History of 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 Charities, etc., etc., With Full Accounts also of the Destruction on the Susquehanna and Juniata Rivers, and the Bald Eagle Creek.

“My train left Pittsburg on Friday morning for Johnstown. The train was due at Sang Hollow at two minutes after four, but was five minutes late. At Sang Hollow, just as we were about to pull out, we heard that the flood was coming. Looking ahead, up the valley, we saw an immense wall of water thirty feet high, raging, roaring, rushing toward us. The engineer reversed his engine and rushed back to the hills at full speed, and we barely escaped the waters. We ran back three hundred yards, and the flood swept by, tearing up track, telegraph poles, trees, and houses. Superintendent Pitcairn was on the train. We all got out and tried to save the floating people. Taking the bell cord we formed a line and threw the rope out, thus saving seven persons. We could have saved more, but many were afraid to let go of the debris. It was an awful sight. The immense volume of water was roaring along, whirling over huge rocks, dashing against the banks and leaping high into the air, and this seething flood was strewn with timber, trunks of trees, parts of houses, and hundreds of human beings, cattle, and almost every living animal. The fearful peril of the living was not more awful than the horrors of hundreds of distorted, bleeding corpses whirling along the avalanche of death. We counted one hundred and seven people floating by and dead without number. A section of roof came by on which were sitting a woman and girl. A man named C. W. Heppenstall, of Pittsburg, waded and swam to the roof. He brought the girl in first and then the woman. They told us they were not relatives. The woman had lost her husband and four children, and the girl her father and mother, and entire family. A little boy came by with his mother. Both were as calm as could be, and the boy was apparently trying to comfort the mother. They passed unheeding our proffered help, and striking the bridge below, went down into the vortex like lead.

“One beautiful girl came by with her hands raised in prayer, and, although we shouted to her and ran along the bank, she paid no attention. We could have saved her if she had caught the rope. An old man and his wife whom we saved said that eleven persons started from Cambria City on the roof with him, but that the others had dropped off.

“At about eight P. M. we started for New Florence. All along the river we saw corpses without number caught in the branches of trees and wedged in corners in the banks. A large sycamore tree in the river between Sang Hollow and New Florence seemed to draw into it nearly all who floated down, and they went under the surface at its roots like lead. When the waters subsided two hundred and nine bodies were found at the root of this tree. All night the living and the dead floated by New Florence. At Pittsburg seventy-eight bodies were found on Saturday, and as many more were seen floating by. Hundreds of people from ill-fated Johnstown are wandering homeless and starving on the mountain-side. Very few saved anything, and I saw numbers going down the stream naked. The suffering within the next few days will be fearful unless prompt relief is extended.”

H. M. Bennett and S. W. Keltz, engineer and conductor of engine No. 1,165, an extra freight, which happened to be lying at South Fork when the dam broke, tell a graphic story of their wonderful flight and escape on the locomotive before the advancing flood. At the time mentioned Bennett and Keltz were in the signal tower at that point awaiting orders. The fireman and flagman were on the engine, and two brakemen were asleep in the caboose. Suddenly the men in the tower heard a loud booming roar in the valley above them. They looked in the direction of the sound, and were almost transfixed with horror to see two miles above them a huge black wall of water, at least one hundred and fifty feet in height, rushing down the valley upon them.

One look the fear-stricken men gave the awful sight, and then they made a rush for the locomotive, at the same time giving the alarm to the sleeping brakemen in the caboose with loud cries, but with no avail. It was impossible to aid them further, however, so they cut the engine loose from the train, and the engineer, with one wild wrench, threw the lever wide open, and they were away on a mad race for life. For a moment it seemed that they would not receive momentum enough to keep ahead of the flood, and they cast one despairing glance back. Then they could see the awful deluge approaching in its might. On it came, rolling and roaring like some Titanic monster, tossing and tearing houses, sheds, and trees in its awful speed as if they were mere toys. As they looked they saw the two brakemen rush out of the cab, but they had not time to gather the slightest idea of the cause of their doom before they, the car, and signal tower were tossed high in the air, to disappear forever in engulfing water.

Then with a shudder, as if at last it comprehended its peril, the engine leaped forward like a thing of life, and speeded down the valley. But fast as it went, the flood gained upon them. Hope, however, was in the ascendant, for if they could but get across the bridge below the track would lean toward the hillside in such a manner that they would be comparatively safe. In a few breathless moments the shrieking locomotive whizzed around the curve and they were in sight of the bridge. Horror upon horrors! Ahead of them was a freight train, with the rear end almost on the bridge, and to get across was simply impossible! Engineer Bennett then reversed the lever and succeeded in checking the engine as they glided across the bridge, and then they jumped and ran for their lives up the hillside, as the bridge and tender of the locomotive they had been on were swept away like a bundle of matches in the torrent.

CHAPTER VII.

There have been many famous rides in history. Longfellow has celebrated that of Paul Revere. Read has sung of Sheridan’s. John Boyle O’Reilly has commemorated in graceful verse the splendid achievement of Collins Graves, who, when the Williamsburg dam in Massachusetts broke, dashed down the valley on horseback in the van of the flood, warning the people and saving countless lives:

There were two such heroes in the Conemaugh Valley. Let their deeds be told and their names held in everlasting honor. One was John G. Parke, a young civil engineer of Philadelphia, a nephew of the General John G. Parke who commanded a corps of the Union Army. He was the first to discover the impending break in the South Fork dam, and jumping into the saddle he started at breakneck speed down the valley shouting: “The dam; the dam is breaking; run for your lives!” Hundreds of people were saved by this timely warning. Reaching South Fork Station, young Parke telegraphed tidings of the coming inundation to Johnstown, ten miles below, fully an hour before the flood came in “a solid wall of water thirty feet high” to drown the mountain-bound town.

