Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 June 1889 — STORY OF THE DELUGE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

STORY OF THE DELUGE.

HEABTBEHDINO SCENES IN CONEMAUGH VALLEY. William Henry Smith’* Graphic Description of the Flood’s Awful Approach— Mad Plunge of the Aqueous Avalanche on the City of Conemaugh-How Trains, Houses, Everything, Went Down Before the Fierce Niagara—Awful Scenes of Destruction. Mr. William Henry Smith, General Manager ,of the Associated Press, was an eye-witness of ithe awful scenes in Conemaugh Valley on the night of the great calamity. Ho tells the following story of the flood's devastation: The fast-line trains that leave Chicago at 3 :15 and Cincinnati at 7 p. m. constitute the day express eastward from Pittsburgh, which runs in two sections. This train left Pittsburgh on time Friday morning, but was stopped for an hour at Johnstown by reports of a washout ahead. It had been raining hard for over sixteen hours, and the sides of the mountains were covered with water descending into the valleys. The Conemaugh River, whose bank is followed by the Pennsylvania Railroad for many miles, looked an angry flood nearly bankful. Passengers were interested in seeing hundreds of saw-logs and an enormous amount of driftwood shoot rapidly /by, and the train pursued its way eastward. At Johnstown there was a long wait, as before stated. The lower stories of many houses were submerged by the slack water, and the inhabitants were looking out of the second stories. Horses were standing up to their knees in water in the streets ; a side-track of the railroad had been washed out; loaded cars were on the bridge to keep it steady, and the huge poles of the Western Union Telegraph Company, carrying fifteen wires, swayed badly, and several soon went down. The two sections ran to Conemaugh, about two miles this side of Johnstown, and lay there about three hours, when they were moved on to the highest ground and placed side by side. The mail train was placed in the rear of the first section, and a freight train was run on to a side track on the bank of the Conemaugh. The report was that a bridge had been washed out, carrying away one track, and that the other track was unsafe. There was a rumor also that the reservoir at South Fork, some time ago a

