Bloomington Telephone, Volume 14, Bloomington, Monroe County, 11 June 1889 — Page 2

STORY OF THE DELUGE.

HEABTBEXDENG SCENES XX CONE MAUOII VAXJLEY.

William Henry Smith' Graphic Inscription of the Flood's Awful Approach Mart Plunge of Um Aqneons Avalanche on the CitT or Conemaugh-How Trains Hon soft Every thins;, Went IKwn Before tlie Fierce Nlaarr Awful Scenes of instruction. Mr. William Henrv Smith, General Manager of the Associated frress, was an eye-witness of the awful scenes in Conemaugh Valley on the night of the grea col tun it y. He tella the followinc story of the flood's devastation : The fast-line train 5 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 Bauroad for manv miles, looked an angry flood nearly bankfal. Passengers were interested in seeing hundreds of saw-logs and au enormous amount of driftwood shoot rapidlv 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 on" ; loaded cars were on tha 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 tc 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 Pork, some time ago a

to the gross sum for the destruction of property? Can they restore the dead to life, 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- Condition of the Valley. This is certainly one of the world's greatest catastrophes, telegraphs Fred R, G;les. the Chicago News' special correspondent at Johnstown. The scene is awful. The dead lie so thick that a corps scarcely commands attention, save as the committees proceed on their rounds. In a schoolhotise 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 be seen to have had attractive 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-house lay eleven little children. A big boy sat by contemplating them. They were his brothers and sisters. His father, Squire Fisher, and his mother wrro 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 knockeqylown. The business part of Johnstown is without form. The stores in such buildings as still stand are in vast disorder. The doors are blockaded with drift ; but peering witnin a number of them, the proprietors, their clerks, and customers can be seen dead on the f?oor. The Hotel Hurlburt, a large brick huilojng was made a place of refuge, and fell, killing bventy people. The whole valley, as far as the eye reaches, is an indescribable wreck, and upon 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. Wood vale and Conemaugh are utterly destroyed, and their

VIEV OT PIiOOI IN JOHNSTOWN THE OPEN SPACE WAS KNOWN AS IRON STREET.

feeder of the Pennsylvania Canal, but latterly the property of a club at Pittsburg, and used for hunting and fishing, was unsafe and might break. This made most of the passengers uneasy, and they kept a P?etty good lookout for information. The porters of the Pullman cars remained at their posts and comforted the passengers with the assurance that the Pennsylvania Railroad Company always took care of its patrons. A few gentlemen and some ladies and children Quietly seated themselves, apparently contented. One gentleman, who was ill, had his berth made up and retired, although advised not to do so. Soon the cry came that the water in the reservoir bad broken down the barrier and was sweeping down the valley. Instantly there was a panic, and a rash for the mountain side. Children were carried and womea assisted by a few who kept cool heads. It was a race lor life. There was seen the black bead of the flood, now the monster of destruction, whose crest was high raised in the air, and with this in view even the weak found wings for their feet. No words can adequately describe the terror that filled every breast, or the awful power manifested by the flood. The round-house had stalls 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 ani 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 in a few minutes; these included the hotel, stores, and saloons on the front street, and residences adjacent. As the fugitives on the mountain side witnessed the awful devastation, they were moved as never before it their lives. They were powerless to help those seised 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 few passengers saved anything from the train, so sudden was the cry, "Bun 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 occupants of the houses BtOl 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 food 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 whistle. This they repeated at intervalethe last time with triumphant vigor aa the waters were receding from the sides of their locomotives. By 5 :30 the force of the reservoir waters had been spent on the village of Conemange, and the Pullman cars and locomotive of the second section remained unmoved. This was because they were on the highest and hardest ground. The destructive current of the reservoir flood had passed between that and the mountain, while the current of the river did not eat it away. But the other trains had been destroyed. A solitary locomotive was seen imbedded in the mud where the round-house had s'ood. As the greatest danger had passed, the people of Conemangh gave their thoughts to their neighbors of the city of Johnstown. Here was centered the gnat steel and iron industries, the pride of Western Pennsylvania, the Cambria Iron Works leing known everywhere. Here were churches, daily newspapers, banks, dry goods bouses, warehouses, and the comfortable and well built homes of 12.000 people. 'What was the?r fate? In the contemplation of the irresistible force of that awful flood gathering additional momentum as it swept on toward the Gulf , it became clear that the city must be destroyed, and that, unless the inhabitants had telegraphic not ice oi 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, furr races, manufactories ; the many and var&d industries, the banks, the residences all. AU were swallowed up before the shadows of night had settled down upon the earth. What of title inhabitants? Who can tell with any certainty? Those who came back by daybreak said that from 5,00C to 8,000 had been drowned. Our hope is that this is an exaggeration, and when the roll is calk d most will respond. In the light of this calamity the destruction at Conemaugh sinks into insignificance. In this latter place they were already bringing iu 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 is enormous The track of the railroad company is certainly 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 uildmgs in that city and of the villages above and below it, imd 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 Pittsburgh club. Upon the mountain was suspended a body of water three miles long, one mile wide, and seventy feet deep for the recreation of a few pleasure-seekers. What would happen if there should be a break must have been iin perfectly apprehended, Blnce it is said that a b;nd of only three millions had been grgwufA from the dob. What are three millions