Some heeded the note of alarm at Johnstown; others had heard it before, doubted, and waited until death overtook them. Young Parke climbed up into the mountains when the water was almost at his horse’s heels, and saw the deluge pass.

Less fortunate was Daniel Peyton, a rich young man of Johnstown. He heard at Conemaugh the message sent down from South Fork by the gallant Parke. In a moment he sprang into the saddle. Mounted on a grand, big, bay horse, he came riding down the pike which passes through Conemaugh to Johnstown, like some angel of wrath of old, shouting his warning:

“Run for your lives to the hills! Run to the hills!”

The people crowded out of their houses along the thickly settled streets awe-struck and wondering. No one knew the man, and some thought he was a maniac and laughed. On and on, at a deadly pace, he rode, and shrilly rang out his awful cry. In a few moments, however, there came a cloud of ruin down the broad streets, down the narrow alleys, grinding, twisting, hurling, over-turning, crashing—annihilating the weak and the strong. It was the charge of the flood, wearing its coronet of ruin and devastation, which grew at every instant of its progress. Forty feet high, some say, thirty according to others, was this sea, and it travelled with a swiftness like that which lay in the heels of Mercury.

On and on raced the rider, on and on rushed the wave. Dozens of people took heed of the warning and ran up to the hills.

Poor, faithful rider! It was an unequal contest. Just as he turned to cross the railroad bridge the mighty wall fell upon him, and horse, rider, and bridge all went out into chaos together.

A few feet further on several cars of the Pennsylvania Railroad train from Pittsburg were caught up and hurried into the cauldron, and the heart of the town was reached.

The hero had turned neither to the right nor left for himself, but rode on to death for his townsmen. When found Peyton was lying face upward beneath the remnants of massive oaks, while hard by lay the gallant horse that had so nobly done all in his power for humanity before he started to seek a place of safety for himself.

Mrs. Ogle, the manager of the Western Union telegraph office, who died at her post, will go down in history as a heroine of the highest order. Notwithstanding the repeated notifications which she received to get out of reach of the approaching danger, she stood by the instruments with unflinching loyalty and undaunted courage, sending words of warning to those in danger in the valley below. When every station in the path of the coming torrent had been warned, she wired her companion at South Fork: “This is my last message,” and as such it shall always be remembered as her last words on earth, for at that very moment the torrent engulfed her and bore her from her post on earth to her post of honor in the great beyond.

Miss Nina Speck, daughter of the Rev. David Speck, pastor of the First United Brethren Church, of Chambersburg, was in Johnstown visiting her brother and narrowly escaped death in the flood. She arrived home clad in nondescript clothing, which had been furnished by an old colored washerwoman, and told the following story of the flood:

“Our house was in Kernsville, a part of Johnstown through which Stony Creek ran. Although we were a square from the creek, the back-water from the stream had flooded the streets in the morning and was up to our front porch. At four o’clock on Friday afternoon we were sitting on the front porch watching the flood, when we heard a roar as of a tornado or mighty conflagration.

“We rushed up-stairs and got out upon the bay-window. There an awful sight met our eyes. Down the Conemaugh Valley was advancing a mighty wall of water and mist with a terrible roar. Before it were rolling houses and buildings of all kinds, tossing over and over. We thought it was a cyclone, the roar sounding like a tempest among forest trees. We started down-stairs and out through the rear of the house to escape to the hillside near by. But before we could get there the water was up to our necks and we could make no progress. We turned back and were literally dashed by the current into the house, which began to move off as soon as [we] were in it again. From the second-story window I saw a young man drifting toward us. I broke the glass from the frames with my hands and helped him in, and in a few minutes more I pulled in an old man, a neighbor, who had been sick.

“Our house moved rapidly down the stream and fortunately lodged against a strong building. The water forced us out of the second-story up into the attic. Then we heard a lot of people on our roof begging us for God’s sake to let them in. I broke through the roof with a bed-slat and pulled them in. Soon we had thirteen in all crouched in the attic.

“Our house was rocking, and every now and then a building would crash against us. Every moment we thought we would go down. The roofs of all the houses drifting by us were covered with people, nearly all praying and some singing hymns, and now and then a house would break apart and all would go down. On Saturday at noon we were rescued, making our way from one building to the next by crawling on narrow planks. I counted hundreds of bodies lying in the debris, most of them covered over with earth and showing only the outlines of the form.”

Opposite the northern wall of the Methodist Church the flood struck the new Queen Anne house of John Fronheiser, a superintendent in the Cambria Works. He was at home, as most men were that day, trying to calm the fears of the women and children of the family during the earlier flood. Down went the front of the new Queen Anne house, and into the wreck of it fell the Superintendent, two elder children, a girl and a boy. As the flood passed he heard the boy cry: “Don’t let me drown, papa; break my arms first!” and the girl: “Cut off my legs, but don’t let me drown!”

And as he heard them, came a wilder cry from his wife drifting down with the current, to “Save the baby.” But neither wife nor baby could be saved, and boy and girl stayed in the wreck until the water went down and they were extricated.