feeder of the Pennsylvaiiu Cuial, but latterly •he prcpriy <f a club a: Pittsburg, and used for hunting and fishing, was unsafe and wight break. This 11 ado most of the jaisingers uneasy, and they kepi a pretty good 1 oko>.t for informa ion. The porters of the Pullman cars remained at their posts and comforted the passtngers with Ibe assurance that the Pennsylvania Bailroad Ccm- ) any always took care of its patrons. A few genllimen and some ladies and children qtirtly seat'd thrmselves, appartntly contented. One gentleman, who was ill. had his berth made up aid r< tired, although ad vised not to do sol Soon the cry'came that the water in the reservoir had broken down the barrier and was sweeping down the valley. Instantly there was a panic, and a rush for the mountain side. Children were carried and women assisted by a few who kept cool heads. It was a race for life. There was seen the black head of the flood, now the monster of destruction, whoso crest was high raised in the air, and with this In view even the weak found wings for their feet. No words can adequately d' scribe the terror that -filled every breast, or the awful power manifested by the flood. The round-house had st alls for twenty-three locomotives. There were eighteen or twenty of these standing there at this time. There was an ominous crash, and the round-house and locomotives disappeared. Everything in the main track of the flood was first lifted in the air and then swallowed up by the waters. A hundred houses were swept away tin a few minutes; these included the hotel, steres, and saloons on the front street, and rasi•dences adjacent. As the fugitives on the mountain side witnessed the awful devastation, they were moved as never before in their lives. They were powerless to help those seized upon by the waters ; the despair of those who had lost everything except life, and the wailing of those whose relatives or friends were missing filled their breasts with unutterable sorrow. The rain continued to fall steadily, but shelter was not thought of. Very lew passengers saved anything from the train, so sudden was the cry, “Run for your lives ; the reservoir has broken." Many were without hats, and, as their baggage was left on the trains, they were without the means of relieving their Unhappy condition. The occuiants of the houses still standing on the high ground threw them open to those who had lost all and to the passengers of the train. During the height of the flood the spectators were startled by the sound of two locomotive whistles from the very midst of the waters. The engineers, with characteristic courage, had remained at their posts, and while there was destruction on every hand, and apparently no escape for them, they sounded their whistles. This ihey repeated at intervals —the last time wi.h triumphant vigor as th > waters were receding from the sides of their locomotives. By 5:30 the fc-rce of the reservoir waters had been spent on the village of Coneznaugh, and the Pullman cars and locomotive of the second section remained unmoved. This was because they were on the highest and hardest groupd. The destructive current of the reservoir flood had passed between tla, and the mountain, while the current of the river did not eat it away. But the other trains had been destroyed. A solitar y locomotive vas seen imbedded in the mud where the round-house had stood. As the greatest danger had passed, the people of Conemaugh gave their thoughts to their neighbors of the city of Johnstown. Here was centered the great steel and iron industries, the pride of Western Pennsylvania, the Cambria Iron Works being known everywhere. Here were churches, daily newspapers, banks, dry goods houses, warehouses, and the comfortable and well-built homes of 12,000 people. What was their fate? In the contemplation of the irresistible force of that awful flood gathering additional momentum as it swept dn toward the Gulf, it became clear that the city must be ■destroyed, and that, unless the inhabitants had telegraphic notice of the breaking of the reservoir they must perish. A cry of horror went up from the hundreds on the mountain-side, and A few instinctively turned their steps toward Johnstown. The city was destroyed. All the mills, furnaces, manufactories ; the many and varied industries, the banks, the residences —all. All were swallowed up before the shadows of night had settled down upon the earth. What of the inhabitants ? Who can tell with any certainty ? Th#se who came back by daybreak said that from 5,000 to 8,000 had been drowned. Our hope is that this is an exaggeration, and when the roll is called most will respond. In the light of this calamity the destruction at Conemaugh sinks into insignificance. In this latter place they were already bringing in the dead on stretchers. How many had been lost here, at Mineral Point, and at South Fork could not be told and may/never be known. There were some

passengers and perhaps forty or fifty inhabitants. The loss of property i enormous The track of the raHroad coin pan y is certainlv destroyed for at least ten-miles below South Fork, and all other property of the company on the line. The destruction of Johnstown’s industries will alone reach many millions. Then to this great sum add the value of the houses and public buildings in that city and of the villages above and below it, and some idea can be formed of the wealth obliterated by the flood created by the breaking of the reservoir. And this reservoir was maintained for the pleasure of a Pittsburgh club. Upon the mountain was suspended a body of water three miles long, one mile wide, and seventy feet deep for the recrea 4on of a few pleasure-seekers. What would happen if there should be a break must have been imperfectly apprehended, since it is said that a bond of only three millions had been exacted from the club. ’ What are three millions to the gross sum for the destruction cf property? Can they restore thedeadtoli/e. or assuage the grief of the bereaved? The question of moral responsibility swallows up the financial as completely as the angry waters did the city of Johnstown. William Henby Smith.

THE SCENE SIMPLY AWFUL. Pen Pictures of the Heartrending 1 Condition of the Valley. This is certainly ono of the world’s greatest catastrophes, telegraphs Fred R. G'les, the Chicago Neu-»’ s]>ecial correspondent at Johnstown, The scene is awful. The dead lie so thick that a corpse scarcely commands attention, save as the committees proceed on their rounds. In a schoolhouse on the hillside there are 150 bodies. Many of them are frightfully cut and bruised. Every condition of life and both sexes in almost equal number are among the dead. The people were caught without warning in the midst of their regular pursuits. Merchants, lawyers, and business men generally are the most numerous victims. The great number of young women, who can lie seen to have had extractive faces despite the distortions of death, is deeply touching. Ladies are soon identified and dressed for burial. Thousands of coffins are coming in on the trains and are being rapidly used. In many cases whole families perished. In a small room of the school-bouse lay eleven little children. A big boy sat by contemplating them. They were his brothers’ and sisters. His father, Squire Fisher, and his mother were drowned, but their bodies have not yet been found. The children were in the attic and would have been saved, but a locomotive was hurled through the house and knocked down.

