dictator of the bodies of the dead. In the Presbyterian Church morgue the bodies are, ahnost without exception, those which have been recovered from the ruins of the smashed buildings. The bodies are torn and bruised in the most horrible manner, so that identification is very difficult. They are nearly all bodies of the prominent or well-known residents of Johnstown, The cleaning and embalming of the bodies takes place In the corners of the church, on either side of the pulpit. As soon as they have a present- able appearance, the bodies are placed in coffins, put across the ends of the pews near the aisles, so that people can pass around through the aisles and look at them. Few Identifications have yet been made here. In one coffin Is the body of a young man who had on a nice bicycle suit when found. In his pockets were forty dollars in money. The bicycle has not been found. It is supposed that the body is that of some young fellow who was on a bicycle tour up the Conemaugh River, and who was engulfed by the flood. The waters played some queer freaks. A number of mirrors taken out of the ruins with the frames smashed and with the glass parts en- tirely uninjured have been a matter for constant comment on the part of those who have Inspected the ruins and worked in them. When the waters went down, the Sunday-school rooms of the Pres- THE JOHNSTOWN J' LOOD. ^gy byterian Church just referred to were found ht- tered with playing cards. In a baby's cradle was found a dissertation upon infant baptism and two volumes of a history of the Crusades. A com- mercial man from Pittsburgh, who came down to look at the ruins, found among them his own picture. He never was In Johnstown but two or three times before, and he did not have any friends there. How the picture got among the ruins of Johnstown is a mystery to him. About the only people who have come into Johnstown, not having business there connected with the clearing up of the city, are people from a great distance, hunting up their friends and rela- tives. There are folks here now from almost every State in the Union, with the exception, per- haps, of those on the Pacific coast. There are people, too, from Pennsylvania and States pxear by, who, receiving no answer to their telegrams, have decided to come on in person. They wan- der over the town in their search, at first franti- cally asking everybody right and left if they have heard of their missing friends. Generally no- body has heard of them, or some one may re- member that he saw a man who said that he hap- pened to see a body pulled out at Nineveh or Cambria City, or somewhere, that looked like Jack So-and-So, naming the missing one. At the morgues the inquirer is told that about four hun- ^58 ^-^^^ JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. dred unidentified dead have already been buried, and on the fences before the morgues and on the outside house walls of the buildings themselves he reads several hundred such notices as these, of bodies still unclaimed : — A woman, dark hair, blue eyes, blue waist, dark dress, clothing of fine quality ; a single bracelet on the left arm ; age, about twenty-three. An old lady, clothing undistinguishable, but containing a purse with twenty-seven dollars and a small key. A young man, fair complexion, light hair, gray eyes, dark blue suit, white shirt ; believed to have been a guest at the Hurlburt House. A female; supposed to belong to the Salvation Army. A man about thirty-five years old, dark-com- plexioned, brown hair, brown moustache, light clothes, left leg a little shortened. A boy about ten years old, found with a little girl of nearly same age ; boy had hold of girl's hand; both light-haired and fair-complexioned, and girl had long curls; boy had on dark clothes, and girl a gingham dress. The people looking for their friends had lots of money, but money is of no use now in Johnstown. It cannot hire teams to go up along the Cone- maugh River, where lots of people want to go; it cannot hire men as searchers, for all the people THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. , ^gg in Johnstown not on business of their own are digging in the ruins ; it cannot even buy food, for what Httle food there is in Johnstown is practically free, and a good square meal cannot be procured for love nor money anywhere. Under these dis- couragements many people are giving up the search and going home, either giving their rela- tives up for dead or waiting for them to turn up, still maintaining the hope that they are alive. Johnstown at night now is a wild spectacle. The major part of the town is enveloped in dark- ness, and lights of all colors flare out all around, so that the city looks something like a night scene in a railroad yard. The burning of immense piles of debris is continued at night, and the red glare of the flames at the foot of the hills seems like witch-fires at the mouth of caverns. The camp-fires of the military on the hills above the Conemaugh burn brightly. Volumes of smoke pour up all over the town. Along the Pennsyl- vania Railroad gangs of men are working all night long by electric light, and the engines, with their great headlights and roaring steam, go about continually. Below the railroad bridge stretches away the dark, sullen mass of the drift, with its freight of human bodies beyond estimate. Now and then, from the headquarters of the newspaper men, can be heard the military guards on their posts challenging passers-by. CHAPTER XXXII. It is now a week since the flood, and Johns- town is a cross between a mihtary camp and a new mining town, and is getting more so every day. It has all the unpleasant and disagreeable features of both, relieved by tlie pleasures of neither. Everj'where one goes soldiers are loung- ino- about or standingr miard on all roads leadingr Into the city, and stop every one who cannot show a pass. There is a mass of tents down in the centre of the ruins, and others are scattered ev- erywhere on every cleared space beside the rail- road tracks and on the hills about. A corps of engineers is laying pontoon bridges over the streams, pioneers are everywhere laying out new camps, erecting mess sheds and other rude build- ings, and clearing away obstructions to the ready passage of supply wagons. Mounted men are continually galloping about from place to place carrying orders. At headquarters about the (370) THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. ;7i Pennsylvania Railroad depot there are dozens of petty officers in giddy gold lace, and General Hastings, General Wiley, and a few others in dingy clothes, sitting about the shady part of the platform giving and receiving orders. The oc- casional thunder of dynamite sounds like the boom of distant cannon defending some outpost. Supplies are heaped up about headquarters, and are being unloaded from cars as rapidly as loco- motives can push them up and get the empty cars out of the way again. From cooking tents smoke and savory odors go up all day, mingled with the odor carbolic from hospital tents scattered about. It is very likely that within a short time this mili- tary appearance will be greatly increased by the arrival of another resfiment and the formal declar- ation of martial law. On the other hand the town's resemblance to a new mining camp is just as striking. Every- thing is muddy and desolate. There are no streets nor any roads, except the rough routes that the carts wore out for themselves across the sandy plain. Rough sheds and shanties are going up on every hand. There are no regular stores, but cigars and drink — none intoxicating, how- ever- — are peddled from rough board counters. Railroads run into the camp over uneven, crooked tracks. Trains of freight cars are constantly ar- rivino- and beings shoved off onto all sorts of sid- 372 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. ings, or even into the mud, to get them out of the way. Everybody wears his trousers in his boots, and is muddy, ragged, and unshaven. Men with picks and shovels are everywhere delving or min- ing for something that a few days ago was more precious than gold, though really valueless now. Occasionally they make a find and gather around to inspect it as miners might a nugget. All it needs to complete the mining camp aspect of the place is a row of gambling hells in full blast un- der the temporary electric lights that gaudily il- luminate the centre of the town. Matters are becoming very well systematized, both in the military and the mining way. Martial law could be imposed to-day with very little in- convenience to any one. The guard about the town is very well kept, and the loafers, bummers, and thieves are being pretty well cleared out. The Grand Army men have thoroughly organized the work of distributing supplies to the sufferers by the flood, the refugees, and contraband of this camp. The contractors who are clearing up the debris have their thousands of men well in hand, and are getting good work out of them, considering the condidons under which the men have to live, with insufficient food, poor shelter, and other serious impediments to physical effectiveness. All the men except those on the gorge above THE JOHNSTOWN J-LOOD. Z7 the bridge have been working amid the heaps of ruined buildings in the upper part of the city. The first endeavor has been to open the old streets in which the debris was heaped as high as the house-tops. Fair progress has been made, but there are weeks of work at it yet. Only one or two streets are so far cleared that the pub- lic can use them. No one but the workmen are allowed in the others. Up Stony Creek Gap, above the contractors, the United States Army engineers began work on Friday under command of Captain Sears, who is here as the personal representative of the Secretary of War. The engineers. Captain Berg- land's company from Willet's Point, and Lieuten- ant Biddle's company from West Point, arrixed on Friday night, having been since Tuesday on the road from New York. Early in the morning they went to work to bridge Stony Creek, and unload- ed and launched their heavy pontoons and strung them across the streams with a rapidity and skill that astonished the natives, who had mistaken them, in their coarse, working uniforms of over- all stuff, for a fresh gang of laborers. The en- gineers, when there are bridges enough laid, may be set at other work about town. They have a camp of their own on the outskirts of the place. There are more constables, watchmen, special policemen, and that sort of thing in Johnstown ■jyA THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. than in any three cities of its size in the country. Naturally there is great difficulty in equipping them. Badges were easily provided by the clip- ping out of stars from pieces of tin, but every one had to look out for himself when it came to clubs. Everything goes, from a broomstick to a base ball bat. The bats are especially popular. "I'd like to get the job of handling your paper here," said a young fellow to a Pittsburgh news- paper man. " You'll have to get some newsman to do it anyhow, for your old men have gone down, and I and my partner are the only news- men in Johnstown above ground." The newsdealing business is not the only one of which something like that is true. There has been a great scarcity of cooking utensils ever since the flood. It not only is very inconvenient to the people, but tends to the waste of a good deal of food. The soldiers are growl- ing bitterly over their commissary department. They claim that bread, and cheese, and coffee are about all they get to eat. The temporary electric lights have now been strung all along the railroad tracks and through the central part of the ruins, so that the place after dark is really quite brilliant seen from a dis- tance, especially when to the electric display is added the red pflow in the mist and smoke of huge bonfires. THE JOHNSTOIVN FLOOD. -, y :- Anybody who has been telegraphing to Johns- town this week and getting no answers, would understand the reason for the lack of answers if he could see the piles of telegrams that are sent out -here by train from Pittsburgh. Four thou- sand came in one baich on Thursday. Half of them are still undelivered, and yet there is proba- bly no place in the country where the Western Union Company is doing better work than here. The flood destroyed not only the company's offices, but the greater part of their wires in this part of the country. The office they established here is in a little shanty with no windows and only one door which won't close, and it handles an amount of outgoing matter, daily, that would swamp nine-tenths of the city offices in the coun- try. Incoming business is now received in con- siderable quantities, but for several clays so great was the pressure of outgoing business that no attempt was made to receive any dispatches. The whole effort of the office has been to handle press matter, and well they have done it. But there will be no efficient delivery service for a long time. The old inessenger boys are all drowned, and the other boys who might make messenger boys are also most of them drowned, so that the raw material for creating a service is very scant. Besides that, nobody knows nowa- days where any one else lives. oy5 TIIE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. The amateur and professional photographers who have overrun the town for the last few days came to grief on Friday. A good many of them were arrested by the soldiers, placed under a guard, taken down to the Stony Creek and set to lucfeingf log's and timbers. Amonof those ar- rested were several of the newspaper photog- raphers, and these General Hastings ordered re- leased when he heard of their arrest. The others were made to work for half a day. They were a mad and disgusted lot, and they vowed all sorts of vengeance. It does seem that some notice to the effect that photographers were not permitted in Johnstown should have been posted before the men were arrested. The photographers all had passes in regular form, but the soldiers refused even to look at these. More sightseers got through the guards at Bolivar on Friday night, and came to Johnstown on the last train. Word was telegraphed ahead, and the soldiers met them at the train, put them under arrest, kept them over night, and in the morning they were set to work in clearing up the ruins. The special detail of workmen who have been at work looking up safes in the ruins and seeing that they were taken care of, reports that none of the safes have been broken open or otherwise in- terfered with. The committee on valuables re- THE JOIINSTOnW FLOOD. 