joint population of 5.000 is dead. Johnstown is wrecked, and certainly 5,000 people lie dead in the streets and among the 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. lor miles below the debris of shattered houses chokes the stream. One hundred and ninety bodies were picked ont of the river at Nineveh, and the majority were buried there to-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 bepin. There are about t wo 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 either hand. The 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 liike a Great Tomb Scenes in the Stricken City. A sad 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 to Bland is half covered with water. The few sidewalks in the part that escaped the flood were inches thick with black sticky mud, through which tramped 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 coll 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 gone 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. Th6y 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 if the d;?ad persons had gone away and were coining 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 curiosity hunters 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 cave to be near after they had seen one body exhumed. There were hundreds and thousands of these visitors from the conntry. 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, Aa 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 hod 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 human bodies, but it is slow work to pick them to pieces. In the side of one of them was seen the rem mints ol a carriage, the body of a harnessed horse, a baby cradle and a doll, a tress of woman's hair, a rocking-horse, and a piece of beefsteak s till hanging to a hook. SMAT.T, TOWNS SWBPST AWAY. Little Left of Kernville Woodvale a Sea of Mud. Out of the 1,009 houses that once made up the little town of Kernville only 155 remain standing, says a Johnstown special. One thousand peoplelsalowefitimateof 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 they 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 eyes, bruised faces, and cut head j. The appearance of some of the ladies is heartrending. They were injured in the flood and since that have Dot slept. Their faces 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 iu 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 thac saved him from lynching was the smallness of the crowd. His

