People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 March 1896 — FLOODS IN THE EAST. [ARTICLE]

FLOODS IN THE EAST.

MUCH PROPERTY DESTROYED AND LIVES LOST. Death Lkt la New England Reaehe* Six and May Be Increased —Heavy Bain Followed by a Blizzard —Damage in Mew Fork State. Boston, Msbs., March 3. —The freshet throughout New England has done damage bey op d estimate. The rain has fallen steadily for seventy-two hours, and Monday night a howling blizzard set in. Railroad travel in all directions is suspended, Portland being the farthest point reached to the eastward, Lowell to the north and Providence to the south and west. All railroads have been heavy sufferers, and in nearly all mill towns the factories have been forced to shut down, rendering idle fully 500,000 operatives. The property losses thus far reported will aggregate 110,000,000, and this is believed to represent less than half the damage wrought, for all places in the extreme north and east of the states are cut ofT from communication both by train and wire. The loss of life foots up six, but it may be much larger. Not a spindle or a loom of the hundreds of thousands in Manchester were In motion Monday and the 17,000 operatives darkened the river banks and the streets, watching the awful grandeur of the mighty flow of water. The Merrimac is ten feet above the dam at Amoskeag falls. The carrying away of the dam at Kelly’s Falls and the demolition of the electric light station has entailed a loss aggregating $50,000 upon the electric company. Seven men were swept away, but all escaped with their lives. The big Amoskeag bridge was swept away at noon, carrying with it two smaller bridges. At Brunswick, Me., fifty houses have been swept down i he Androscoggin, and the big suspension bridge carried away. Charles Wagg, orvuser of Cabot cotton mill, and two French employes, attempted to strengthen the head rack of the mill when tht wtructure was suddenly torn from under them, and they were swept to tbejr death.

Cold Weather Checks the Flood. Albany, N. Y., March 3.—Freezing weather Sunday night checked the rising of the streams hereabouts and there ha» been a material subsidence of the flood. This was the earliest breaking up of the Hudson in 125 years, and was attended in this vicinity with much damage, narrow escapes and the loss of one life. A family of five were rtscued from beds floating in the rooms. A 9-year-old boy was swept into the river at Lansingburg and drowned.

Ice Covers Railroad Tracks. Poughkeepsie, N. Y., March 3.—A great ice gorge has been forced on the New York Central & Hudson railroad tracks between Hudson and Albany, and no trains are running on the Hudson river division between these points. The road is covered with ice in some places ten feet high, and the tracks and 'telegraph poles tor a distance of 700 feet have been unshed out. Illinois Rl«w Rising. Lacon, 111., Special: The Illinois river is on the rise, and great fears are entertained that much damage will be done. The river is now thirteen feet above low water mark. All low land is inundated