2>77 ports that quantities of jewelry and money are being daily turned into them by people who have found them in the ruins. Often the people sur- rendering this stuff are evidently very poor them- selves. The committee believes that as a eeneral thing the people are dealing very honestly in this matter of treasure-trove from the ruins. Three car-loads of coffins was part of the load of one freight train.- Coffins are scattered every- where about the city. Scores of them seem to have been set down and forgotten. They are used as benches, and even, it is said, as beds. Grandma Mary Seter, aged eighty-three years, a well-known character in Johnstown, who was in the water until Saturday, and who, when rescued, had her right arm so injured that amputation at the shoulder was necessary, is doing finely at the hospital, and the doctors expect to have her around agfain before lonof. One enterprising man has opened a shop for the sale of relics of the disaster, and is doing a big business. Half the people here are relic cranks. Everything goes as a relic, from a horseshoe to a two-foot section of iron pipe. Buttons and litde things like that, that can easily be carried off, are the most popular. CHAPTER XXXIII. A MANTLE of mist hung low over the Cone- maugh Valley when the people of Johnstown rose on Sunday morning, June 9th ; but about the time the two remaining church bells began to toll, the sun's rays broke through the fog, and soon the sky was clear save for a few white clouds which sailed lazily to the Alleghenies. Never in the history of Johnstown did congregations attend more impressive church services. Some of them were held in the open air, others in half-ruined buildings, and one only in a church. The cere- monies were deeply solemn and touching. Early in the forenoon German Catholics picked their way through the wreck to the parsonage of St. Joseph's, where Fathers Kesbernan and Aid said four masses. Next to the parsonage there was a great breach in the walls made by the flood, and one-half of the parsonage had been carried away. At one end of the pastor's reception-room had , (378) , THE JOHNS 7 WN 1 LOOD. > >- j been placed a temporary altar lighted by a solitary candle. There were white roses upon it, while from the walls, above the muddy stains, hung pictures of the Immaculate Conception, the Cru- cifixion, and the Virgin Mary. The room was filled with worshipers, and the people spread out into the lateral hall hangrinor over the cellar washed bare of its coverinof. No chairs or benches were in the room. There was a deep hush as the congregation knelt upon the damp floors, silently saying their prayers. With a dignified and serene demeanor, the priest went through the services of his church, while the people before him were mo- tionless, the men with bowed heads, the women holding handkerchiefs to their faces. Back of this church, on the side of a hill, there gathered another congregation of Catholics. Their church and parsonage and chapel had all been de- stroyed, and they met in a yard near their cemetery. A pretty arbor, covered with vines, ran back from the street, and beneath this stood their priest, Father Tahney, who had worked with them over a quarter of a century. His hair was white, but he stood erect as he talked to his people. Before him was a white altar. This, too, was lighted with a single candle. The people stood before him and on each side, reverently kneeling on the, grass as they prayed. Three masses were said by Father Tahney and by Father Matthews, of ^g2 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. Washington, and then the white-haired priest spoke a few words of encouragement to his Hst- eners. He urged them to make a manful strug- gle to rebuild their homes, to assist one another in their distress, and to be grateful to all Ameri- cans for the helping hand extended to them. Other Catholic services were held at the St. Co- lumba's Church, in Cambria, where Father Trout- wein, of St. Mary's Church, Fathers Davin and Smith said mass and addressed the congregation. Father Smith urged them not to sell their lands to those who were speculating in men's misery, but to be courageous until the city should rise again. At the Pennsylvania station a meeting was held on the embankment overlooking the ruined part of the town. The services were conducted by the Rev. Mr. McGuire, chaplain of the 14th Regiment. The people sang " Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing," and then Mr. McGuire read the psalm beginning "I will bless the Lord at all times." James Fulton, manager of the Cambria Iron Works, spoke encouraging words. He assured them that the works would be rebuilt, and that the eight thousand employes would be cared for. Houses would be built for them and employment given to all in restoring the works. There was a strained look on men's faces when he told them in a low voice that he held the copy of a report TIJE JOHNS I OWN FLOOD. ^g-, which he had drawn up on the dam, calHng atten- tion to the fact that it was extremely dangerous to the people living in the valley. One of the peculiar things a stranger notices in Johnstown is the comparatively small number of women seen in the place. Of the throngs who walk about the streets searching for dead friends, there is not one woman to ten men. Occasionally a little group of two or three w^omen with sad faces will pick their way about, looking for the morgues. There are a few Sisters of Charity, in their black robes, seen upon the streets, and in the parts of the town not totally destroyed the usual num- ber of women are seen in the houses and yards. But, as a rule, women are a rarity in Johnstown now. This is not a natural peculiarity of Johns- town, nor a mere coincidence, but a fact with a dreadful reason behind it. There are so many more men than women among the living in Johns- town now, because there are so many more women than men among the dead. Of the bodies re- covered there are at least two women for every man. Besides the fact that their natural weak- ness made them an easier prey to the flood, the hour at which the disaster came was one when the women would most likely be in their homes and the men at work in the open air or in factory yards, from which escape was easy. Children also are rarely seen about the town, -g^ THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. and for a similar reason. They are all dead. There is never a group of the dead discovered that does not contain from one to three or four children for every grown person. Generally the children are In the arms of the grown persons, and often little toys and trinkets clasped in their hands Indicate that the children were caught up while at play, and carried as far as possible toward safety. Johnstown when rebuilt will be a city of many widowers and few children. In turning a school- house into a morgue the authorities probably did a wiser thing than they thought. It will be a long time before the school-house will be needed for its original purpose. The miracle, as It Is called, that happened at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, has caused a tremendous sensation. A large number of persons will testify as to the nature of the event, and, to put it mildly, the circumstances are really remarkable. The devotions in honor of the Blessed Virgin celebrated daily during the month of May were in progress on that Friday when the water descended on Cambria City. The church was filled with people at the time, but when the noise of the flood was heard the con- gregation hastened to get out of the way. They succeeded as far as escaping from the interior is concerned, and In a few minutes the church was THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. ngc partially submerged, the water reaching fifteen feet up the sides and swirhng around the corners furiously. The building was badly wrecked, the benches w^ere torn out, and in general the entire structure, both inside and outside, was fairly dis- mantled. Yesterday morning, when an entrance was forced through the blocked doorway the ruin appeared to be complete. One object alone had escaped the water's wrath. The statue of the Blessed Virgin, that had been decorated and adorned because of the May devotions, was as unsullied as the day it was made. The flowers, the wreaths, the lace veil were undisturbed and unsoiled, although the marks on the wall showed that the surface of the water had risen above the statue to a height of fifteen feet, while the statue nevertheless had been saved from all contact with the liquid. Every one who has seen the statue and its surroundings Is firmly convinced that the incident was a miraculous one, and even to the most skeptical the affair savors of the super- natural. A singular feature of the great flood was dis- covered at the great stone viaduct about half way between Mineral Point and South Fork, At Mineral Point the Pennsylvania Railroad is on the south side of the river, although the town is on the north side. About a mile and a half up the stream there was a viaduct built of very solid og5 • THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. masonry. It was originally built for the old Port- age Road. It was seventy-eight feet above the ordinary surface of the water. On this viaduct the railroad tracks crossed to the north side of the river and on that side ran into South Fork, two miles farther up. It is the general opinion of engineers that this strong viaduct would have stood against the gigantic wave had it not been blown up by dynamite. But at South Fork there was a dynamite magazine which was picked up by the flood and shot down the stream at the rate of twenty miles an hour. It struck the stone viaduct and exploded. The roar of the flood was tremendous, but the noise of this explosion was hearH by farmers on the Evanston Road, two miles and a half away. Persons living on the mountain sides, in view of the river, and who saw the explosion, say that the stones of the via- duct at the point where the magazine struck it, were thrown into the air to the height of two hundred feet. An opening was made, and the flood of death swept through on its awful errand. CHAPTER XXXIV. IT is characteristic of American hopefulness and energy that before work was fairly begun on clearing away the wreck of the old city, plans were being prepared for the new one that should arise, Phoenix-like, above its grave. If the future policy of the banks and bankers of Johnstown is to be followed by the merchants and manufac- turers of the city the prospects of a magfiificent city rising from the present ruins are of the brightest. James McMillen, president of the First National and Johnstown Savings Banks, said : •' The loss sustained by the First National Bank will be merely nominal. It did a general com- mercial business and very little investing in the way of mortgages. When the flood came the cash on hand and all our valuable securities and papers were locked in the safe and were in no way affected by the water. The damage to the build- ingitself will be comparatively small. Our capi- tal was one hundred thousand dollars, while our 387 ^38 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. surplus was upwards of forty thousand dollars. The depositors of this bank are, therefore, not worrying themselves about our ability to meet all demands that may be made upon us by them. The bank will open up for business within a few days as if nothing had happened. " As to the Johnstown Savings Bank it had probably ;^200,ooo invested in mortgages on property in Johnstown, but the wisdom of our policy in the past in making loans has proven of great value to us in the present emergency. Since we first beo-an business we have refused to make loans to parties on property where the lot itself would not be of sufficient value to indemnify us against loss in case of the destruction of the building. If a man owned a lot worth $2,000 and had on it a building worth $100,000 we would refuse to loan over the $2,000 on the property. The result is that the lots on which the buildinors stood in Johnstown, on which $200,000 of our money is loaned, are worth double the amount, probably, that we have invested in them. " What will be the effect of the flood on the value of lots in Johnstown proper ? Well, in- stead of decreasing, they have already advanced in value. This will bring outside capital to Johns- town, and a real estate boom is bound to follow in the wake of this destruction. All the people want is an assurance that the banks are safe and THE J OHNS TO I VN FL OOD. o g g will open up for business at once. With that f(^eling they have started to work with a vim. We have in this bank $300,000 invested in Govern- ment bonds and other securities that can be con- verted into cash on an hour's notice. We propose to keep these things constantly before our busi- ness men as an impetus to rebuilding our princi- pal business blocks as soon as possible." " What do you think of the idea projected by Captain W, R. Jones, to dredge and lower the river bed about thirty feet and adding seventy per cent, to its present width, as a precautionary measure against future washouts?" "I not only lieartily indorse that scheme, but have positive assurance from other leading busi- ness men that the idea will be carried out, as it certainly should be, the moment the work of cleaning away the debris is completed. Besides that, a scheme is on foot to get a charter for the city of Johnstown which will embrace