fienteace will be the heaviest that can be given him. A milkman who was overcharging for milk this morning narrowly escaped lynching. The infuriated men appropriate) fall his milk and distributed it among the poor and then drove him out of the town. Serrfces in the chapel from which the bodies wero 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 pilo of wreckage, Nothing is standing but the old wool en -mil Is. The place is swept bare of all other buildings but the ruins of the Oautier 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 awav from where they once' stood. The wreck of a nose carriage is sticking up out of th? 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 (-ten nan watchman was on guard at the mill whoi: tlie waters cam. He ran for tlie hillside and ftiuccceded in escaping. He tells a graphic story of the appearance oi the water as it swept down the valley. He declares that the first wave was as high as the t urn! story of a house. The place Ir deserted. No effort is being made to clean off the streets. The miro has formed the grave for many a poor victim. Anns and legs re protruding from the mud, and it makes tho most sickening of pictures. The Cambria Hospital has now 300 patients. Several injured people have bad operations performed on them. The hospital in the tipper part of Johnstown is full to overflowing. Many have been carried to the surrounding houses. Hospitals have bean 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 ft bridge across the Conemaugh at the point here the old county bridge stood. Order is slowly arising out of chaos. Tlie survivors are slowlv realizing what is the best course to pursue. The great c y is for menmen who will work and not stand idly by aud do nothing but gaze at the ruins, A man named Dougherty tolls a thrilling story of a ride down the river on a log. When the waters struck tlie roof of the house on which he had taken, shelter, he jumped astride a telegraph pole, riding a dist aueo of some twenty-three miles from Johnstown to Bolivar before he was rescued. A nameless Paul Revere lies somewhere among the dead. Who ho if may never be known, but his ride will be famous in local history. Mounted on. a large ha horse, he came riding, like an angel of wratli, down the pike which passed through Conemaugh to Johnstown, shouting as he came : "Run for your lives to the hills! Kim to the hills!" The people crowded out of their hoiises along the thickly settled streets. Nobody knew the man, aud some thought that he was a maniac. On he rode, shrilling out his awful cry. In a few moments there c ame a cloud of mm down the broad streets, down the narrow alleys, grinding, twisting, hurling, overturning, crashing, annihilating the weak and strong. It was the charge of tlie flood. On raced the rider and on rushed the wave. Dozens of people heeded the warning and rau for the hills. Just as the lone rider crossed the railroad bridge the mighty wave fell upon him, and horse, man, and bridge went down into chaos together. THE FATAL DAM. Its Owners Were Aware of Its Rotten Condition. Messrs. H. Singer. George Singer, Iiouis Clark, and B. Hussey Binas, 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 4 o'clock it wan dry. That great bodv of water passed out in o:ae hour. Messrs. Park and Van Huron, who ave building a new 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 hod about forty men at work, and did all they could without avail. The water passed over the dam about a foot above its top, bepinnin at about 2 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 morning tho lake was very full and was rising at the rate of a foot 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 t imes during the day to warn the people below of their dauger. When the final break came at 3 o'clock there was a sound like thunder, and trees, rocks, and earth were shot ur into mid-air in great columns, and then the wave started down the ravine. A farmer 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 upcu the hillside, hut his wife and two children weie killed. At the present time the lake looks like a cross between the crater of a volcano and a huge mud-puddlo with stumps of 1rses and rocks scattered over it. There is a email stream of muddy water running through the center of the lake. The darn was seventy feet high, and the break is about 200 feet wire, and there i;i but a small portion of the dam left on either side. No damage was done to any oi the buildings belonging to the club. The whole south fork is swept, with not a tree standing. A man named Maguire say s he was standing on the edge of the lakewher- the walls burst. The water was rising all day and aa on a level with a pile of dirt which, he said, was above tlie wall of the dam. All of a sudden it burst; with a report like a cannon and the water started down the mountain side, s weeping before it trees as if they were chips; bowlders were rolled down as if thev were marbles. The roar was deafening. The lake was emptied in an hour and a half. All the water, ha 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. Ou his way down he stopped, at Mineral Point, where sixteen houses were cashed away and

tho names of theso unfortunates ever found place on the pages of hiatory. "All indications point to tb,e fact that .the death-list will reach over five thousand names, and in my opinion the lrissing will readi 8,000 in number," declared Gen. D, H. Hastings;. At present there are said to be 2,200 recovered bodies. Tho great difficulty experienced in getting a correct list is th great number of morpues. There is no central buneau of information, and to communicate with the different deadhou&es 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 arraugements 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 with regularity. There is plenty nf medical assistance. We have a bountiful supply of food and clothing to-day and the fullest telegraphic facilities are afforded, and all inquiries are proinp Iv answered. The Pennsylvania railroad will be completed to Johnstown station to-night. Have you any instructions o:r inquiries ? -The most conservati ve estimates here place the loss of lives at fully 5,000. The prevailing Jnipression is that the loss will reach from 8,000 to 10,0 H). There are many widows and orphans, and a groat many wounded impossible to give an estimate. The property destroyed will reach &is,00d,ooo. The popular estimate will reach 10,000,000 to $50,000,000. Chief Burgess Hurl and L, C. Moxham, Chairman of the Relief Committer, are doing good work. Have made requisition on Pittsburg for cooking facilities, shoes, and madeun clothing for men, women, and children, all of which we need badly. To-morrow morning we will have HM) men, with horses. car';s, axes, aud other tools, clearing away the debris. "You cannot raise too much money for this Buffering community." GOV, BEAVER'S CALL FOB AID. Money, Provisions, and Clothing Badly Needed, Gov. Heaver, of Penntiylvanla, issued a strong appeal for aid. It is addressed to the people of tne United States, aud says : Newspaper reports as to the loss of life and property have not been exaggerated. The Valley of the Conemaugh, wnicn is peculiar, has been swept from one end to the other as with the besom of destruction. It contained a papulation of 40,000 to 50,000 people living for the most part along tho banks of a srrall river confined within narrow limits. Tho most conservative estimates ulace the loss of life at .5,000 human beluga and of property at S25,O00,0TO. Tho most pressing needs so far as food is concerned have been supplied. Shoes and clothing of all sorts for men, women and children are

t mm i r i hi n , ' - m I.