Horror piled on horror is the story from Johnstown down to the viaduct. Horror shot through with intense lights of heroism, and here and there pervaded with gleams of humor. It is known that one girl sang as she was whirled through the flood, “Jesus, lover of my soul,” until the water stopped her singing forever. It is known that Elvie Duncan, daughter of the Superintendent of the Street Car Company, when her family was separated and she was swept away with her baby sister, kept the little thing alive by chewing bread and feeding it to her. It is known that John Dibart, banker, died as helplessly in his splendid house as did that solitary prisoner in his cell; that the pleasant park, with the chain fence about it, was so completely annihilated that not even one root of the many shade trees within its boundaries remains. It is known also that to a leaden-footed messenger boy, who was ambling along Main Street, fear lent wings to lift him into the Tribune office in the second story of the Post Office, and that the Rosensteels, general storekeepers of Woodvale, were swept into the windows of their friends, the Cohens, retail storekeepers of Main Street, Johnstown, two miles from where they started. It is known that the Episcopal Church, at Locust and Market Streets, went down like a house of cards, or as the German Lutheran had gone, in the path of the flood, and that Rector Diller, his wife and child, and adopted daughter went with it, while of their next-door neighbors, Frank Daly, of the Cambria Company, and his mother, the son was drowned and the mother, not so badly hurt in body as in spirit, died three nights after in the Mercy Hospital, Pittsburg.

But while the flood was driving people to silent death down the valley, there was a sound of lamentation on the hills. Hundreds who had climbed there to be out of reach during the morning’s freshet saw the city in the valley disappearing, and their cries rose high above the crash and the roar. Little time had eyes to watch or lips to cry. O’Brien, the disabled Millville storekeeper, was one of the crowd in the park. He saw a town before him, then a mountain of timber approaching; then a dizzy swirl of men at the viaduct, a breaking of the embankment to the east of it, the forming of a whirlpool there that ate up homes and those that dwelt in them, as a cauldron of molten iron eats up the metal scraps that are thrown in to cool it, and then a silence and a subsidence.

It was a quarter of four o’clock. At half-past three there had been a Johnstown. Now there was none.

CHAPTER VIII.

Volumes might be written of the sufferings endured and valor exhibited by the survivors of the flood, or of the heart-rending grief with which so many were stricken. At Johnstown an utterly wretched woman named Mrs. Fenn stood by a muddy pool of water trying to find some trace of a once happy home. She was half crazed with grief, and her eyes were red and swollen. As a correspondent stepped to her side she raised her pale, haggard face and remarked:

“They are all gone. O God! be merciful to them! My husband and my seven dear little children have been swept down with the flood, and I am left alone. We were driven by the awful flood into the garret, but the water followed us there. Inch by inch it kept rising, until our heads were crushing against the roof. It was death to remain. So I raised a window, and one by one, placed my darlings on some driftwood, trusting to the great Creator. As I liberated the last one, my sweet little boy, he looked at me and said: ‘Mamma, you always told me that the Lord would care for me; will He look after me now?’ I saw him drift away with his loving face turned toward me, and, with a prayer on my lips for his deliverance, he passed from sight forever. The next moment the roof crashed in, and I floated outside, to be rescued fifteen hours later from the roof of a house in Kernsville. If I could only find one of my darlings I could bow to the will of God, but they are all gone. I have lost everything on earth now but my life, and I will return to my old Virginia home and lay me down for my last great sleep.”

A handsome woman, with hair as black as a raven’s wing, walked through the depot where a dozen or more bodies were awaiting burial. Passing from one to another, she finally lifted the paper covering from the face of a woman, young, and with traces of beauty showing through the stains of muddy water, and with a cry of anguish she reeled backward to be caught by a rugged man who chanced to be passing. In a moment or so she had calmed herself sufficiently to take one more look at the features of her dead. She stood gazing at the corpse as if dumb. Finally, turning away with another wild burst of grief, she said: “And her beautiful hair all matted and her sweet face so bruised and stained with mud and water!” The dead woman was the sister of the mourner. The body was placed in a coffin a few minutes later and sent away to its narrow house.

A woman was seen to smile, one morning just after the catastrophe, as she came down the steps of Prospect Hill, at Johnstown. She ran down lightly, turning up toward the stone bridge. She passed the little railroad station where the undertakers were at work embalming the dead, and walked slowly until she got opposite the station. Then she stopped and danced a few steps. There was but a small crowd there. The woman raised her hands above her head and sang. She became quiet and then suddenly burst into a frenzied fit of weeping and beat her forehead with her hands. She tore her dress, which was already in rags.

“I shall go crazy,” she screamed, “if they do not find his body.”

The poor woman could not go crazy, as her mind had been already shattered.

“He was a good man,” she went on, while the onlookers listened pityingly. “I loved him and he loved me.”

“Where is he?” she screamed. “I must find him.”

And she started at the top of her speed down the track toward the river. Some men caught her. She struggled desperately for a few moments, and then fainted.

Her name was Eliza Adams, and she was a bride of but two months. Her husband was a foreman at the Cambria Iron Works and was drowned.