all those surrounding boroughs. In the event of that be- ing done, and I am certain it will be, the plan of the city will be entirely changed and made to cor- respond with the best laid-out cities in the country. In ten years Johnstown will be one of the prettiest and busiest cities in the world, and nothino- can prevent it. The streets will be widened and prob- ably made to start from a common centre^ some- thing after the fashion of Washington City, with a OQO THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. little more regard for the value of property. With the Cambria Iron Company, the Gautier Steel Works, and other manufactories, as well as yearly increasing railroad facilities, Johnstown has a start which will grow in a short time to enormous pro- portions. From a real estate standpoint the flood has been a benefit beyond a doubt. Another ad- dition to the city will be made in the shape of an immense water-main to connect with a magnifi- cent reservoir of the finest water in the world to be located in the mountains up Stony Creek for supplying the entire city as contemplated in the proposed new charter. This plant was well under way when the flood came, and about ten thousand dollars had already been expended on it which has been lost." Mr. John Roberts, the surviving partner of the banking-house of John Dibert & Company, said : •' Aside from the loss to our own building we have come out whole and entire. We had no money invested in mortgages in Johnstown that is not fully indemnified by the lots themselves. Most of our money is invested in property in Somerset County, where Mr. Dibert was raised. We will exert every influence in our power to place the city on a better footing than was ever before. The plan of raising the city or lowering the bed of the river as well as widening its banks will surely be carried out. In addition, I think THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 391 the idea of changing the plan of the city and em- bracing Johnstown and the surrounding buroughs in one large city will be one of the greatest bene- fits the flood could have wrought to the future citizens of Johnstown and the Conemough Valley. "I have been chairman of our Finance Com- mittee of Councils for ten years past, and I know the trouble we have had with our streets and alleys and the necessity of a great change. In order to put the city in the proper shape to insure commercial growth and topographical beauty, >we will be ready for business in a few days, and enough money will be put into circulation in the valley to give the people encouragement in the work of rebuilding." CHAPTER XXXV. AMONG the travelers who were In or near the Coneniaugh Valley at the time of the flood, and who thus narrowly escaped the doom that swallowed up thousands of their fellow-mor- tals, was Mr. William Henry Smith, General Manager of the Associated Press. He remained there for some time and did valuable work in di- recting the operations of news-gatherers and in the general labors of relief. The wife and daughter of Mr. E. W. Halford, private secretary to President Harrison, were also there. They made their way to Washington on Thursday, to Mr. Halford's inexpressible re- lief, they having at first been reported among the lost. On their arrival at the Capital they went at once to the Executive Mansion, where the mem- bers of the Executive household were awaiting them with p^reat interest. The ladies lost all their baggage, but were thankful for their almost miraculous delivery from the jaws of death. Mrs. Harrison's eyes were suffused with tears as 39? THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. ^^X she listened to the dreadful narrative. The Presi- dent was also deeply moved. From the first tidings of the dire calamity his thoughts have been absorbed in sympathy and desire to alleviate the sufferings of the devastated region. The manner of the escape of Mrs. Halford and her daughter has already been told. When the alarm was oriven, she and her dauo-hter rushed with the other passengers out of the car and took refuge on the mountain side by climbing up the rocky excavation near the track. Mrs. Halford was in delicate health owing to bronchial troubles. She has borne up well under the excitement, exposure, fatigue, and horror of her experiences, Mrs. George W. Childs was also reported among the lost, but incorrectly. Mr. Childs re- ceived word on Thursday for the first time di- rect from his wife, who was on her way West to visit Miss Kate Drexel when detained by the flood. Indirectly he had heard she was all right. The teleg-ram notified him that Mrs. Childs was at Altoona, and could 'not move either way, but was perfectly safe. George B. Roberts, President of the Pennsyl- vania Railway Company, was obliged to issue the following card : " In consequence of the terrible calamity that has fallen upon a community which has such close relations to the Pennsylvania Rail- way Company, Mr. and Mrs. George B. Roberts 2^4 ' THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. feel compelled to withdraw their invitations for Thursday, June 6th," Mr. and Mrs. Charles E. Pugh also felt obliged to withdraw their invlta- dons for Wednesday, June 5th. The Rev. J. A. Ranney, of Kalamazoo, Mich., and his wife were passengers on one of the trains wrecked by the Conemaugh flood. Mr. Ranney said : "Mrs. Ranney and I were on one of the trains at Conemaug^h when the flood came. There was but a moment's warning and the disaster was • upon us. The occupants of our car rushed for the door, where Mrs. Ranney and I became sepa- rated. She was one of the first to jump, and I saw her run and disappear behind the first house in sight. Before I could get out the deluge was too high, and, with a number of others, I remained in the car. Our car was lifted up and dashed against a car loaded with stone and badly wrecked, but most of the occupants of this car were res- cued. As far as I know all who jumped from the car lost their lives. The remainder of the train was swept away. I searched for days for Mrs. Ranney, but could find no trace of her. I think she perished. The mind cannot conceive the awful sight presented when we first saw the dan- ger. The approaching wall of water looked like Niagara, and huge engines were caught up and whirled away as if they were mere wheel-bar- rows." THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. !95 D. B. Cummins, of Philadelphia, the President of the Girard National Bank, was one of the party of four which consisted of John Scott, Solicitor- General of the Pennsylvania Railroad ; Edmund Smith, ex-Vice-PresIdent of the same company ; and Colonel Welsh himself, who had been stop- ping in the country a few miles back of Williams- port. Mr. Cummins, in talking of the condition of things in that vicinity and of his experience, said : "W^e were trout-fishing at Anderson's cabin, about fourteen miles from WIlliamsport,at the time the flood started. We went to Willlamsport, in- tending to take a train for Philadelphia. Of course, when we got there we found everything In a fright- ful condition, and the people completely disheart- ened by the flood. Fortunately the loss of life was very slight, especially when compared with the terrible disaster in Johnstown. The loss, from a financial standpoint, will be very great, for the city is completely inundated, and the lumber industry seriously crippled. Besides, the stag- nation of business for any length of time produces results which are disastrous." The first passengers that came from Altoona to New York by the Pennsylvania Railroad since the floods included five members of the " Night Off^" Company, which played In Johnstown on Thursday night, about whom considerable anxiety was felt for some time, till E. A. Eberle received ^q5 the JOHNSTOWN flood. telegrams xrom his wife, the contents of wnich he at once gave to the press. Mrs, Eberle was among the five who arrived. " No words can tell the horrors of the scenes we witnessed," she said in answer to a request for an account of her experiences, " and nothing that has been published can convey any idea of the awful havoc wrought in those few but ap- parently never-ending minutes in which the worst of the flood passed us. " Our company left Johnstown on Friday morn- ing. We only got two miles away, as far as Conemaugh, when we were stopped by a land- slide a little way ahead. About noon we went to dinner, and soon after we came back some of our company noticed that the flood had extended and v/as washing away the embankment on which our train stood. Thev called the engineer's attention to the fact, and he took the train a few hundred feet further. It was fortunate he did so, for a little while after the embankment caved in. " Then we could not move forward or back- ward, as ahead was the landslide and behind there was no track. Even then we were not frightened, and it was not till about three o'clock, when we saw a heavy iron bridge go down as if it were made of paper, that we began to be seriously alarmed. Just before the dam broke a gravel train came tearing down, with the engine giving out the most awful shriek I ever heard. Every THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. -^QQ one recocrnized that this was a note of warnine. We fled as hard as we could run down the em- bankment, across a ditch, and for a distance equal to about two blocks up the hillside. Once I turned to look at the vast wall of water, but was hurried on by my friends. When I had gone about the distance of another block the head ot the flooci had passed far away, and with it went houses, cars, locomotives, everything- that a few minutes before had made up a busy scene. The wall of water looked to be fifty feet high. It was of a deep yellow color, but the crest was white with foam, " Three of us reached the house of Mrs- William Wright, who took us in and treated us most kindly. I did not take any account of time, but I imao-ine It was about an hour before the water ceased to rush past the house. The con- ductor of our train, Charles A. Wartham, behaved with the greatest bravery. He took a crippled passenger on his back in the rush up the hill. A fl )ating house struck the cripple, carried him away and tore some of the clothes offWartham's back, and he managed to struggle on and save himself. Our ride to Ebensburg, sixteen miles, in a lumber wagon without springs, was trying, but no one thought of complaining. Later In the day we were sent to Cresson and thence to Altoona." 23 CHAPTER XXXVI. NO travelers in an upheaved and disorganized land push through with more pluck and courage than the newspaper correspondents. Accounts have already been given of some of their experiences, A writer in the New York 'Jimes thus told of his, a week after the events described : "A man who starts on a journey on ten min- utes' notice likes the journey to be short, with a promise of success and of food and clothes at its end. Starting suddenly a week ago, the limes s correspondent has since had but a small measure of success, a smaller measure of food, and for nights no rest at all ; a long tramp across the Blue Hills and Allegheny Mountains, behind jaded horses ; helping to push up-hill the wagon they tried to pull or to lift the vehicle up and down bridges whose approaches were torn away, or in and out of fords the pathways to which had disappeared ; and in the blackness of the night, scrambling through gul- lies in the pike road made by the storm, paved 400 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. ^01 with sharp and treacherous rocks and traversed by swift-running streams, whose roar was the only guide to their course. All this prepared a weary reporter to welcome the bed of straw he found in a Johnstown stable loft last Monday, and on which he has reposed nightly ever since. " And let me advise reporters and other persons who are liable to sudden missions to out-of-the- way places not to wear patent leather shoes. They are no good for mountain roads. This is the result of sad experience. Wetness and stone bruises are the benisons they confer on feet that tread rough paths. ''The quarter past twelve train was the one boarded by the Times s correspondent and three other reporters on their way hither a week ago Friday night. It was in the minds of all that they would get as far as Altoona, on the Pennsyl- vania Road, and thence by wagon to this place. But all were mistaken. At Philadelphia we were told that there were wash-outs in many places and bridges were down everywhere, so that we would be lucky if we got even to Harrisburg. This was harrowine news. It caused such' a searching" of time-tables and of the map of Pennsylvania as those things were rarely ever subjected to before. It was at last decided that if the Pennsylvania Railroad stopped at Harrisburg an attempt would be made to reach the Baltimore and Ohio Rail- MQ2 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. road at Martlnsburg-, West Virginia, by way of the Cumberland Railroad, a train on which was scheduled to leave Harrisburg" ten minutes after the arrival of the Pennsylvania train. " It was only too evident to us, long before we reached Harrisburg, that we would not get to the West out of that city. The Susquehanna had risen far over its banks, and for miles our train ran slowly with the water close to the fire-box of the locomotive and over the lower steps of the car platform. At last we reached the station. Sev- eral energetic Philadelphia leporters had come on with us from that lively city, expecting to go straight to Johnstown. As they left the train one cried : ' Hurrah, boys, there's White. He'll know all about it.' White stood placidly on the steps, and knew nothing more than that he and several other Philadelphia reporters, who had started Fri- day night, had got no further than the Harrisburg station, and were in a state of wonderment, leav- ing them to think our party caught. " As the Cumberland Valley train was pulling out of the station, its conductor, a big, genial fel- low, who seemed to know everybody in the