A. COKN'KB OF THE C A MB HI A IRON" COMPANY'S MlTJCt NKXT TO THE B1UDGE.

greatly needed. Moi ley is al s o urgently required to remove tho debris, bury the dead, and care temporarily fcr widows and orphans and for the homeless families. Other localities have suffered to some extent in tho same way, but not in the same leprae. Late advices would seem to indicate thac there is great I033 of life and destruction o:f property along the west branch if tho Susquehanna and in localities from which we can got lio definite information. The responses from within and without the State have been most genproua and cheering. North and South, East and West, iroiu the United States aid from England thore comes the same hearty, generous response of sympathy and help. Funds contributed i:a aid of the sufferers can be deposited with Drexel A Co., Philadelphia; Jacob E. Bamberger, banker, Harrisburg ; or William R. Thompson & Co., tankers, Pittsburg. All money contributed will bo used carefully aud judiciously. TWO CHICAGOANS EXPERIENCE. How They Escaped the Rushing Wall of Water. Frank Felt and Sidney McCloud, two Chicago merchants, were in Jonnstown whon the avalance of water fell upon the ill-fated city. Both gentleiueu gi - it as their estimate that the lost will number between 10,000 and io.OOO. They say that on the night of Decoration Dav they saw 20,000 people i a the streets, andihe town was alive with people. Friday morning the streets were crowded with people rushing for the mountain when they started, and not more than 5CO reached the place. All others went down with the flood. Messrs. McCloud and Felt tell a graphic story of thei: escape. They were out attending to business during the rr oming, and when they went to the hotel, the Hurlbut Hou so, at noon there was about ten inches of water in tho office, and they went to a restaurant to get something to eat. When they came out of the restaurant they saw the streets crowded wivh people running to the mountains. They stepped out the back way to an alley and ran for the hill, but had to wade througn water up to :heir waists before reaching the high ground. They had little moie than a block to go, and the people who were twenty feet behind them were caught by tho flood a:id swept away. For this

1

JOHNSTOWN VICTIMS.

THE CAMBRIA IRON WORKS.

several liven lost. At East Conemaugh thirty houses wero carried away by the flood. The loss of life is large at thin point.

THE LOSS OF LIFE. The Terrible Sacriace of Human Life Will Never Be Known. The developments of every hour make it more aud more apparent that trio exaot number of lives lost in the Johnstown horror will nover be known, says ona correspondent. All estimates that have been made up to ;his time are conservative and whn all is known will doubtless be found to have been too small. Over one thousand bodieB have been found since sunrise to-day, and th3 most skeptical concede that the remains of thousands more rest beneath the debris above Johnstown bridge. The population of Johnstown, the surrounding towns, and the por I io a of tho valley affected by tho flood is, or was, from fifty thousand to fifty-five thousand. Associated Press representatives to-day interviewed numerous leading citizens of Johnstown who survived the floods a id tho consensus of opinion was that fully 30 por cent, of tho residents of Johnstown and Cumbria had been victims of tho combined disn iters of fire and water. If this be tree the total loss of life in the entire valley may reach 15,000. Of the thousands who were devoured by the flamns, and whose anhes rest beneath the amokiug debris above Johnstown bridge, no definite information can ever be obtained. As little wi.U ite learned of the hundreds who sunk beneath the current and were bono t wifMv down the Conemaugh only to be deposited hundreds of miles below en tho banks aud in the driftwood of the raging Ohio. Probably one-third of t-he dead will never ha recovered, and it will take a hst of the m i ssing weeks hence to enable even a close estimate to be made of the numberof Kves that were snufied out in that brief hour. That this estimate can never be accurate) is understood when it is remembered that in many instances whole families and their relatives were swept away smd found a common grave beneath the wild waste of waters. The total destruction of tlie city leaves no data to even demonstrate that