The biv.inoss pari of Johnstown is without fmm. The stores in such buildings as still s- and are in vast disorder. The doors are blockaded with diift; but peering wilhin a number of them, the proprietors, thtir clerks, and customers <an be seen dead on the floor. The Hotel Hurlburt, a largo brick building, vas mode a place of refuge, and fell, killing seventy people. The whole valley, as far as the eye reaches, is an indescribable wreck, and ujx>n this hideous scene a cold rain has poured all day long and still prevails to-night. No attempt is made to avoid the weather and the thousands of survivors are wringing wet to-night. Most of the fugitives have got shelter now. The first dispatches from this scene were many times short of the tremendous truth. The catastrophe is so great that none dare venture an estimate upon its extent. Woodvale and Conemaugh are utterly destroyed, and their joint population of 5,000 is dead. Johnstown is wrecked, and certainly 5,000 people lie dead in the streets and driftwood in the subsiding stream. The business portion of the prosperous little city is obliterated, and for a mile along Main street the wreckage is piled fifty feet high. I or miles below the debris of shattered houses chokes the stream. One hundred and ninety bodies were picked out of the river at Nineveh, and the majority were buried there 10-day. The depot is filled with dead, and all the public buildings left standing are used as morgues. In Johnstown proper the work of picking up the dead has barely begun. There are about two square miles of wreckage gorged against the bridge and in flames. It is said that 2,000 people died there. This vast drift is still ablaze, and is so tightly packed that it will require great engineering to clear the stream. The river is parted by it, and runs like a mill-race on cither hand. Tire lower part of the town along the river bank is washed as bare as a common, and it is hard to believe that thousands of dwellings and business blocks so recently covered the ground.

DAZED BY THE HORROR. Johnstown Like a Great Tomb—Scenes in the Stricken City. A aad and gloomy sky, almost as sad and gloomy as the human faces under it, shrouded Johnstown to-day. continues Mr. Giles. Bain fell all day and added to the miseries of the wretched people. The great plain where the best part of Johnstown used 1o stand is half covered with water. The few sidewalks in the part that escaped the flood were inches thick with black sticky mud, through which trimped a steady procession of the poor women who are left utterly destitute. The tents, where the people are housed who cannot find other shelter, were cold and cheerless. The town seemed like a great tomb. The people of Johnstown have supped so full of horrors that they go about in a sort of a daze and only half conscious of their griefs. Every hour as one goes through the streets he hears neighbors greeting each other and then inquiring, without show of feeling, how many each had lost in his family. To-day a gray-haired man hailed another across the street with this question. “I lost- five ; all aie gene but Mary and I,” was the reply. “lam worse off than that,” said the first old gentleman; “I have only my grandson left. Seven of us gone." And so they passed on without apparent excitement. They and every one else had heard so much of these melancholy conversations that somehow the calamity had lost its significance to them. They treat it exactly as it the dead persons had gone away and were coming back in a week. The melancholy task of searching the ruins for more bodies went on today in the soaking rain. There were little crowds of morbid curi- ' osityhunters around each knot of workingmen, but they were not residents of Johnstown. All their curiosity in that direction was sated long ago. Even those who come in from neighboring towns with the idea of a day’s strange and ghastly experiences- did not care to be near after they had seen one body exhumed. There were hundreds and thousands of these visitors from the country. « One thing that makes the work of searching for the bodies very slow is the strange way that great masses of objects were rolled into intricate masses of rubbish. As the flood came down the valley of the South Fork it obliterated the suburb of Woodvale, where not a house was left nor a trace of One. The material they had contained rolled on down the valley, over and .over, grinding it up to pulp and finally leaving it against an. unusually firm foundation or an eddy. These masses contain hfiman bodies, but it is slow work to pick them to pieces

In the side of one of them was seen the mnthe body of a harnessed born- a baby cradle and a doll, a tress of worn“P". • raking- horse, and a piece of beefsteak still hanging to a hook.