Miss Rose Clark was fastened in the debris at the railroad bridge, at Johnstown. The force of the water had torn all of her garments off and pinned her left leg below the water between two beams. She was more calm than the men who were trying to rescue her. The flames were coming nearer, and the intense heat scorching her bare skin. She begged the men to cut off the imprisoned leg. Finally half of the men turned and fought the fire, while the rest endeavored to rescue Miss Clark. After six hours of hard work, and untold suffering by the brave little lady she was taken from the ruins in a dead faint. She was one mass of bruises, from her breast to her knees, and her left arm and leg were broken.

Just below Johnstown, on the Conemaugh, three women were working on the ruins of what had been their home. An old arm-chair was taken from the ruins by the men. When one of the women saw the chair, it brought back a wealth of memory, probably the first since the flood occurred, and throwing herself on her knees on the wreck she gave way to a flood of tears.

“Where in the name of God,” she sobbed, “did you get that chair? It was mine—no, I don’t want it. Keep it and find for me, if you can, my album. In it are the faces of my husband and little girl.”

Patrick Downs was a worker in one of the mills of the Cambria Iron Works. He had a wife and a fourteen-year-old daughter, Jessie Downs, who was a great favorite with the sturdy, hard-handed fellow-workmen of her father.

She was of rare beauty and sweetness. Her waving, golden-yellow hair, brushed away from a face of wondrous whiteness, was confined by a ribbon at the neck. Lustrous Irish blue eyes lighted up the lovely face and ripe, red lips parted in smiles for the workmen in the mills, every one of whom was her lover.

Jessie was in the mill when the flood struck the town, and had not been seen since till the work of cleaning up the Cambria plant was begun in earnest. Then, in the cellar of the building a workman spied a little shoe protruding from a closely packed bed of sandy mud. In a few moments the body of Jessie Downs was uncovered.

The workmen who had been in such scenes as this for six days stood about with uncovered heads and sobbed like babies. The body had not been bruised nor hurt in any way, the features being composed as if in sleep.

The men gathered up the body of their little sweetheart and were carrying it through the town on a stretcher when they met poor Patrick Downs. He gazed upon the form of his baby, but never a tear was in his eye, and he only thanked God that she had not suffered in contest with the angry waves.

He had but a moment before identified the body of his wife among the dead recovered, and the mother and child were laid away together in one grave on Grove Hill, and the father resumed work with the others.

Dr. Lowman is one of the most prominent physicians of Western Pennsylvania. His residence in Johnstown was protected partially from the avalanche of water by the Methodist Church, which is a large stone structure. Glancing up-stream, the Doctor saw advancing what seemed to be a huge mountain. Grasping the situation, he ran in and told the family to get to the top floors as quickly as possible. They had scarcely reached the second floor when the water was pouring into the windows. They went higher up, and the water followed them, but it soon reached its extreme height.

While the family were huddled in the third story the Doctor looked out and saw a young girl floating toward the window on a door. He smashed the glass, and, at the great risk of his own life, succeeded in hauling the door toward him and lifting the girl through the window. She had not been there long when one corner of the building gave way and she became frightened. She insisted on taking a shutter and floating down-stream. In vain did the Doctor try to persuade her to forego such a suicidal attempt. She said that she was a good swimmer, and that, once out in the water, she had no fears for her ultimate safety. Resisting all entreaties and taking a shutter from the window, she plunged out into the surging waters, and has not since been heard from.

When the girl deserted the house, Dr. Lowman and his family made their way to the roof. While up there another corner of the house gave way. After waiting for several hours, the intervening space between the bank building and the dwelling became filled with drift. The Doctor gathered his family around him, and after a perilous walk they all reached the objective point in safety. Dr. Lowman’s aged father was one of the party. When his family was safe Dr. Lowman started to rescue other unfortunates. All day Saturday he worked like a beaver in water to his neck, and he saved the lives of many.

No man returns from the valley of death with more horrible remembrance of the flood than Dr. Henry H. Phillips, of Pittsburg. He is the only one known to be saved out of a household of thirteen, among whom was his feeble old mother and other near and dear friends. His own life was saved by his happening to step out upon the portico of the house just as the deluge came. Dr. Phillips had gone to Johnstown to bring his mother, who was an invalid, to his home in the East End. They had intended starting for Pittsburg Friday morning, but Mrs. Phillips did not feel able to make the journey, and it was postponed until the next day. In the meantime the flood began to come, and during the afternoon of Friday the family retired to the upper floors of the house for safety. There were thirteen in the house, including little Susan McWilliams, the twelve-year-old daughter of Mr. W. H. McWilliams, of Pittsburg, who was visiting her aunt, Mrs. Phillips; Dr. L. T. Beam, son-in-law of Mrs. Phillips; another niece, and Mrs. Dowling, a neighbor. The latter had come there with her children because the Phillips house was a brick structure while her own was frame. Its destruction proved to be the more sudden and complete on account of the material.

The water was a foot deep on the first floor, and the family were congratulating themselves that they were so comfortably situated in the upper story, when Dr. Phillips heard a roaring up toward the Cambria Iron Works. Without a thought of the awful truth, he stepped out upon the portico of the house to see what it meant. A wall of water and wreckage loomed up before him like a roaring cloud. Before he could turn back or cry out he saw a house, that rode the flood like a chip, come between him and his vision of the window. Then all was dark, and the cold water seemed to wrap him up and toss him to a house-top three hundred yards from where that of his mother had stood. Gathering his shattered wits together the Doctor saw he was floating about in the midst of a black pool. Dark objects were moving all about him, and although there was some light, he could not recognize any of the surroundings. For seventeen hours he drifted about upon the wreckage where fate had tossed him. Then rescuers came, and he was taken to safe quarters. A long search has so far failed to elicit any tidings of the twelve persons in the Phillips’ house.