reason they think the loss wii.l be found to be very great. The water came iu 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. Sir. Felt thinks there were less t'aan 600 people on the high ground with him. The others went down with the flood. Ho saw hundreds of them go down before his eyes as they stood looking down upon the wreck. No ona escaped from tho Hurlbut house, and Messrs. Felt and McCloud would have been among the lost had they diced there. As soon as possible the Chicago men began tho work of organizing relief parties to rescue the people who wera 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-lino which w as used to send our, a raft with a strong man to take people off tho houses, A river man volunteered for this work, and with a rope tied securely about his body, he maco many trips into the flood, and each time brought two people ashore with him, Tho oUier gentlemen carried these peopls up to (ho high ground where they were oared for by tl.e residents of that locality. They rescued over fifty people in this way, mostly women and children. They worked as long aa thoy could see and after dark the fire at tho bridge gave them ligh to seo here and there the people still clinging to. roofs, some of whom were rescud. A number of traveling men who were in the hotels teed tags to their clothing aud shot then selves, m desperate were they in this scene of terror. Both gentlemen vouch for this.

Nothing seerxs much clearer than the natural direction of charity. Would all but relieve, according to the measure of our means, taose objects immediately within the range of our personal knowledge, how Dinch of the worst evil of paverfcy might be allevi! ated.

THJ2 NUMBER BETWEEN TWELVE AND FIFTEEN THOUSAND.

The Enormity of tho IlsaHter Becoming More and More Apparent ISurying; the 1 end Tlie Country Responding to the Appeal tor Aid. A Johnstown special of Thurrday jjays: The gray mists had scarcely arisen irointhe hilh this morning until a thousand funerals were coursing their green sides. There were no hearses, few mourners, and as little solemnity as formality. The major ity of the coffins wer of rough pine. The hearses were strong farmers' teams, and

instead of six pall bearers to one coffin

there were generally six coffins to team. Silently the 3rocessions moved

si!e:otly they unloaded their burdens in tho lap of Mother Earth. No minister was there to pronounce a last blessing as the clods rotUed down. A fact that has been heretofore overlooked in the awful strain is the soiled condition of the corpses. Fully one-third olf those recovered have been p ma igled, bruised or charred that idtmtijk cation wast impossible. In an ordinal flood this would not have been the casi

but here human bodies were the filling of a mountain-like muss of l ouses, railroad tracks;, trains, ;i:nd other debris whictj

one

and

men are thus employed in Johnstowi proper, about 1,H)0 of these being- the regular street hands hirod by Contractor Booth and Flynn of Pittsburg, tbt othan being volunteers. Nr. Flynn's estimates show more than anything the chaotic condition of this city.

He says: "It will take 10,000 men thirty days to clear the ground so that the street are passable and the irorfc of rebuilding can be commenced, and I am at a loss to know how the work is to be done Thii enthusiasm will soon die out and the volun teers will want to return home. It would take all summer for my men alone to dc what work is necessary. Steps must bea taken at once to furnish gangs of workmen, and to-morrow I hall send a communication to the Pittsburg chamber of commerce asking the different manufacturers of the Ohio valley to take turns for a week or so in furnishing reliefs of workmen. I shall ask that each establishment stop work for a week at a time and send all hands in the charge of a foreman and timekeeper. We will board and care for them here. These gangs should come for a week at a time, as no organization can be effected if workmen arrive and leave when they ploase." The volunteers are doing noble work. Nearly every town in western Pennsylvania is represented by from ten tojtone hundred men, and many towns in Ohio and New York have also furnished a quota

of laborers. These volunteers are working

went crunching and crash ine- throi ch e

valley threa miles loae. How anv of life's with a will, but before the end of the wees:

cJay retained form cr semblance is enig- they will want to return home. Men who ma tical. 1 '. come here will be paid $3 a day and board. All day long tha corpses were being;1 All the laborers who have been toiling bui ied below ground. The unidentified l with the wreckage are quartered at night.

hod i6s wero crmmftfl on n. hich hill vspst of some in barns, others in the tents above

- a f

the doomed city, where one epitaph must j

do for all, and that the Word "unknown," i

referred to. It was a scene as o, army life at she time that supper was ready.

hundreds of these grayes al- j and tho long pine tables were crowded

Thre

ready, and each day will increase the pro

portion. The possibility of identification diminishes every hoar. Fires are raging over the wangled graves of hundreds and tht. partial cremation of many bodies is inevitable. Others- are becoming so blackened in their coMact with the dearis or

with men. Stoves were erected out in the

open a.ud coal fires heated the gallons of

offee. This bevraze was heated in large

ash -1 oilers, and for one gang of men

ven boileri uls were emptied in a half

tut. As the darkness drew a veil over

e scene the valley became quiet, the only

1

ft

Ha

THE DAM AT SOUTH FORK LAKE.