SMALL TOWNS SWEPT AWAY. Little Left of Kernville—Woodvale a Sea of Mud. th® 1,000 houses that once made up the little town of Kernville only 155 remain standmg, says a Johnstown special. One thousand people is a low estimate of the number of lives lost from this town. But a few of the bodies have been recovered. It is directly above the ruins at the bridge, and the bodies have floated down into them, where itey burned. A walk through the town revealed a desolate sight. Only about twenty-five able-bodied men have survived and are able to render any assistance. Men and women can be seen with black eyre, bruised faces, and cut heads. The appearance of some of the ladies is heartrending. They were injured in the flood and since that have not slept. Thenfaces have turned a sickly yellow, and dark rings surround the eyes. Many have succumbed to nervous prostration. For two days but little assistance could be rendered them. No medical attention reached them. The wounded remained uncared for in some houses cut off by the water and died from their injuries alone. Some were alive on Sunday, and their shouts could be heard by the people on the shore. A man is now in a temporary jail in what is left of the town. He was caught stealing a gold watch. A shot was fired at him, but he was not wounded. The only thing that saved him from lynching was the smallness of the crowd. His sentence will be the heaviest that can be given him. A milkman who was overcharging for milk this morning narrowly escaped lynching. The infuriated men appropriated all his milk and distributed it among the poor and then drove him out of the town. Services in the chapel from which the bodies were buried consisted merely of a prayer by one of the survivors. No minister was present. Each coffin had a descriptive card upon it and on the grave a similar card was placed so that bodies can be removed later by friends. Where Woodvale once stood there is now a sea of mud, broken but rarely by a pile of wreckage. Nothing is standing but the old woolen-mills. The place' is swept bare of all other buildings but the ruins of the Gautier wire-mill. The boilers of this great works were carried 100 yards from their foundation. Pieces of engines, rolls, and other machinery were swept far away from where they once stood. The wreck of a hose carriage is sticking up out of the mud. It belonged to the crack company of Johnstown. The engine house is swept away and the cellar is filled with mud, so that the site is obliterated. A German watchman was on guard at the mill when the waters came. He ran for the hillside and succeeded in escaping. He tells a graphic story of the appearance of the water as it swept down the valley. He declares that the first wave was as high as the third story of a house. The place is deserted. No effort is being made to clean off the streets. The mire has formed the grave for many a poor victim. Arms and legs are protruding from the mud, and it makes the most sickening of pictures. The Cambria Hospital has now 303 patients. Several injured people have had operations performed on them. The hospital in the upper part of Johnstown is full to overflowing. Many nave been carried to the surrounding houses. Hospitals have been established at Conemaugh and Mineral Point. A rope ferry is now being operated in the lower part of the town. An effort is being made to construct a bridge across the Conemaugh at the point where the old county bridge stood. Order is slowly arising out of chaos. The survivors are slowly realizing what is the best course to pursue. The great cry is for men—men who will work and not stand idly by and do nothing but gaze at the ruins. A man named Dougherty tells a thrilling story of a ride down the liver on a log. When the waters struck the roof of the house on which he had taken shelter, he jumped astride a telegraph pole, riding a distance of some twenty-three miles from Johnstown to Bolivar before he was rescued.