valley, was loth to express an opinion as to whether we would eet to Martinsburof, He would take us as far as he could, and then leave us to work out our own salvation. He could give us no information about the Baltimore and Ohio Road. Hope and THE JOIINSTOIVN FLOOD. >q^ fear chased one another in our midst; hope that trains were running on that road, and fear thiat it, too, had been stopped by wash-outs. In the lat- t- r case it seemed to us that we should be com- pelled to return to Harrisburg and sit down to think with our Philadelphia brethren. The Cumberland Valley train took us to Ha- gerstown, and there the big and genial conductor told us it would stay, as it could not cross the Potomac to reach Martinsburg. We were twelve miles from the Potomac and twenty from Martins- buro". Fortunately, a construction train was eo- ing to the river to repair some small wash-outs, and Major Ives, the engineer of the Cumberland Valley Road, took us upon it, but he smiled piti- fully when we told him we were going across the bridge, " ' Why, man,' he said to the Times s corres- pondent, ' the Potomac is higher than it was in 1877, and there's no telling when the bridge will go.' " At the bridge was a throng of country people waiting to see it go down, and wondering how many more blows it would stand from foundering canal-boats, washed out of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, whose lines had already disappeared under the flood. A quick survey of the bridge showed that its second section was weakening, and had already bent several inches, making a slight concavity on the upper side. ^Q^ THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. " No time was to be lost if we were going to Martinsburg. The country people murmured disapproval, but we went on the bridge, and were soon crossing it on the one-foot plank that served for a footwalk. It was an unpleasant walk. The river was roaring below us. To yield to the fasci- nation of the desire to look between the railroad ties at the foaming water was to throw away our lives. Then that fear that the tons of drift stuff piled against the upper side of the bridge, would suddenly throw it over, was a cause of anything but confidence. But we held our breath, balanced ourselves, measured our steps, and looked far ahead at the hills on the Western Virtrinia shore. At last the firm embankment was reached, and four reporters sent up one sigh of relief and joy. " Finding two teams, we were soon on our way to Martinsburgf. "The Potomac was nine feet higher than it was ever known to be before, and it was out for more than a mile beyond the tracks of the Cumberland Valley Railroad at Falling Waters, where it had carried away several houses. This made the route to Martinsburg twice as long as it otherwise would have been. To weary, anxious reporters it seemed four times as long, and that we should never get beyond the village of Falling Waters. It confronted us at every turn of the crooked way, THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. ,qc until it became a source of pain. It is a pretty place, but we were yearning- for Johnstown, not for rural beauty. " All roads have an end, and Farmer Sperow's teams at last dragged us into Martinsburg, Little comfort was in store for us there. No train had arrived there for more than twenty-four hours. Farmer Sperow was called on to take us back to the river, our instructions being to cross the bridge again and take a trip over the mountains. Hope gave way to utter despair when we learned that the bridge had fallen twenty minutes after our passage. We had put ourselves Into a pickle. Chief Engineer Ives and his assistant, Mr. Schoonmaker joined us a little while later. They had followed us across the bridge and been cut off also. They were needed at Harrisburg, and they backed up our effort to get a special train to go to the Shenandoah Valley Road's bridge, twenty- five miles away, which was reported to be yet standing. " The Baltimore and Ohio officials were obdu- rate. They did not know enough about the tracks to the eastward to experiment with a train on them in the dark. They promised to make up a train in the morning. Wagons would not take us as soon. A drearier night was never passed by men with their hearts In their work. Morning came at last and with it the news that the road to ^q5 ^-^^ JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. the east was passable nearly to Harper's Ferry. Lots of Martinsburof folks wanted to see the sights at the Ferry, and we had the advantage of their society on an excursion train as far as Shen- andoah Junction, where Mr. Ives had telegraphed for a special to come over -and meet us if the bridge was standing. "The telegraph kept us informed about the movement of the train. When we learned that it had tested and crossed the bridge our joy was modified only by the fear that we had made fools of ourselves in leaving Harrisbure, and that the more phlegmatic Philadelphia reporters had already got to Johnstown. But this fear was soon dissipated. The trainman knew that Harrisburg was inundated and no train had eone west for nearly two clays. A new fear took its place. It was that New York men, starting behind us, had got into Johnstown through Pittsburg by way of the New York Central and its connections. No telegrams were penned with more conflicting emotions sureinof throuMi the writer than those by which the TzW^i-correspondentmade it known that he had got out of the Martinsburg pocket and was about to make a wagon journey of one hundred and ten miles across the mountains, and asked for information as to whether any Eastern man had got to the scene of the flood. " The special train took us to Chambersburg, THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD, .^y where Superintendent Riddle, of the Cumberland Valley Road, had information that four Phila- delphia men were on their way thither, and had engaged a team to take them on the first stage of the overland trip. A wild rush was made for Schiner's livery, and in ten minutes we were b,ovvl- ing over the pike toward McConnellsburg, having already sent thither a telegraphic order for fresh teams. The train from Harrisburg was due in five minutes when we started. As we mounted each hill we eagerly scanned the road behind for pursuers. They never came in sight. " In McConnellsburg the entire town had heard of our cominsf, and were out to orreet us with cheers. They knew our mission and that a party of competitors was tracking us. Landlord Prosser, of the Fulton Hotel, had his team ready, but said there had been an enormous wash-out near the Juniata River, beyond which he could not take us. We would have to walk through the break in the pike and cross the river on a bridge tottering on a few supports. Telegrams to Everett for a team to meet us beyond the river and take us to Bed- ford, and to the latter place for a team to make the journey across the Allegehenies to Johnstown settled all our plans. "As well as we could make it out by telegraphic advices, we were an hour ahead of the Philadel- phlans. Ten minutes was not, therefore, too ^Qg THE JOHNS TO VVN FL O OD. long- for supper. Landlord Prosser took die reins himself and we started again, with a hurrah from the populace. As it was Sunday, they would sell us nothing, but storekeeper Young and telegraph operator Sloan supplied us with tobacco and other little comforts, our stock of which had been exhausted. It will gratify our Prohibition friends to learn that whisky was not among them. Mc- Connellsburg is, unfortunately, a dry town for the time being. It was a long and weary pull to the top of Sidling Hill. To ease up on the team, we walked the greater part of the way. A short de- scent and a straight run took us to the banks of Licking Creek. " Harrisonville was just beyond, and Harrison- ville had been under a raging flood, which had weakened the props of the bridge and washed out the road for fifty feet beyond it. The only thincr to do was to unhitch and lead the horses over the bridge and through the gully. This was difficult, but it was finally accomplished. The more difficult task was to get the wagon over. A lono- pull, with many strong lifts, in which some of the natives aided, took it down from the bridge and through the break, but at the end there were more barked shins and bruised toes than any other four men ever had in common. " It was a quick ride from Everett to Bedford, for our driver had a good wagon and a speedy THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. ^qq team. Arriving at Bedford a little after two o'clock in the morning, we found dispatches that cheered us, for they told us that we had made no mistake, and might reach the scene of disaster first. Only a reporter who has been on a mission similar to this can tell the joy imparted by a dis- patch like this : " * New York — Nobody is ahead of you. Go it.' "At four o'clock in the morningr we started on our long trip of forty miles across the Alleghenies to Johnstown. Pleasantville was reached at half- past six A. M. Now the road became bad, and everybody but the driver had to walk. Footsoie as we were, we had to clamber over rocks and through mud in a driving rain, v^diich wet us through. For ten miles we went thus dismally. Ten miles from Johnstown we got in the wagon, and every one promptly went to sleep, at the risk of being throv/n out at any time as the wagon jolted along. '1 ired nature could stand no more, and we slumbered peacefully until four half- drunken special policemen halted us at the entrance to Johnstown. Argument with them stirred us up, and we got into town and saw what a ruin it was." CHAPTER XXXVII. Nor was the life of the correspondents at Johns- town altogether a happy one. The hfe of a news- paper man is filled with vicissitudes. Sometimes he feeds on the fat of the land, and at others he feeds on air ; but as a rule he lives comfortably, and has as much satisfaction in life as other men. It may safely be asserted, however, that such ex- periences as the special correspondents of Eastern papers have met with in Johnstown are not easily paralleled. When a war correspondent goes on a campaign he is prepared for hardship and makes provision against it. He has a tent, blankets, heavy overcoat, a horse, and other things which are necessaries of life in the open air. But the men who came hurrying to Johnstown to fulfill the invaluable mission of letting the world know just what was the matter were not well provided against the suffering set before them. The first informatioft of the disaster was sent (410) 77;/s J O UN STOW N J-LOOD. 411 out by the Associated Press on the evening of its occurrence. The destruction of wires made it impossible to give as full an account as would otherwise have been sent, but the dispatches con- vinced the managing editors of the wide-awake papers that a calamity destined to be one of the most fearful In all human history had fallen upon the peaceful valley of the Conemaugh. All the leading Eastern papers started men for Philadel- phia at once. From Philadelphia these men went to Harrisburg. There were many able r< pre- sentatives In the party, and they are rcaJy to wao-er lanje amounts that there was never at any place a crowd of newspaper men so absolutely and hopelessly stalled as they were there. Bridges were down and the roadway at many places was carried away. Then came the determined and exhausting struo-orle to reach Johnstown. The stories of the different trips have been told. From Saturday morning till Monday morning the correspondents fought a desperate battle against the raging floods, risking their lives again and again to reach the city. At one place they footed it across a bridee that ten minutes later went swirlinf^ down the mad torrent to Instant destruction. Again they hired carriages and drove over the mount- ains, literally wading Into swollen streams and carrying their vehicles across. Finally one party 4 1 2 ^^^^ JOHNS TO WN FL O OD. caught a Baltimore and Ohio special train and got into Johnstown. It was Monday. There was nothing to eat. The men were exhausted, hungry, thirsty, sleepy. Their work was there, however, and had to be done. Where was the telegraph office ? Gone down the Conemaugh Valley to hopeless oblivion. But the duties of a telegraph company are as im- perative as those of a newspaper. General Man- ager Clark, of Pittsburgh, had sent out a force of twelve operators, under Operator Munson as manager pi^o tern., to open communications at Johnstown. The Pennsylvania Railroad rushed them through to the westerly end of the fatal bridge. Smoke and the pall of death were upon it. Ruin and devastation were all around. To get wires into the city proper was out of the ques- tion. Nine wires were o-ood between the west" end of the bridge and Pittsburgli. The telegraph force found, just south of the track, on the side of the hill overlooking the whole scene of Johns- town's destruction, a miserable hovel which had been used for the storage of o'l barrels. The in- terior was as dark as a tomb, and smellecl like the concentrated essence of petroleum itself The floor was a slimy mass of black grease. It was no time for delicacy. In went the operators with their relay instruments and keys ; out went the barrels. Rough shelves were thrown up to take THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 41, copy on, and some old chairs were subsequendy secured. Tallow dips direw a fitful red glare upon the scene. The operators were ready. Toward dusk ten haggard and exhausted New York correspondents came staggering up the hill- side. They found the entire neighborhood infest- ed with Pittsburgh reporters, who had already secured all the good places, such as they were, for work, and were busily engaged in wiring to tlieir offices awful tales of Hungarian depre- dations upon dead bodies, and lynching affairs which never occurred. One paper had eighteen men there, and others had almost an equal number. The New York correspondents were in a terrible condition. Some of them had started from their offices