Mr. G. B. Hartley, of Philadelphia, was one of the five out of fifty-five guests of the Hurlburt House who survived.

“The experience I passed through at Johnstown on that dreadful Friday night,” said Mr. Hartley to a correspondent, “is like a horrible nightmare in a picture before me. When the great rush of water came I was sitting in the parlors of the Hurlburt House. Suddenly we were startled to hear several loud shouts on the streets. These cries were accompanied by a loud, crashing noise. At the first sound we all rushed from the room panic-stricken. There was a crash and I found myself pinned down by broken boards and debris of different kinds. The next moment I felt the water surging in. I knew it went higher than my head because I felt it. The water must have passed like a flash or I would not have come out alive. After the shock I could see that the entire roof of the hotel had been carried off. Catching hold of something I manged to pull myself up on to the roof. The roof had slid off and lay across the street. On the roof I had a chance to observe my surroundings. Down on the extreme edge of the roof I espied the proprietor of the hotel, Mr. Benford. He was nearly exhausted, and it required every effort for him to hold to the roof. Cautiously advancing, I managed to creep down to where he was holding. I tried to pull him up, but found I was utterly powerless. Mr. Benford was nearly as weak as myself, and could do very little toward helping himself. We did not give up, however, and in a few minutes, by dint of struggling and putting forth every bit of strength, Mr. Benford managed to crawl upon the roof. Crouching and shivering on another part of the roof were two girls, one a chamber-maid of the hotel, and the other a clerk in a store that was next to it. The latter was in a pitiable plight. Her arm had been torn from its socket. I took off my overcoat and gave it to her. Mr. Benford did the same thing for the other, for it was quite chilly. A young man was nursing his mother, who had had her scalp completely torn off. He asked me to hold her head until he could make a bandage. He tore a thick strip of cloth and placed it round her head. The blood saturated it before it was well on. Soon after this I was rescued more dead than alive.”

CHAPTER IX.

Many of the most thrilling sights and experiences were those of railroad employees and passengers. Mr. Henry, the engineer of the second section of express train No. 8, which runs between Pittsburg and Altoona, was at Conemaugh when the great flood came sweeping down the valley. He was able to escape to a place of safety. His was the only train that was not injured, even though it was in the midst of the great wave. The story as related by Mr. Henry is most graphic.

“It was an awful sight,” he said. “I have often seen pictures of flood scenes and I thought they were exaggerations, but what I witnessed last Friday changes my former belief. To see that immense volume of water, fully fifty feet high, rushing madly down the valley, sweeping everything before it, was a thrilling sight. It is engraved indelibly on my memory. Even now I can see that mad torrent carrying death and destruction before it.

“The second section of No. 8, on which I was, was due at Johnstown about quarter past ten in the morning. We arrived there safely and were told to follow the first section. When we arrived at Conemaugh the first section and the mail were there. Washouts further up the mountain prevented our going on, so we could do nothing but sit around and discuss the situation. The creek at Conemaugh was swollen high, almost overflowing. The heavens were pouring rain, but this did not prevent nearly all the inhabitants of the town from gathering along its banks. They watched the waters go dashing by and wondered whether the creek would get much higher. But a few inches more and it would overflow its banks. There seemed to be a feeling of uneasiness among the people. They seemed to fear that something awful was going to happen. Their suspicions were strengthened by the fact that warning had come down the valley for the people to be on the lookout. The rains had swollen everything to the bursting point. The day passed slowly, however. Noon came and went, and still nothing happened. We could not proceed, nor could we go back, as the tracks about a mile below Conemaugh had been washed away, so there was nothing for us to do but to wait and see what would come next.

“Some time after three o’clock Friday afternoon I went into the train dispatcher’s office to learn the latest news. I had not been there long when I heard a fierce whistling from an engine away up the mountain. Rushing out I found dozens of men standing around. Fear had blanched every cheek. The loud and continued whistling had made every one feel that something serious was going to happen. In a few moments I could hear a train rattling down the mountain. About five hundred yards above Conemaugh the tracks make a slight curve and we could not see beyond this. The suspense was something awful. We did not know what was coming, but no one could get rid of the thought that something was wrong at the dam.

“Our suspense was not very long, however. Nearer and nearer the train came, the thundering sound still accompanying it. There seemed to be something behind the train, as there was a dull, rumbling sound which I knew did not come from the train. Nearer and nearer it came; a moment more and it would reach the curve. The next instant there burst upon our eyes a sight that made every heart stand still. Rushing around the curve, snorting and tearing, came an engine and several gravel cars. The train appeared to be putting forth every effort to go faster. Nearer it came, belching forth smoke and whistling long and loud. But the most terrible sight was to follow. Twenty feet behind came surging along a mad rush of water fully fifty feet high. Like the train, it seemed to be putting forth every effort to push along faster. Such an awful race we never before witnessed. For an instant the people seemed paralyzed with horror. They knew not what to do, but in a moment they realized that a second’s delay meant death to them. With one accord they rushed to the high lands a few hundred feet away. Most of them succeeded in reaching that place and were safe.