THE FATAL DAM. Its Owners Were Aware of Its Rotten Condition. Messrs. H. Singer, George Singer, Louis Clark, and R. Hussey Binns, of Pittsburg, relatives of members of the South Fork Fishing Club, have arrived from the broken dam, says a dispatch from Johnstown. The lake is completely dried out. The dam broke in the center at 3 o’clock on Friday afternoon, and at i o’clock it was dry. That great body of waiter passed out in one hour. Messrs. Park and Van Buren, who are building anew draining system at the lake, tried to avert the disaster by digging a sluice-way on one side to ease the pressure on the dam. They had about forty men at work, and did all they could without avail. The water passed over the dam about a foot above its top, beginning at about 2 :c’o. Whatever happened in the way of a cloudburst took place during the night. There had been but little rain up to dark. When the workmen awoke in the morningi the lake was very full and was rising at the rate of afoot an hour. It kept on rising until 2 o’clock, when it first began breaking over the dam, undermining it; men were sent three or four times during the day to warn the people below of their danger. When the final break came at 3 o’clock there was a sound like thunder, and trees, rocks, end earth were shot up into mid-air in great columns, and then the wave started down the ravine. A fanner who escaped said that the water did not come down like a wave, but jumped on his house and beat it to fragments in an instant. He was safe upon the hillside, but his wife and two children were killed. At the present time the lake looks like a cross between the crater of a volcano and a huge mud-puddle with stumps of Irses and rocks scattered over it. There is a small stream of muddy water running through the center of the lake. The dam was seventy feet high, and the break is about 200 feet wide, and there is but

a small portion of the dam left cn either side. No damage was done to any of the buildings belonging to the club. The whole south fork is swept, with not a tree standing. A man named Maguire says he was standing on the edge of the lake when the walls burst. The water was rising all day and was on a level with a pile of dirt whidh, he said, was above the wall of the dam. All of a sudden it burst with a report like a cannon and the water started down the mountain side, sweeping before it trees as if they were chjps; bowlders were rolled down as if they were marbles. The roar was deafening. The lake Was emptied in an hour and a half. Ail the water, he said, is now out. The railroad is in a terrible condition. At some points holes twenty to thirty feet deep were washed in the tracks. On his way down he stopped at Mineral Point, where sixteen houses were w ashed away and several lives lost. At East Conemaugh thirty houses were carried away by the flood. The loss of life is large at this point. THE LOSS OF LIFE. The Terrible Sacrifice of Human Life Will Never Be Known. The developments of every hour make it more and more apparent that the exact number of lives lost in the Johnstown, horror will never bo

known, says one correspondent. All MtlTtm-f that have been made up to this time are conser vative and when all is known will doubtless b« found to have been too small. Ove one thousand bodies have been fount since sunrise to-day, and the most skeptical con cede that the remains of thousands more res beneath the debris above Johnstown bridge The population of Johnstown, the surroundini towns, and the portion. of the voile? affected by the flood is, or was, from fift’ thousand to fifty-five thousand. Associate? Press -representatives to-day interviewee numerous leading citizens of Johnstowx who survived the floods and the consensus a opinion was that fully 3J per cent, of the residents of Johnstovn and Cambria had been victims of the combined disasters of fire and ws ter. If this be true the total loss of life in the entire valley may reach 15,000. Of the thousands who were devoured by the flames, and whose ashes rest beneath the smoking debrit a>»ve Johnstown bridge, no definite informa tion can ever be obtained. As little will be I'-arned of the hundreds who sunk beneatt the current and were borne swiftly down th< Conemaugh only to be deposited hundreds oi miles below on the banks and in the drift wood ol the raging Ohio. Probably one-third of the dead will never be recovered. and it will take a list of the missing weeks hence to enable even a close estimate to be made of the number of lives that were snuffed out in that brief hour. That this estimate can never be accurate is understood when it is remembered ihat in many instances whole families and their relatives were swept away and found a common grave beneath the wild waste of waters. The total destruction of the city leaves no data to even demonstrate that the names of these unfortunates ever found pla?e on the pages of history. “All indica ions point to" the fact that the death-list vill reach over five thousand names, aud in my opinion the missing will reach 8,000 in number,” declared Gen. D. H. Hastings. At present there are said to be 2,200 recovered bodies. The grea' difficulty experienced in getting a correct list is the great number ol morgues. There is no central bureau of information, and to communicate with the different dealhouses is the work of hours. In answer to questions from Gov. Beaver, Adjt. Gen. Hastings has telegraphed the following : “Good order prevailed throughout the city and vicinity last night. Police arrangements are excellent. Not one arrest made. No need of sending troops. “About 2,000 bodies have been rescued, and the work of embalming and burying the dead is going on witfi regula ity. There is plenty of medical assistance. We have a bountiful supply of food and clothing to-day and the fullest telegraphic facilities are afforded, and all inquiries are promptly answered. The Pennsylvania railroad will be completed to Johnstown station to-night. Have you any instructions or inquiries? “Tlie most conservative estimates here place the loss of lives at fully 5,000. The prevailing