The view is taken from a point rjelov the dam and shown the peculiar way in which the watr cut thr ough it.

through putrifaction that a grinn .ng skeleton would show as much resemblance co tlae persons in life as they. Almcst every s troke of the picl: in some portions of the city to day resulted in the discDvery of another victim, and although the funerals of the morning relieved the morgue of their crush before night they were as full as ever. W here ver one turns the me 1 ancholy view of a coffin is met. Every train into Johnstown was laden with them, the better ones bain.? generally accompanied by friends of the dead. Men could bo seen staggering over the ruins with shining mahogany caskets on their shoulders. Several stumbled and fell into the abounding pits. The hallow houses of the dead went bouncing over the stones like drums in a funeral mar oh. The coffin famine seems to be alleviated. The enormity of the devastation wrought by the f ood is becoming more aad more apparent with every effort of the laborers to resolve order out of chaos. Over 100 men have been all day engaged in an effort to clear a narrow passage ixom the death-bridge upward through tbe sea of 4eb;ris that blocks the Conermuigh for r early half a mile. Every ingenuity known to men has been restored to by tlie crew. The giant power of dynamite was brought into reauisition. and at freouent intervals

the roar of explosions reverberated through the vail ay, and sticks, stmes, and K-

log; would fly high in the air. Gradually a r few of the heo viest timbers were deinol- V, ishod and the fragments permitted to float f . downward through the center arch. At J. ,'

nightfall, however, the clear space above;

l . V i j t jj ; li. ?-

ree 3 m lengcn, oy xorty ieet iu waun, ai?,i aoont ten foet ai0j), which was the outlet by When one reflects that fully twenty-fivo4 which the stream bflow was fod from the late.

acres are to be cleared in this wav the task J on tne went end oi tn dam is now a sluiceway ahd seems an intombabk nne Bud tltjT

noise betf ng the occaiional challenge of a miiitiami(in as he bade some belated fefr7 dividual tpbey the orders of the sheriff and leave the ft city of the dead. Johnstown is under martial law and laborers only are wanted. THjE BREAK IN THE DAM. An Engineer's Story of the Terrible Flood, Mr. Fred? B. Gilefc. the special correspondont of the H'hicago Daily News at the scene of the calamity, telegraphs that journal aa follows: I ascend th3 valley to inspect the country and investigate the cause of the disaster. The rich Pittsbu.rgers who maintained the Ill-starred lake have he&n prompt to deny the cause. They can rationally do so no more. The proof of the fact is evideplt. It i i eighteen roilee ta the lake by the deviTovis court a of the valley down wktah the torrent (Vuscended. No harm was done to tbe club house jWd coU&gea of the South Fork Club, but the traMVPrmatloii worked by tho flood is even more & iking th ?re than anywhere else. The house mierly stood by the shores oi a beautiful lftHe- Now ttie cottages are on a blnil above a while ravhu, seventj-nve feet deep, fc the bottom rf which rolls a muddy stream. Tbe picturesque beauty o:the place was extracted when the waiter rushed out at the gap in tne great emban ament , When one elxatniniw the breach in the dam the feeling is one jor great surprise. There is none of the laeernltion of :he edges that one would expect from aremling force, out, on the contra rv, tha aperture ha a symmetry that suggests art rather than ace dent. The middle of the 'Jain has be?pM8'ooed out for ab nt two-thirds t.hjafljir The j v; v portion of th.s is again

i, ana mis istrer exfsamjion extends to oiu of tho dam, making an opehiSSihat laiuplo space for the stream now runnings' Ci it. Mtiu v,a au ointankment of earth face&ni Sdes with loose tone in tho style called ' fciueers "riprap pi tig." It is still intact foe A three hundred feet on each side of tbe

,Jyar on tne east en ;i close to the shore the dam

yo firoovcd by a -wier yr seventy-live feofc wilo

there is no royal road, and if the hundreds or thousands of bodies beneath these black-'

enea ruins are to be recovered for Christia

burial xhe labors of to-day must le con tin ued with increased visor.