“I thought of the passengers in my train. The second section of No. 8 had three sleepers. In these three cars were about thirty people, who rushed through the train crying to the others ‘Save yourselves!’ Then came a scene of the wildest confusion. Ladies and children shrieked and the men seemed terror-stricken. I succeeded in helping some ladies and children off the train and up to the high lands. Running back, I caught up two children and ran for my life to a higher place. Thank God, I was quicker than the flood! I deposited my load in safety on the high land just as it swept past us.

“For nearly an hour we stood watching the mad flood go rushing by. The water was full of debris. When the flood caught Conemaugh it dashed against the little town with a mighty crash. The water did not lift the houses up and carry them off, but crushed them up one against the other and broke them up like so many egg- shells. Before the flood came there was a pretty little town. When the waters passed on there was nothing but a few broken boards to mark the central portion of the city. It was swept as clean as a newly-brushed floor. When the flood passed onward down the valley I went over to my train. It had been moved back about twenty yards, but it was not damaged. About fifteen persons had remained in the train and they were safe. Of the three trains ours was the luckiest. The engines of both the others had been swept off the track, and one or two cars in each train had met the same fate. What saved our train was the fact that just at the curve which I mentioned the valley spread out. The valley is six or seven hundred yards broad where our train was standing. This, of course, let the floods pass out. It was only about twenty feet high when it struck our train, which was about in the middle of the valley. This fact, together with the elevation of the track, was all that saved us. We stayed that night in the houses in Conemaugh that had not been destroyed. The next morning I started down the valley and by four o’clock in the afternoon had reached Conemaugh furnace, eight miles west of Johnstown. Then I got a team and came home.

“In my tramp down the valley I saw some awful sights. On the tree branches hung shreds of clothing torn from the unfortunates as they were whirled along in the terrible rush of the torrent. Dead bodies were lying by scores along the banks of the creeks. One woman I helped drag from the mud had tightly clutched in her hand a paper. We tore it out of her hand and found it to be a badly water-soaked photograph. It was probably a picture of the drowned woman.”

Pemberton Smith is a civil engineer employed by the Pennsylvania Railroad. On Friday, when the disaster occurred, he was at Johnstown, stopping at the Merchants’ Hotel. What happened he described as follows:

“In the afternoon, with four associates, I spent the time playing checkers in the hotel, the streets being flooded during the day. At half-past four we were startled by shrill whistles. Thinking a fire was the cause, we looked out of the window. Great masses of people were rushing through the water in the street, which had been there all day, and still we thought the alarm was fire. All of a sudden the roar of the water burst upon our ears, and in an instant more the streets were filled with debris. Great houses and business blocks began to topple and crash into each other and go down as if they were toy-block houses. People in the streets were drowning on all sides. One of our company started down-stairs and was drowned. The other four, including myself, started up-stairs, for the water was fast rising. When we got on the roof we could see whole blocks swept away as if by magic. Hundreds of people were floating by, clinging to roofs of houses, rafts, timbers, or anything they could get a hold of. The hotel began to tremble, and we made our way to an adjoining roof. Soon afterward part of the hotel went down. The brick structures seemed to fare worse than frame buildings, as the latter would float, while the brick would crash and tumble into one great mass of ruins. We finally climbed into a room of the last building in reach and stayed there all night, in company with one hundred and sixteen other people, among the number being a crazy man. His wife and family had all been drowned only a few hours before, and he was a raving maniac. And what a night! Sleep! Yes, I did a little, but every now and then a building near by would crash against us, and we would all jump, fearing that at last our time had come.

“Finally morning dawned. In company with one of my associates we climbed across the tops of houses and floating debris, built a raft, and poled ourselves ashore to the hillside. I don’t know how the others escaped. This was seven o’clock on Saturday morning. We started on foot for South Fork, arriving there at three P. M. Here we found that all communication by telegraph and railroad was cut off by the flood, and we had naught to do but retrace our steps. Tired and footsore! Well, I should say so. My gum-boots had chafed my feet so I could hardly walk at all. The distance we covered on foot was over fifty miles. On Sunday we got a train to Altoona. Here we found the railroad connections all cut off, so we came back to Johnstown again on Monday. And what a desolate place! I had to obtain a pass to go over into the city. Here it is:

“The tragic pen-pictures of the scenes in the press dispatches have not been exaggerated. They cannot be. The worse sight of all was to see the great fire at the railroad-bridge. It makes my blood fairly curdle to think of it. I could see the lurid flames shoot heavenward all night Friday, and at the same time hundreds of people were floating right toward them on top of houses, etc., and to meet a worse death than drowning. To look at a sight like this and not be able to render a particle of assistance seemed awful to bear. I had a narrow escape, truly. In my mind I can hear the shrieks of men, women, and children, the maniac’s ravings, and the wild roar of a sea of water sweeping everything before it.”

Among the lost was Miss Jennie Paulson, a passenger on a railroad train, whose fate is thus described by one of her comrades:

“We had been making but slow progress all the day. Our train lay at Johnstown nearly the whole day of Friday. We then proceeded as far as Conemaugh, and had stopped from some cause or other, probably on account of the flood. Miss Paulson and a Miss Bryan were seated in front of me. Miss Paulson had on a plaid dress, with shirred waist of red cloth goods. Her companion was dressed in black. Both had lovely corsage bouquets of roses. I had heard that they had been attending a wedding before they left Pittsburg. The Pittsburg lady was reading a novel entitled Miss Lou. Miss Bryan was looking out of the window. When the alarm came we all sprang toward the door, leaving everything behind us. I had just reached the door when poor Miss Paulson and her friend, who were behind me, decided to return for their rubbers, which they did. I sprang from the car into a ditch next the hillside, in which the water was already a foot and a-half deep, and, with the others, climbed up the mountain side for our very lives. We had to do so, as the water glided up after us like a huge serpent. Any one ten feet behind us would have been lost beyond a doubt. I glanced back at the train when I had reached a place of safety, but the water already covered it, and the Pullman car in which the ladies were was already rolling down the valley in the grasp of the angry waters.”