impression is that the loss will reach from 8,0 0 to 10,0 X). There are many widows and orphans, and a great many wounded—impossible to give an estimate. The property destroyed will reach $25,000,000. The popular estimate will reach $40,000,000 to $50,000,000. Chief Burgess Hurl and L. C. Moxham, Chairman of the Relief Committee, are doing good work. Have made requisition on Pittsburg for cooking facilities, shoes, and madeup clothing for men, women, and children, all of which we need badly. To-morrow morning wo will have 000 men, with horses, carts, axes, and other tools, clearing away the debris. “You cannot raise too much money for this suffering community.” TWO CHICAGOANS’ EXPERIENCE. How They Escaped the Rushingr Wall of Water. Frank Felt and Sidney McCloud, two Chicago merchants, were in Johnstown when the avalance of water fell upon the ill-fated city. Both gentlemen give it as their estimate that the lost will number between 10,000 and 15,000. They say that on the night of Decoration Day they saw 20,000 people in the streets, and the town was alive with people. Friday morning the streets were crowded with people rushing for the mountain when they started, and not more than 500 reached the place. All others went down with the flood. Messrs. McCloud and Felt tell a graphic story of their escape. They were out attending to business during the morning, and when they went to the hotel, the Hurlbut House, at noon there was about ten inches of water in the office, and they went to a restaurant to get something to eat. When they came out of the restaurant they saw the streets crowded with people running to the mountains. They steppea outrihe back way to an alley and ran for the hill, but had to wade through water up to their waists before reaching the high ground. They had little more than a block to go, and the people who were twenty feet behind them were caught by the flood and swept away. For this reason they think the loss will be found to be very great. The water came in a wall, preceded by a yellowish cloud of mist or foam, and as it caught the blocks of houses it swept them down together with a succession of crashes that was

terrible. Mr. Felt thinks there were less than <SOO people on the high ground with him. The others went down with the flood. He saw hundreds of them go down before his eyes as they stood looking down upon the wreck. No one escaped from the Hurlbut house, and Messrs. Felt and McCloud would have been among the lost had they dined there. As soon as possible the Chicago men began the work of organizing relief parties to rescue the’people who were on the houses that had been swept back into Stony Creek when the water could not escape below. These people were wild with fright, and Mr. Felt secured a clothes-line which was used to send out a raft with a strong man to take people off the houses. A river man volunteered for this work, and with a rope tied securely about his body, he mode many , trip® into the flood, and each time brought two people ashore with him. The other gentlemen' carried these people up to the high ground’ where they were cared for by the residents of, that locality. They reseped over fifty people in this way, mostly women and children. They worked as long as they could see and after dark, the fire at the bridge gave them light to see here and there the people still clinging to roofs, some of •whom were rescued. A number of traveling men who were-in the hotels tied tag? to their; clothing and shot themselves.

VILW OF FLO[?]CDIN JOHNSTOWN—THE OPEN SPACE WAS KNOWN AS IRON STREET

A CORNER OF THE CAMBRIA IRON COMPANY’S MILL NEXT TO THE BRIDGE.

THE CAMBRIA IRON WORKS.