without a change of clothing, and had managed to buy a flannel shirt or two and some footwear, including the abso- lutely necessary rubber boots, on the way. Others had no extra coin, and were wearing the low-cut shoes which they had on at starting. One or two of them were so worn out that they turned dizzy and sick at the stomach when they attempted to write. But the work had to be done. Just south of the telegraph office stands a two-story frame building In a state of dilapidation. It is flanked on each side by a shed, and its lower story, with an earth floor, is used for the storage of fire bricks. The second-story floor is full of great gaps, and . J . THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. the entire building is as draughty as a seive and as dusty as a country road in a drought. The Associated Press and the Herald took the second floor, the Times, Tribune, Sun^ Morning yournal, World, Philadelphia Press, Baltimore Sun, and Pittsburgh Post took possession of the first floor, using the sheds as day outposts. Some old bar- rels were found inside. They were turned up on end, some boards were picked up outdoors and laid on them, and seats were improvised out of the fire-bricks. Candles were borrowed from the telegraph men, who were hammering away at their instruments and turning pale at the pros- pect, and the work of sending dispatches to the papers began. Not a man had assuaged his hunger. Not a man knew where he was to rest. All that the operators could take, and a great deal more, was filed, and then the correspondents began to think of themselves. Two tents, a colored cook, and provisions had been sent up from Pittsburgh for the operators. The tents were pitched on the side of the hill, just over the telegraph "office," and the colored cook utilized the natural gas of a brick-kiln just behind them. The correspondents procured little or nothing to eat that night. Some of them plodded wearily across the Pennsylvania bridge and into the city, out to the Baltimore and Ohio tracks, and into the car in which they THE JOtiNSTO WN- FL O OD. . j « had arrived. There they slept, in all their cloth- ing, in miserably-cramped positions on the seats. In the morning they had nothing to wash in but the polluted waters of the Conemaugh. Others, who had no claim on the car, moved to pity a night watchman, who took them to a large barn in Cambria City. There they slept in a hay-loft, to the tuneful piping of hundreds of mice, the snorting of horses and cattle, the nocturnal danc- ing of dissipated rats, and the solemn rattle of cow chains. In the morning all hands were out bright and early, sparring for food. The situation was des- perate. There was no such thing in the place as a restaurant or a hotel ; there was no such thing as a store. The few remaining houses were over- crowded with survivors who had lost all. They could get food by applying to the Relief Com- mittee. The correspondents had no such privi- lege. They had plenty cf money, but there was nothing for sale. They ^ould not beg nor bor- row ; they wouldn't st'^al. Finally, they pre- vailed upon a pretty Pennsylvania mountain woman, with fair skin, gray eyes, and a delicious way of saying "You un's," to give them some- thing to eat. She fried them some tough pork, o-ave them some bread, and made them some coffee without milk and sugar. The first man that stayed his hunger was so glad that he gave 24 .jg THE JOHNSTOWhr FLOOD. her a dollar, and that became her upset price. It cost a dollar to go in and look around after that. Then Editor Walters, of Pittsburgh, a great big man with a great big heart, ordered up $150 worth of food from Pittsburgh. He got a Ger- man named George Esser, in Cambria City, to cook at his house, which had not been carried away, and the boys were mysteriously informed that they could get meals at the German's. He was supposed to be one of the dread Hungarians, and the boys christened his place the Cafe Hungaria. They paid fifty cents apiece to him for cooking the meals, but it was three days before the secret leaked out that Mr. Walters supplied the food. If ever Mr. Walters gets into a tight place he has only to telegraph to New York, and twenty grate- ful men will do anything in their power to repay his kindness. Then the routine of Johnstown life for the cor- respondents became settled. At night they slept in the old car or the hay-mow or elsewhere. They breakfasted at the Caf(§ Hungaria. Then they went forth to their work. They had to walk everywhere. Over the mountains, through briers and among rocks, down in the valley in mud up to their knees, they tramped over the whole dis- trict lying between South Fork and New Flor- ence, a distance of twenty-three miles, to gather the details of the frightful calamity. Luncheon THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. . jq was a rare and radiant luxury. Dinner was eaten at the cafe. Copy was written everywhere and anywhere. Constant struggles were going on between cor- respondents and policemen or deputy sheriffs. The countersign was given out incorrectly to the newspaper men one night, and many of them had much trouble. At night the boys traversed the place at the risk of life and limb. Two Times vci.^Vi spent an hour and a half going two miles to the car for rest one night. The city — or what had been the city — was wrapped in Cim- merian darkness, only intensified by the feeble glimmer of the fires of the night guards. The two correspondents almost fell through a pontoon bridge into the Conemaugh. Again they almost walked into the pit full of water where the gas tank had been. At length they met two guards going to an outlying post near the car with a lantern. These men had lived in Johnstown all their lives. Three times they were lost on their way over. Another correspondent fell down three or four slippery steps one night and sprained his ankle, but he gritted his teeth and stuck to his work. One of the Times men tried to sleeji in a hay-mow one night, but at one o'clock he was driven out by the rats. He wandered about till he found a night watchman, who escorted him to a brick-kiln. Attired in all his clothing, his mack- 42 o THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. intosh, rubber boots, and hat, and with his hand- kerchief for a pillow, he stretched himself upon a plank on top of the bricks inside the kiln and slept one solitary hour. It was the third hour's sleep he had enjoyed in seventy-two hours. The next morning he looked like a paralytic tramp who had been hauled out of an ash-heap. Another correspondent fell through an opening in the Pennsylvania bridge and landed in a cul- vert several feet below. His left eye was almost knocked out, and he had to go to one of the hos- pitals for treatment. But he kept at his work. The more active newspaper men were a sight by Wednesday. They knew it. They had their pic- tures taken. They call the group " The Johns- town Sufferers." Their costumes are picturesque. One of them — a dramatically inclined youth some- times called Romeo — wears a pair of low shoes which are incrusted with yellow mud, a pair of gray stained trousers, a yellow corduroy coat, a flaruiel shirt, a soft hat of a dirty greenish-brown tint, and a rubber overcoat with a cape. And still he is not happy. CHAPTER XXXVIII. The storm that filled Conemaugh Lake and burst its bounds also wrought sad havoc else- where. Williamsport, Pa., underwent the ex- perience of being flooded with thirty-four feet of water, of having the Susquehanna boom taken out with two hundred million feet of logs, over forty million feet of sawed lumber taken, mills carried away and others wrecked, business and industrial establishments wrecked, and a large number of lives lost. The flood was nearly seven feet higher than the great high water of 1865. Early on Friday news came of the flood at Clearfield, but it was not before two o'clock Sat- urday morning that the swelling water began to become prominent, the river then showing a rise averaging two feet to the hour. Steadily and rapidly thereafter the rise continued. The rain up the country had been terrific, and from Thurs- U21) 422 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. day afternoon, throughout the night, and during Friday and Friday night, the rain fell here with but little interruption. After midnight Friday it came down in absolute torrents until nearly day- light Saturday morning. As a result of this rise, Grafins Run, a small stream running through the city from northwest to southeast, was raised until it flooded the whole territory on either side of it. Soon after daylight, the rain having ceased, the stream began to subside, and as the river had not then reached an alarming height, very few were concerned over the outlook. The water kept getting higher and higher, and spreading out over the lower streets. At about nine o'clock in the forenoon the logs began to 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 to the Court-house, and was up Fourth Street to Market. Not long after it reached Third Street on William, and ad- vanced up Fourth to Pine. Its onward prog- ress did not stop, however, as it rose higher on Third Street, and soon began to reach Fourth Street both at Elmlra and Locust Streets. No one along Fourth between William and Hepburn had any conception that it would trouble them, but the sequel proved they were mistaken. Soon after noon the water began crossing the railroad at Walnut and Campbell Streets, and riJE JOllA'STUyi'iV FLOOD. 42. soon all the country north of the railroad was submerged, that part along the run being for the second time during the day flooded. The rise kept on until nine 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 that 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 the buildings in Market Square, over four feet deep in the station of the Pennsylvania Railroad and at the Park Hotel. Fully three- quarters of the city was submerged. The loss was necessarily enormous. It was heaviest on the lumbermen. All the logs were lost, and a large share of the cut lumber. The loss of life was heavy. A general meeting of lumbermen was held, to take action on the question of looking after the lost stock. A comparison as to losses was made, but many of those present were unable to give an estimate of the amount they had lost. It was found that the aggregate of logs lost from the boom was about two hundred million feet, and the aggregate of manufactured lumber fully forty 424 THE Johnstown flood. million feet. The only scw-mill taken was the Beaver mill structure, which contained two mills, that of S. Mack Taylor and the Williamsport Lumber Company. It went down stream just as it stood, and lodged a few miles below the city. A member of the Philadelphia Times staff tel- egraphed from Williamsport : — "Trusting to the strong arms of brave John Nichol, I safely crossed the Susquehanna at Mont- gomery in a small boat, and met Superintendent Westfall on the other side on an engine. We went to where the Northern Central crosses the river again to Williamsport, where it is wider and swifter. The havoc everywhere is dreadful. Most of the farmers for miles and miles have lost their stock and crops, and some their horses and barns. In one place I saw thirty dead cattle. They had caught on the top of a hill, but were drowned and carried into a creek that had been a part of a river. I could see where the river had been over the tops of the barns a quarter of a mile from the usual bank. A man named Gib- son, some miles below Williamsport, lost every animal but a gray horse, which got into the loft and stayed there, with the water up to his body. "A woman named Clark is alive, with six cows that she got upstairs. Along the edges of the washed-out tracks families with stoves and a few thingrs saved are under board shanties. We THE JOHNS: TO JFAT FL OOD. 425 passed the saw-mill that, by forming a dam, is responsible for the loss of the Williamsport bridges. The river looked very wild, but Super- intendent Westfall and I crossed it in two boats. It is nearly half a mile across. Both boats were carried some distance and nearly upset. It was odd, after wading- throuoh mud into the town, to find all Williamsport knowing little or nothing about Johnstown or what had been happening elsewhere. Mr. Westfall was beset by thousands asking about friends on the other side, and in- quiring when food can be got through. "The loss is awful. There have not been many buildings in the town carried off, but there are few that have not been damaged. There is mourning everywhere for the dead. Men look serious and worn, and every one is going about splashed with mud. The mayor, in his address, says : ' Send us help at once — in the name of God, at once. There are hundreds utterly des- titute. They have lost all they had, and have ho hope of employment for the future. Philadel- phia should, if possible, send provisions. Such a thing as a chicken is unknown here. They were all carried off. It is hard to get anything to eat for love or money. Flour is needed worse than anything else.' " I gave away a cooked chicken and sandwiches that I had with me to two men who had had noth- A 26 '^^^ JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. ing to eat since yesterday morning. The flood having subsided, all the grim destitution is now uncovered. Last night a great many grocery and other stores Avere gutted, not by the water, but by hungry, desperate people. They only took things to eat. "A pathetic feature of the loss of life is the great number of children drowned. In one case two brothers named Youngman, up the river, who have a woolen mill, lost their wives and children and their property, too, by the bursting of the dam. Everything was carried away in the night. They saved themselves by being strong. One caught in a tree on the side of the mount- ain across the river and remained there from Sat- urday night until late Sunday, with the river below him." Among the many remarkable experiences was that of Garrett L. Grouse, proprietor of a large kindling-wood