Mr. William Scheerer, the teller of the State Banking Company, of Newark, N. J., was among the passengers on the ill-fated day express on the Pennsylvania Railroad that left Pittsburg at eight o’clock A. M., on the now historic Friday, bound for New York.

There was some delays incidental to the floods in the Conemaugh Valley before the train reached Johnstown, and a further delay at that point, and the train was considerably behind time when it left Johnstown. Said Mr. Scheerer: “The parlor car was fully occupied when I went aboard the train, and a seat was accordingly given me in the sleeper at the rear end of the train. There were several passengers in this car, how many I cannot say exactly, among them some ladies. It was raining hard all the time and we were not a very excited nor a happy crowd, but were whiling away the time in reading and in looking at the swollen torrent of the river. Very few of the people were apprehensive of any danger in the situation, even after we had been held up at Conemaugh for nearly five hours.

“The railroad tracks where our train stopped were full fourteen feet above the level of the river, and there was a large number of freight and passenger cars and locomotives standing on the tracks near us and strung along up the road for a considerable distance. Between the road and the hill that lay at our left there was a ditch, through which the water that came down from the hill was running like a mill-race. It was a monotonous wait to all of us, and after a time many inquiries were made as to why we did not go ahead. Some of the passengers who made the inquiry were answered laconically—‘Wash-out,’ and with this they had to be satisfied. I had been over the road several times before, and knew of the existence of the dangerous and threatening dam up in the South Fork gorge, and could not help connecting it in my mind with the cause of our delay. But neither was I apprehensive of danger, for the possibility of the dam giving away had been often discussed by passengers in my presence, and everybody supposed that the utmost damage it would do when it broke, as everybody believed it sometime would, would be to swell a little higher the current that tore down through the Conemaugh Valley.

“Such a possibility as the carrying away of a train of cars on the great Pennsylvania road was never seriously entertained by anybody. We had stood stationary until about four o’clock, when two colored porters went through the car within a short time of each other, looking and acting rather excited. I asked the first one what the matter was, and he replied that he did not know. I inferred from his reply that if there was any thing serious up, the passengers would be informed, and so I went on reading. When the next man came along I asked him if the reservoir had given way, and he said he thought it had.

“I put down my book and stepped out quickly to the rear platform, and was horrified at the sight that met my gaze up the valley. It seemed as if a forest was coming down upon us. There was a great wall of water roaring and grinding swiftly along, so thickly studded with the trees from along the mountain sides that it looked like a gigantic avalanche of trees. Of course I lingered but an instant, for the mortal danger we all were in flashed upon me at the first sight of that terrible on-coming torrent. But in that instant I saw an engine lifted bodily off the track and thrown over backward into the whirlpool, where it disappeared, and houses crushed and broken up in the flash of an eye.

“The noise was like incessant thunder. I turned back into the car and shouted to the ladies, three of whom alone were in the car at the moment, to fly for their lives. I helped them out of the car on the side toward the hill, and urged them to jump across the ditch and run for their lives. Two of them did so, but the third, a rather heavy lady, a missionary, who was on her way to a foreign station, hesitated for an instant, doubtful if she could make the jump. That instant cost her her life. While I was holding out my hand to her and urging her to jump, the rush of waters came down and swept her, like a doll, down into the torrent. In the same instant an engine was thrown from the track into the ditch at my feet. The water was about my knees as I turned and scrambled up the hill, and when I looked back, ten seconds later, it was surging and grinding ten feet deep over the track I had just left.

“The rush of waters lasted three-quarters of an hour, while we stood rapt and spell-bound in the rain, looking at the ruin no human agency could avert. The scene was beyond the power of language to describe. You would see a building standing in apparent security above the swollen banks of the river, the people rushing about the doors, some seeming to think that safety lay indoors, while others rushed toward higher ground, stumbling and falling in the muddy streets, and then the flood rolled over them, crushing in the house with a crash like thunder, and burying house and people out of sight entirely. That, of course, was the scene of only an instant, for our range of vision was only over a small portion of the city.

“We sought shelter from the rain in the home of a farmer who lived high up on the side-hill, and the next morning walked down to Johnstown and viewed the ruins. It seemed as if the city was utterly destroyed. The water was deep over all the city and few people were visible. We returned to Conemaugh and were driven over the mountains to Ebensburg, where we took the train for Altoona, but finding we could get no further in that direction we turned back to Ebensburg, and from there went by wagon to Johnstown, where we found a train that took us to Pittsburg. I got home by the New York Central.”

CHAPTER X.