There are many conservative minds tha' recommend the use of the torch in thi work of elearinir i;he river, but thev art!

not among the snrlerers, and when suclH

children, sister,, or brothers rest beneath TEtufan

this sea or uocsc.mj ana jetsam, ims suggestion of cremation meets a wld furore of objection, i t is only in delerence to tho unreasoning- mandate of griel! that the hurculear labor of clearing the river by means of the dynamite and the derrick is persisted in. There is no hope in the ea rner minds that this tusk can be pursued to the ond. The progress to-day is hardly discernible, and ere two days more have elapsed there is little doubt that the emanations of putrid bodies will have become no frightf .l as to drive the hardiest workmen from the scene. Until that time arrives, however, there is no hope that the grief -stricken populace will: abandon the cherished hoo cf again gazing upon tne tor ins of loved ones whoso lives went out in the fire ar.d flood of the Conemaugh. Tho pleadings of sanitarians and the logic of engineers alike iail to find an echo in the minds of the grieving and a llicted, but in a few more days the sterner logic of nature will assert itse.f, and in the face of impossibility the taslc of cremation will become a Christian duty. Wb?re .Ton as'town's principal stores

the dam, but failed to ttave it.

It bo happened that at the time of the flood there was a civil engineer present in charge et the construction of a -tower and wator works on the club grounds. This gentleman, Mr. John G. Varko. Jr., saw tho catastrophe from first to last. Here is his account of it: -Or: Thursday night tho dam was in perfect condition and the water was not witnin sevMt feet of the top. At that stage the lake is nearly three miles long. It rained very hard Thurav

day night. When I jot up Fridav morning I

as r. flood, for the water wa; frort of the club-house, aad

thKisvel of the water in the lake had risen; until it was only four feet below the top of the" danvVl rode up to the head of the lake, a&d saw Uw-the woods wre boiling full of water. South rorlc and Muidy Kim, which emptied into theakc, were toto-hing down trees, lojfS, and cut tinib. r from saw -mi p that was up in the woods lin that direction. A plow was run al(II tho ttro of the dam and earth was throwx, iu the face the dam to strengthen it. At tlx same timo i channel va- dug on tho west end tc runko a sluiceway there. There was about three feet jt shale rxrt; through which it want possible to :ut. but theu we struck bedrock tfcaU it was impossible to j?et into without blasting.; "Whenweigot the -haunel opened thewa?) soon scour down to the bedrock, and a stream twenty feet vide and three deep rushed out ott' that end of the dam, while the riser was letting; out an enormous qrantity on the other end, Notwithatp.nrting these outlets tho water kepY rising at tie rate of about ten inches an hour. By 11 :30 t madt up my mind that it waii impossible t save th dun, and, getting on myt horse, I gH loped down tho road to South Fcrni to warn the.-poople of their danger. Thetete. graph tow r 'is a m le from tho town, and '.L sent two nw-i there to have nieas.iges sent tuf Johnstown aud otaer points below, I hecL that th lady opei-a or fain'ied when Bhe lmi sent, oft : ho news, and had to be carried tifl .! -The irt al took rlaco at" 3 o'clock. It war

about two bot wtae at nrst, and & hallow, fat'

crew wider

lake wen

miles

t wo to t wmo at nrst, ana shallow, bnW vider sb imreaswig rapidity, and thi eut vom'uig doRti the valley; thatthtet? of watH' was drained out iu forty-llvi

8tooa last jriuay are now piccuea i,uwu i miuutee. Theuv ..nu or tqose 60,000,000 toot teats, and beforo night this number will was strip y i?rmus!ith. S tones from tho data probably be douoled. Under this shelter J UJ J ' ZA'

a: e accommodited tbe workmen who are

trying to clear the streets. Over J,000

Ituicho of wat-'t

choked witufioo

go down that valley alreadr