mill, who is also well known to many Philadelphia and New York business men. Mr. Grouse lives on the north side of West Fourth Street, between Walnut and Gampbell. On Sat- urday he was down town, looking after his mill and wood, little thinking that there was any flood in the western part of the city. At eleven o'clock he started to go home, and sauntered leisurely up Fourth Street, He soon learned the condition of things and started for Lycoming Street, and was THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 427 soon in front of the Rising Sun Hotel, on Walnut Street, wading in the water, which came nearly to his neck. Boats passing and repassing refused to take him in, notwithstanding that he was so close to his° home. The water continued to rise and he detached a piece of board-walk, holding on to a convenient tree. In this position he stayed two hours in the vain hope that a boat wo,uld take him on. At this juncture a man with a small boat hove in sig-ht and came so close that Mr. Crouse could touch it. Laying hold of the boat he asked the skipper how much he would take to row him down to Fourth Street, where the larger boats were running. " I can't take you," was the reply ; ''this boat only holds one." " I know it only holds one, but it will hold two this time," replied the would-be passenger. "This water is getting unpleasantly close to my lower lip. It's a matter of life and death with me, and if you don't want to carry two your boat will carry one ; but I'll be that one." The fellow in the boat realized that the talk meant business, and the two started down town. At Pine Street Mr. Crouse waited for a big boat another hour, and when he finally found one he was shivering- with cold. The men in the boat en- gaged to run him for five dollars, and they started. ^28 ^'^^ JOHASTOIVN I-LOOD. It was five o'clock when they reached their des- tination, when they rowed to their passenger's stable and found his horses up to their necks in the flood. " What will you charge to take these two horses to Old Oaks Park ? " he asked. "Ten dollars apiece," was the reply. " I'll pay it." They then rowed to the harness room, got the bridles, rowed back to the horses and bridled them. They first took out the brown horse and landed her at the park, Mr Crouse holding her behind the boat. They returned for the gray and started out with her, but had scarcely left the stable when her head fell back to one side. Fright had already e-xhausted her. They took her back to the house porch, when Mr. Crouse led her up- stairs and put her in a bed-room, where she stayed high and dry all night. On Sunday morning the folks who were cleaning up were surprised to see a gray horse and a man backing down a plank out of the front door of a Fourth Street residence. It was Garrett Crouse and his gray horse, and when the neighbors saw it they turned from the scene of desolation about them and warmly ap- plauded both beast and master. This is how a Williamsport man got home during the flood and saved his horses. It took him five hours and cost him twenty-five dollars. THE JOHNSTOWN- FLOOD. 429 Mr. James R. Skinner, of Brooklyn, N. Y., arrived home after a series of remarkable adven- tures in the floods at Williamsport. " I went to Williamsport last Thursday," said Mr. Skinner, "and on Friday the rain fell as I had never seen it fall before. The skies seemed simply to open and unload the water. The Sus- quehanna was booming and kept on rising rap- idly, but the people of Williamsport did not seem to be particularly alarmed. On Saturday the water had risen to such a height that the people quit laughing and gathered along the sides of the torrent with a sort of awe-stricken curiosity. "A friend of mine, Mr. Frank Bellows, and myself went out to see the grand spectacle, and found a place of observation on the Pennsylvania Railroad bridge. Great rafts of logs were swept down the stream, and now and then a house would be brought with a crash against the bridge. Finally, one span gave way and then we beat a hasty retreat. By wading we reached the place of a man who owned a horse and buggy. These we hired and started to drive to the hotel, which is on the highest ground in the city. The water was all the time rising, and the flood kept coming in waves. These waves came with such fre- quency and volume that we were forced to aban- don the horse and buggy and try wading. With the water up to our armpits we got to an out- A-^Q THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. house, and climbing to the top of it made our way along to a building. This I entered through a window, and found the family in the upper stories. Floating outside were two canoes, one of which I hired for two dollars and fifty cents. I at once embarked in this and tried to paddle for my hotel. I hadn't gone a hundred feet when I capsized. Going back, I divested myself of my coat, waistcoat, shoes, and stockings. I tried again to make the journey, and succeeded very well for quite a distance, when the canoe sud- denly struck something and over it went. I man- aged to hold the paddle and the canoe, but every- thing else was washed away and lost. After a struggle in the water, which was running like a mill-race, I got afloat again and managed to lodge myself against a train of nearly submerged freight cars. Then, by drawing myself against the stream, I got opposite the hotel and paddled over. My friend Bellows was not so fortunate. The other canoe had a hole in it, and he had to spend the night on the roof of a house. "The trainmen of the Pennsylvania road thought to sleep in the cars, but were driven out, and forced to take refuge in the trees, from which they were subsequently rescued. The Beaver Dam mill was moved from its position as though it was being towed by some enormous steam tug. The river swept away everything that THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. a'^i offered it any resistance. Saturday night was the most awful I ever experienced. The horrors of the flood were intensified by an inky darkness, through which the cries of women and children were ceaselessly heard. Boatmen labored all nio-ht to eive relief, and hundreds were' brouQj'ht to the hotel for safety. " On Sunday the waters began to subside, and then the effects were more noticeable. All the provision stores were washed out completely, and one of the banks had its books, notes, and green- backs destroyed. I saw rich men begging for bread for their children. They had money, but there was nothing to be bought. This lack of supplies is the greatest trouble that Williamsport has to contend with, and I really do not see how the people are to subsist. "Sunday afternoon Mr. C. H. BJaisdell, Mr. Cochrane, a lumberman and woodman, a driver, and myself started in a wagon for Canton, with letters and appeals for assistance. The roads were all washed away, and we had to go over the mountains. We had to cut our way through the forests at times, hold the wagon up against the sides of precipices, ford streams, and undergo a thousand hardships. After two days of travel that even now seems impossible, we got into Canton more dead than alive. The soles were completely gone from my boots, and 1 had on A 'J 2 THE JOFTNSTOIVN FLOOD. only my night-shirt, coat, and trousers, which I had saved from the flood, A rehef corps was at once organized, and sent with provisions for the sufferers. But it had to take a roundabout way, and I do not know what will become of those poor people in the meantime." Mr. Richard P. Rothwell, the editor of the New York Engineering a^id Mining Journal, and Mr. Ernest Alexander Thomson, the two men who rowed down the Susquehanna River from Will- iamsport, Pa., to Sunbury, and brought the first news of the disaster by flood at Williamsport, came through to New York by the Reading road. The boat they made the trip in was a common flat-bottom rowboat, about thirteen feet lone, fitted for one pair of oars. There were three men in the crew, and her sides were only about three inches above the water when they were aboard. The third was Mr. Aaron Niel, of Phoenixville, Pa. He Js a trotting-horse owner. Mr. Thomson is a tall, athletic young man, a graduate of Harvard in '87. He would not ac- knowledge that the trip was very dangerous, but an idea of it can be had from the fact that they made the run of forty-five miles in four and one- half hours. " My brother, John W. Thomson, myself, and Mr. Rothwell," he said, "have been prospecting for coal back of Ralston. It began to rain on THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. ' a-,^ Friday just after we got Into Myer's Hotel, where we were staying, Tlie rain fell in torrents for thirty-two hours. The water was four or five feet deep in the hotel when the railroad bridge gave way, and domestic animals and outhouses were floating down the river by scores. The bridge swung around as if it were going to strike the hotel. Cries of distress from the back porch were heard, and when we ran out we found a parrot which belonged to me crying with all his might, ' Hellup ! hellup ! hellup ! ' My brother left for Williamsport by train on Friday night. We followed on foot. There were nineteen bridges in the twenty-five miles to Williamsport, and all but three were gone. " In Williamsport every one seemed to be drinking. Men waited in rows five or six deep in front of the bars of the two public houses, the Lush House and the Concordia, We paid two dollars each for the privilege of sleeping In a cor- ner of the bar-room. Mr. Rothwell suggested the boat trip when we found all the wagons in town were under water. The whole town except Sau- erkraut Hill was flooded, and it was as hard to buy a boat as it was to get a cab during the bliz- zard. It was here we met Niel. ' I was a rafts- man,' he said, 'on the Allegheny years ago, and I may be of use to you,' and he was. He sat in the bow, and piloted, I rowed, and Mr. Rothwell 25 434 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. Steered with a piece of board. Our danger was from eddies, and it was greatest when we passed the ruins of bridges. We started at 10.15, and made the run to Montgomery, eighteen miles, in one and a quarter hours. In places we were go- ing at the rate of twenty miles an hour. There wasn't a whole bridge left on the forty-five miles of river. As we passed Milton we were in sight of the race-track, where Niel won a trot the week before. The grand stand was just toppling into the water. "I think I ought to row in a 'Varsity crew now," Mr. Thomson concluded. *T don't believe any crew ever beat our time " CHAPTER XXXIX. There was terrible destruction to life and property throughout the entire Juniata Valley by the unprecedented flood. Between Tyrone and Lewistown the greatest devastation was seen and especially below Huntingdon at the confluence of the Raystown branch and the Juniata River. During the preceding days of the week the rain- filled clouds swept around the southeast, and on Friday evening met an opposing strata of storm clouds, which resulted in an indescribable down- pour of rain of twelve hours' duration. The surging, angry waters swept down the river, every rivulet and tributary adding its raging flood to the stream, until there was a sea of water between the parallel hills of the valley. Night only added to the terror and confusion. In Huntingdon City, and especially in the southern and eastern suburbs, the inhabitants were forced to flee for their lives at midnight on Thursday, (435) ^^5 ^-^-^ JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. and by daybreak the chimneys of their houses were visible above the rushing- waters. Opposite the city the people of Smithfield found safety within the walls of the State Reformatory, and for two days they were detained under great privations. Some conception of the volume of water in the river may be had from the fact that it was thirty-five feet above low-water mark, being eight feet higher than the great flood of 1847. Many of the inhabitants in the low sections of Hunting- don, who hesitated about leaving their homes, were rescued, before the waters submerged their houses, with great difficulty. Huntingdon, around which the most destruc- tion is to be seen of any of the towns in the Juniata Valley, was practically cut off from all communication with the outside world, as all the river bridges crossing the stream at that point were washed away. There was but one bridge standing in the county, and that was the Hunting- don and Broad Top Railroad bridge, which stood isolated in the river, the trestle on the other end being destroyed. Not a county bridge was left, and this loss alone approximated ^200,000. The gas works were wrecked on Thursday nieht and the town was left in darkness. Just below where the Juniata and Raystown branch meet, lived John Dean and wife, aged THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. .^y seventy-seven each, and both blind. With them resided John Swaner and wife. Near by hved John Rupert, wife and three small children. When the seething current struck these houses they were carried a half mile down the course of the stream and lodged on the ends amid stream. The Ruperts were soon driven to the attic, and finally, when it became evident that they must perish, the frantic mother caught up two bureau drawers, and placed her little children In them upon the angry waves, hoping that they might be saved ; but all in vain. The loss of life by the flood in Clinton County, in which Lock Haven is situated, was heavy. Twenty of those lost were in the Nittany Valley, and seven in Wayne Township. Lock Haven was very fortunate, as th^ Inhabitants there dwell- ing in the midst of logs on the rivers are accus- tomed to overflows. There were many sagacious Inhabitants who, remembering the flood of 1865, on Saturday began to prepare by removing their furniture and other possessions to higher ground for safety. It was this full and realizing sense of the danger that gave Lock Haven such immun- ity from loss of life. The only case of drowning in Lock Haven was of James Guilford, a young man who, though warned not to do so, attempted to wade across the main street, where six feet of the overflowed ^^g THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. river was running, and was carried off by the swift current. The other dead inchide WilHam Confur and his wife and three children, all car- ried off and drowned in their little home as it floated away, and the two children of Jacob Kashne. Robert Armstrong and his sister perished at Clintondale under peculiarly dreadful circum- stances. At Mackeyville, John Harley, Andrew R. Stine, wife and two daughters, were drowned, while the two boys were saved. At Salon a, Alex- ander M. Uting and wife, Mrs, Henry Snyder were drowned. At Cedar Springs, Mrs. Luther S. Eyler and three children were drowned. The husband was found alive in a tree, while his wife was dead in a drift-pile a few rods away. At Rote, Mrs. Charles Cole and her two children were drowned, while he was saved. Mrs. Charles Earner and her children were also drowned, while the husband and father was saved. This is a queer coincidence found all through this section, that the men are survivors, while the wives and chil- dren are victims. The scenes that have been witnessed in Tyrone City during the time from Friday evening, May 31st, to Monday evening, June 3d, are almost in- describable. On Friday afternoon, May 31st, telephone messages from Clearfield gave warn- ing of a terrible flood at that place, and prepara- THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. . ^q tions were commenced by everybody for high water, although no one anticipated that it would equal in height that of 1885, which had always in the past served as high-water mark in Lock Haven. All of that Friday rain descended heavily, and when at eight o'clock in the evening the water commenced rising the rain was fallinof in torrents. The river rose rapidly, and before midnight was over the top of the bank. Its rapid rising was the signal for hasty preparations for higher water than ever before witnessed in the city. As the water continued rising, both the river and Bald Eagle Creek, the vast scope of land from mount- ain to mountain was soon a sea of foaming water. The boom gave away about two o'clock Satur- day morning, and millions of feet of logs were taken away. Along Water Street, logs, trees, and every conceivable kind of driftwood went rush- ing by the houses at a fearful rate of swiftness. The night was one to fill the stoutest heart with dread, and the dawn of day on Saturday morning was anxiously awaited by thousands of people. In the meantime men in boats were busy dur- ing the night taking people from their houses in the lower portions of the city, and conveying them to places of imagined security. VvHien day dawned on June ist, the water was Still rising at a rapid ra,te. The city was then 440 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD, completely Inundated, or at least all that portion lying east of the high lands in the Third and Fourth Wards. It was nearly three o'clock Sat- urday afternoon before the water reached the hiehest mark. It then was about three feet above the high-water mark of 1885. At four o'clock Saturday evening the flood be- gan to subside, slowly at first, and it was nearly night on Sunday before the river was again within its banks. Six persons are reported missing at Salona, and the dead bodies of Mrs. Alexander Whiting and Mrs. William Emenheisen were re- covered at Mill Hall and that of a six-year old child near by. The loss there is terrible, and the community is in mourning over the loss of life. G. W. Dunkle and wife had a miraculous escape from drowning early Saturday A. M. They were both carried away on the top of their house from Salona to Mill Hall, where they were both rescued in a remarkable manner. A window in the house of John Stearn was kicked out, and Mr. and Mrs. Dunkle taken in the aperture, both thus being rescued from a watery grave. Nearby a baby was saved, tied in a cradle. It was a pretty, light-haired light cherub, and seem- ed all unconscious of the peril through which it passed on its way down the stream. The town of Mill Hall was completely gutted by the flood, entailing heavy loss upon the inhabitants. THE JOHNS TO WN FL O OD. . . j The town of Renovo was completely wrecked. Two spans of the river bridge and the opera- house were swept away. Houses and business places were carried off or damaged and there was some loss of life. At Hamburg seven persons were drowned by the flood, which carried away almost everything in its path. Bellefonte escaped the flood's ravages, and lies high and dry. Some parts of Centre County were not so fortunate, however, especially in Co- burn and Miles Townships, where great destruc- tion is reported. Several persons were drowned at Coburn, Mrs. Roust and three children among the number. The bodies of the mother and one child were recovered. James Corss, a well-known resident of Lock Haven, and Miss Emma Pollock, a daughter of ex-Governor Pollock of Philadelphia, were married at the fashionable Church of the Holy Trinity, Philadelphia, at noon of Wednesday, June 5th. The cards were sent out three weeks before, but when it was learned that the freshet had cut off Lock Haven from communication with the rest of the world, and several telegrams to the groom had failed to bring any response, it was purposed to postpone the wedding. The question of post- ponement was being considered on Tuesday even- ing, when a dispatch was brought in saying that the groom was on his way overland. Nothing 442 THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. further was heard from him, and the bride was dressed and the bridal party waiting when the groom dashed up to the door in a carriage at almost noon. After an interchange of joyful greetings all around, the bride and groom set out at once for the church, determined that they should not be late. On the way to the church the bride fainted. As the church came into view she fainted again, and she was driven leisurely around Rittenhouse Square to give her a chance to recover. She got better promptly. The groom stepped out of the carriage and went into the church by the vestry way. The carriage then drove round to the main entrance, and the bride alighted with her father and her maids, and, taking her proper place in the procession, marched bravely up the aisle, while the organ rang out the well-remembered notes of Mendelssohn's march. The groom met her at the chancel, the minister came out, and they were married. A reception followed. The bride and groom left on their wedding-jour- ney in the evening. Before they went the groom told of his journey from Lock Haven. He said that the little lumber town had been shut out from the rest of the world on Friday night. He is a wid- ower, and, accompanied by his grown daughter, he started on his journey on Monday at two o'clock. They drove to Bellefonte, a distance of THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. ,.^ twenty-five miles, and rested there on Monday night. They drove to Leedsville on Tuesday morning. There, by hiring relays of horses and engaging men to carry their baggage and row them across streams, they succeeded in reaching Lewistown, a distance of sixty-five miles, by Tuesday night. At Lewistown they found a di- rect train for Philadelphia, and arrived there on Wednesday forenoon. CHAPTER XL. The opening of the month of June will long be remembered with sadness and dismay by thou- sands of people in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and the two Virginias. In the District of Columbia, too, it was a time of losses and of terror. The northwestern and more fashionable part of Washington, D. C, never looked more lovely than it did on Sunday, but along a good part of the principal business thoroughfare, Penn- sylvania avenue, and in the adjacent streets to the southward, there was a dreary waste of turbid, muddy water, that washed five and six feet deep the sides of the houses, filling cellars and base- ments and causing great inconvenience and con- siderable loss of property. Boats plied along the avenue near the Pennsylvania Railroad station and throuofh the streets of South Washington. A carp two feet long was caught in the ladies' wait- ing-room at the Baltimore and Potomac station, and several others were caught in the streets by boys. These fish came from the Government Fish Pond, the waters of the Potomac having cov- ered the pond and allowed them to escape. Along the river front the usually calm Potomac was a wide, roaring, turbulent stream of dirty 444 THE JOHNS TO IVN FL OD. 445 water, rushing madly onward, and bearing on its swift-moving surface logs, telegraph poles, por- tions of houses and all kinds of rubbish. The stream was nearly twice its normal width, and flowed six feet and more deep through the streets along the river front, submerging wharves, small manufacturing establishments, and lapping the second stories of mills, boat-houses and fertilizing works in Georgetown. It completely flooded the Potomac Flats, which the Government had raised at great expense to a height in most part of four and five feet, and inundated the abodes of poor negro squatters, who had built their frame shanties along the river's edge. The rising of the waters has eclipsed the high-water mark of 1877. The loss was enormous. The river began rising early on Saturday morn- ing, and from that time continued to rise steadily until five o'clock Sunday afternoon, when the flood began to abate, having reached a higher mark than ever before known. The flood grew worse and worse on Saturday, and before noon the river had become so high and strong that it overflowed the banks just above the Washington Monument, and backing the water into the sewer which empties itself at this point, began to flow along the streets on the lower levels. By nightfall the water in the streets had in- creased to such an extent as to make them 446 THE JOHNSTO IVN FL O OD. impassable by foot passengers, and boats were ferrying people from the business part of the town to the high grounds in South Washington. The street cars also continued running- and did a thriving business conveying pleasure-seekers, who sat in the windows and bantered one another as the deepening waters hid the floor. On Louisiana avenue the produce and commission houses are located, and the proprietors bustled eagerly about securing their more perishable property, and wading knee-deep outside after floating chicken- coops. The grocery merchants, hotel men and others hastily cleared out their cellars and worked until the water was waist-deep removing their effects to higher floors. Meanwhile the Potomac, at the Point of Rocks, had overflowed into the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, and the two became one. It broke open the canal in a great many places, and lifting the barges up, shot them down stream at a rapid rate. Trunks of trees and small houses were torn from their places and swept onward. The water continued rising throughout the night, and about noon of Sunday reached its maximum, three feet six inches above high-water mark of 1877, which was the highest on record. At that time the city presented a strange spectacle. Pennsylvania avenue, from the Peace monument, at the foot of the Capitol, to Ninth street, was THE JOHNS TO IVN FL OOD. 447 flooded with water, and in some places it was up to the thip-hs of horses. The cellars of stores o along the avenue were flooded, and so were some of the main floors. In the side streets south of the avenue there was six to eight feet of water, and yawls, skiffs and canoes were everywhere to be seen. Communication except by boat was totally interrupted between North and South Washington. At the Pennsylvania Railroad sta- tion the water was up to the waiting-room. Through the Smithsonian and Agricultural De- partment grounds a deep stream was running, and the Washington Monument was surrounded on all sides by water. A dozen lives lost, a hundred poor families homeless, and over ^2,000,000 worth of property destroyed, is the brief but terrible record of the havoc caused by the floods in Maryland. Every river and mountain stream in the western half of the State has overflowed its banks, inundating villages and manufactories and laying waste thou- sands of acres of farm lands. The losses by wrecked bridges, v/ashed-out roadbeds and land- slides along- the western division of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, from Baltimore to Johnstown, reach half a mihion dollars or more. The Chesa- peake and Ohio Canal, that political bone of con- tention and burden to Maryland, which has cost the State many millions, is a total wreck. The 448 THE JOHNS TO WN FL OD. Potomac river, by the side of which the canal runs, from Williamsport, Md., to Georgetown, D. C, has swept away the locks, towpaths, bridges, and, in fact, everything connected with the canal. The probability is that the canal will not be restored, but that the canal bed will be sold to one of the railroads that have been trying to secure it for several years. The concern has never paid, and annually has increased its enormous debt to the State. The Western Maryland Railroad Company and the connecting lines, the Baltimore and Harris- burg, and the Cumberland Valley roads, lose heavily. On the mountain grades of the Blue Ridge there are tremendous washouts, and in some sections the tracks are torn up and the road-bed destroyed. Several bridges were washed away. Dispatches from Shippensburg, Hagerstown and points in the Cumberland Valley state that the damagfe to that fertile farminof reOTon is incalculable. Miles of farm lands were submerged by the tor- rents that rushed down from the mountains. Several lives were lost and many head of cattle drowned. At the mountain town of Frederick, Md., the Monocacy river, Carroll creek and other streams combined in the work of destruc- tion. Friday night was one of terror to the people of that section. The Monocacy river rose rapidly THE JOHNS TO WN FL OD. 449 from the time the rain ceased until last night, when the waters began to fall. The back-water of the river extended to the eastern limit of the city, flooding everything in its path and riding over the fields with a fierce current that meant destruction to crops, fences and everything in its path. At the Pennsylvania Railroad bridge the river rose thirty feet above low- water mark. It ^ submerged the floor of the bridge and at one time threatened it with destruction, but the break- ing away of 300 feet of embankment on the north side of the bridgre saved the structure. With the 300 feet of embankment went 300 feet of track. The heavy steel rails were twisted by the waters as if they had been wrenched in the jaws of a mammoth vise. The river at this point and for many miles along its course overflowed its banks to the width of a thousand feet, submerging the corn and wheat fields on either side and carrying everything before it. Just below the railroad bridge a large wooden turnpike bridge was snapped in two and carried down the tide. In ' this way a half-dozen turnpike bridges at various points along the river were carried away. The loss to the counties through the destruction of these bridges will foot up many thousand dollars. ■ Mrs. Charles McFadden and Miss Maggie Moore, of Taneytown, were drowned in their car- riage while attempting to cross a swollen stream. 26 450 THE JOHNS TO WN- EL 0D> The horse and vehicle were swept down the stream, and when found were lodg^ed ao-ainst a tree. Miss Moore was lying half-way out of the carriage, as though she had died in trying to extricate herself Mrs, McFadden's body was found near the car- riage. At Knoxville considerable " damage was done, and at Point of Rocks people were compelled to seek the roofs of their houses and other places of safety. A family living on an island in the middle of the river, opposite the Point, fired off a gun as a signal of distress. They were with diffi- culty rescued. In Frederick county, Md., the losses aggregate ^300,000. The heaviest damage In Maryland was in the vicinity of Williamsport, Washington county. The railroads at Hagerstown and Williamsport were washed out. The greatest loser is the Cumber- land Valley Railroad. Its new iron bridge across the Potomac river went down, nothing being left of the structure except the span across the canal. The original cost of the bridge was ^70,000, All along the Potomac the destruction v/as great. At and near Williamsport, where the Conococheague empties into the Potomac, the loss was very heavy. At Falling Waters, where only a few days before a cyclone caused death and destruction, two houses went down in the angry water, and the little town was almost entirely submerged. In Carroll County, Md., the losses reached several THE JOHNSTO WN FLOOD. 45 I hundred diousand dollars, George Derrick was drowned at Trevanion Mills, on Pipe creek. Along die Patapsco river in Howard county great damage was done to mills and private property. Near Sykesville the water undermined the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad track and a freight train was turned over an embankment. William Hudson was standing on the Suspension Bridge, at Orange Grove, when the structure was swept away, apd he was never seen again. Port Deposit, near the mouth of the Susque- hanna river, went under water. Residents along the river front left their homes and took refuge on the hills back of the town. The river was filled with thousands of logs from the broken booms up in the timber regions. From the eastern and southern sections of the State came reports of entire fruit farms swept away. Two men were drowned in the storm by the capsizing of a sloop near Salisbury. A number of houses on the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers near Harper's Ferry were de- stroyed by the raging waters which came thunder- ing down from the mountains, thirty to forty feet higher than low-water mark. John Brown's fort was nearly swept away. The old building has withstood a number of floods. There is only a rickety portion of it standing, anyhow, and that Is now covered with mud and rubbish. While the 452 THE JOHNS TO VVN FL O OD. crowds on the heights near Harper's Ferry were watching the terrible work of destruction, a house was seen coming down the Potomac. Upon its roof were three men wildly shouting to the people on the hills to save them. Just as the structure struck the railroad bridge, the men tried to catch hold of the flooring and iron work, but the swift torrent swept them all under, and they were seen no more. What appeared to be a babe in a cradle came floating down behind them, and a few moments later the body of a woman, supposed to be the mother of the child, swept by. Robert Connell, a farmer living upon a large island in the Potomac, known as Herter Island, lost all his wheat crop and his cattle. His family was rescued by Clarence Stedman and E. A. Keyser, an artist from Washington, at the risk of their lives. The fine railroad bridge across the Shenandoah, near Harper's Ferry, was destroyed. The Ferry Mill Company sustained heavy losses. Along the South Mountains, in Washington and Alleghany counties, Md., the destruction was terrible. Whole farms, including the houses and barns, were swept away and hundreds of live stock killed. Between Williamsport, Md., and Dam No. 6 on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal twenty-six houses were destroyed, and it Is reported that several persons were drowned. The homeless families are camping out on the hills, being sup- THE JOHNS TO IVN FLOOD. 453 plied with food and clothing by the citizens of Williamsport, Joseph Shifter and family made a narrow escape. They were driven to the roof of their house by the rising waters, and just a minute before the struc- ture collapsed the father caught a rowboat passing by, and saved his wife and little ones. The town of Point of Rocks, on the Potomac river, twelve miles eastward of Harper's Ferry, was half-submerged. Nearly ^100,000 worth of property in the town and vicinity was swept away. The Catholic Church there is 500 feet from the river. The extent of the flood here may be im- agined when it is stated that the water was up to the eaves of the church. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal has been utterly lost, and what formerly was the bed of the canal is now part of the Potomac river. There were but few houses in Point of Rocks that were not under water. The Methodist Church had water in its second story. The two hotels of which the place boasts, the American and the St. Charles, were full of water, and any stranger in town had to hunt for something to eat. Every bridge in Frederick county, Md., was washed away. Some of these bridges were built as long ago as 1834, and were burned by the Confederate and Union forces at various times in 1864, afterward being rebuilt. At Martinsburg, 454 ^-^-^ JOHNSTO WN FLOOD. W. Va., a number of houses were destroyed. Little Georgetown, a village on the Upper Poto- mac, near Williamsport, Md., was entirely swept away. Navigation on Chesapeake Bay was seriously Interrupted by the masses of logs, sections of buildings and other ruins afloat. Several side- wheel steamers were damaged by the logs strik- , ing the wheels. Looking southward for miles from Havre de Grace, the mouth of the Susque- hanna, and far out into the bay the water was thickly covered with the floating wood. Crowds of men and boys were out on the river securing the choicest logs of hard wood and bringing them to a safe anchorage. By careful count it was estimated that 200 logs, large and small, were swept past Havre de Grace every minute. At that rate there would be 12,000 logs an hour. It is estimated that over 70,000,000 feet of cut and uncut timber passed Havre de Grace within two days. Large rafts of dressed white pine boards floated past the city. The men who saved the logs got from 25 cents to ^i for each log for sal- vage from the owners, who sent men down the river to look after the timber. Enough logs have been saved to give three years' employment to men, and mills will be erected to saw up the stuff. Not within the memory of the oldest inhabitants had Petersburg, Virginia, been visited by a flood THE JOHNSTO WN FL OOD. 45 5 as fierce and destructive as that which surprised it on Saturday and Sunday. The whole population turned out to see the sight. The storm that did such havoc in Virginia and West Virginia on Thursday reached Gettysburg on Saturday morning. The rain began at 7 o'clock Friday morning and continued until 3 o'clock Saturday. It was one continuous down-pour during all that time. As a result, the streams were higher than they had been for twenty-five years. By actual measurement the rain-fall was 4.15 inches between the above hours. Nearly every bridge in the county was either badly damaged or swept away, and farmers who lived near the larger streams mourn for their fences carried away and grain fields ruined. Both the railroads leading to the town had large portions of their embankments washed out and many of their bridges disturbed. On the Baltimore and Harrisburg division of the Western Maryland Railroad the damage was great. At Valley Junction 1000 feet of the embankment disappeared, and at Marsh creek, on the new branch of the road to Hagerstown, four divisions of the bridge were swept away. But at Pine Grove and Mount Holly perhaps the greatest damage v/as done. The large Laudel dam, which supplies the water to run the forge at Pine Grove furnace, and v/hich covers thirty acres of land, burst It swept away part of the furnace 456 THE JOHNS TO WN FLO OD. and a house. The occupants were saved by men wading in water up to their waists. Every bridge, with one exception, in Mount Holly was swept away by the flood occasioned by the breaking of the dam which furnished water for the paper mills at that place. The water at Elmira, N. Y., on Saturday night was from a foot to a foot and a half higher than ever before known. 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 of the Chemung river, where the principal business houses are located. The water covered the streets to a depth of two or three feet, and the basements of the stores were quickly flooded, causing thou- sands of dollars of damage. The only possible way of entering the Rathbone House, the princi- pal hotel of the city and on the chief business street, was by boats, which were rowed directly into the hotel office. On the south side of the river the waters were held in check for several hours by the ten-foot railroad embankment, but hundreds of families were driven into the upper stories of their houses. Late in the evening, two thousand feet of the embankment was forced away, and the water carried the railroad tracks and everything else before it. An extensive ium- THE JOHNS TO WN FLOOD. 457 ber yard in the path of the rushing water was swept away. Many horses were drowned, and the people Hving- on the fiats were rescued with great difficulty by the police and firemen. A terrible rain-storm visited Andover, N. Y. All the streams were swollen far above hio-h-water mark, and fields and roads were overflowed. No less than a dozen bridges in this town were carried away, and newly planted crops were utterly ruined. The water continued to rise rapidly until 4 o'clock. At that hour the two dams at the ponds above the village gave away, and the water rushed wildly down into the village. Nearly every street in the place was overflowed, and in many cases occupants of houses were driven to the upper floors for safety, Owen's large tannery was flooded and ruined. Almost every rod of railroad track was covered and much of it will have to be rebuilt. The track at some points was covered fifteen feet with earth. At Wellsville, N. Y., the heavy rain raised creeks into rivers and rivers into lakes. Never, in the experience of the oldest inhabitant, had Wellsville been visited with such a flood. Both ends of the town were submerged, water in many cases standing clear to the roofs of houses. Canisteo, N. Y., was invaded by a flood the equal of which had never been known or seen in that vicinity before. Thursday afternoon a driz- 458 THE JOHNSTO WN FLOOD. zling rain began and continued until it became a perfect deluge. The various creeks and moun- tain rills tributary to the Caniesto river became swollen and swept into the village, inundating many of the streets to the depth of three feet and others from five to seven feet. The streets were scarcely passable, and all stores on Main and the adjacent streets were flooded to a depth of from one to two feet and much of the stock was injured or spoiled. Many houses were carried away from their foundations, and several narrow escapes from death were made. One noble deed, worthy of special mention, was performed by a young man, who waded into the water where the current was swift and caught a baby in his arms as it was thrown from the window of a house that had just been swept from its founda- tion. The Fire Department Building, one of the most costly blocks in town, was undermined by the flood and the greater part fell to the ground with a crash. The town jail was almost destroyed. The inundation in the coal, iron and lumber country around Sunbury, Penn., occasioned much destruction and suffering, while no less than fifty lives were lost. The Susquehanna, Allegheny, Bald Eagle, Sinnamahoning and Huntingdon Railways suffered greatly, and the losses incurred reach, in round numbers, ^2,000,000, In Clearfield, Clin- THE JOHNSTO WN FLOOD. 459 ton, Lycoming, Elk, Cameron, Northumberland, Centre, Indiana, McKean, Somerset, Bedford, Huntingdon, Blair and Jefferson counties the rain- storm was one of unprecedented severity. The mountain streams grew into great rivers, which swept through the country with irresistible fury and force, and carried devastation in all directions. The destruction in the Allegheny Valley at and near Dubois, Red Bank, New Bethlehem and Driftwood was immense, hardly a saw-mill being left standing-. f 9? - .i V j^y- g © i» «. , ^l "^a^ ^^^i s.»e ^^4f^-