Edward H. Jackson, who worked in the Cambria Iron Works, told the following story:

“When we were going to work Friday morning at seven o’clock, May 31st, the water in the river was about six inches below the top of the banks, the rains during the night having swollen it. We were used to floods about this time of the year, the water always washing the streets and running into the cellars, so we did not pay much attention to this fact. It continued rising, and about nine o’clock we left work in order to go back to our homes and take our furniture and carpets to the upper floors, as we had formerly done on similar occasions. At noon the water was on our first floors, and kept rising until there was five feet of water in our homes. It was still raining hard. We were all in the upper stories about half-past four, when the first intimation we had of anything unusual was a frightful crash, and the same moment our house toppled over. Jumping to the windows, we saw the water rushing down the streets in immense volumes, carrying with it houses, barns, and, worst of all, screaming, terrified men, women, and children. In my house were Colonel A. N. Hart, who is my uncle, his wife, sister, and two children. They watched their chance, and when a slowly moving house passed by they jumped to the roof and by careful manœuvring managed to reach Dr. S. M. Swan’s house, a three-story brick building, where there were about two hundred other people. I jumped on to a tender of an engine as it floated down and reached the same house. All the women and children were hysterical, most of the men were paralyzed by terror, and to describe the scene is simply impossible. From the windows of this house we threw ropes to persons who floated by on the roofs of houses, and in this way we saved several.

“Our condition in the house was none of the pleasantest. There was nothing to eat; it was impossible to sleep, even had any one desired to do so; when thirsty we were compelled to catch the rain-water as it fell from the roof and drink it. Other people had gone for safety in the same manner as we had to two other brick houses, H. Y. Hawse’s residence and Alma Hall’s, and they went through precisely the same experience as we did. Many of our people were badly injured and cut, and they were tended bravely and well by Dr. W. E. Matthews, although he himself was badly injured. During the evening we saved by ropes W. Forrest Rose, his wife, daughter, and four boys. Mr. Rose’s collar-bone and one rib were broken. After a fearful night we found, when day broke, that the water had subsided, and I and some others of the men crawled out upon the rubbish and debris to search for food, for our people were starving. All we could find were water-soaked crackers and some bananas, and these were eagerly eaten by the famished sufferers.

“Then, during the morning, began the thieving. I saw men bursting open trunks, putting valuables in their pockets, and then looking for more. I did not know these people, but I am sure they must have lived in the town, for surely no others could have got there at this time. A meeting was held, Colonel Hart was made Chief of Police, and he at once gave orders that any one caught stealing should be shot without warning. Notwithstanding this we afterward found scores of bodies, the fingers of which were cut off, the fiends not wishing to waste time to take off the rings. Many corpses of women were seen from which the ears had been cut, in order to secure the diamond earrings.

“Then, to add to our horrors, the debris piled up against the bridge caught fire, and as the streets were full of oil, it was feared that the flames would extend backwards, but happily for us this was not the case. It was pitiful to hear the cries of those who had been caught in the rubbish, and, after having been half drowned, had to face death as inevitable as though bound to a stake. The bodies of those burned to death will never be recognized, and of those drowned many were so badly disfigured by being battered against the floating houses that they also will be unrecognizable. It is said that Charles Butler, the assistant treasurer of the Cambria Iron Works, who was in the Hurlburt House, convinced that he could not escape and wishing his body to be recognized, pinned his photograph and a letter to the lapel of his coat, where they were found when his body was recovered. I have lost everything I owned in the world,” said Mr. Jackson, in conclusion, “and hundreds of others are in the same condition. The money in the banks is all right, however, for it was stowed away in the vaults.”

Frank McDonald, a railroad conductor, says:

“I certainly think I saw one thousand bodies go over the bridge. The first house that came down struck the bridge and at once took fire, and as fast as the others came down they were consumed. I believe I am safe in saying I saw one thousand bodies burn. It reminded me of a lot of flies on fly-paper struggling to get away, with no hope and no chance to save them. I have no idea that had the bridge been blown up the loss of life would have been any less. They would have floated a little further with the same certain death. Then, again, it was impossible for any one to have reached the bridge in order to blow it up, for the waters came so fast that no one could have done it.”

Michael Renesen tells a wonderful story of his escape. He says he was walking down Main Street when he heard a rumbling noise, and, looking around, he imagined it was cloud, but in a minute the water was upon him. He floated with the tide for some time, when he was struck with some floating timber and borne underneath the water. When he came up he was struck again, and at last he was caught by a lightning rod and held there for over two hours, when he was finally rescued.

Mrs. Anne Williams was sitting sewing when the flood came on. She heard some people crying and jumped out of the window and succeeded in getting on the roof of an adjoining house. Under the roof she heard the cries of men and women, and saw two men and a woman with their heads just above the water, crying “For God’s sake, either kill us outright or rescue us!”

Mrs. Williams cried for help for the drowning people, but none came, and she saw them give up one by one.

James F. McCanagher had a thrilling experience in the water. He saw his wife was safe on land, and thought his only daughter, a girl aged about twenty-one, was also saved, but just as he was making for the shore he saw her and went to rescue her. He succeeded in getting within about ten feet of land, when the girl said, “Good-bye, father,” and expired in his arms before he reached the shore.

James M. Walters, an attorney, spent Friday night in Alma Hall, and relates a thrilling story. One of the most curious occurrences of the whole disaster was how Mr. Walters got to the hall. He has his office on the second floor. His home is at No. 135 Walnut Street. He says he was in the house with his family when the waters struck it. All was carried away. Mr. Walters’ family drifted on a roof in another direction; he passed down several streets and alleys until he came to the hall. His dwelling struck that edifice and he was thrown into his own office. About three hundred persons had taken refuge in the hall and were on the second, third, and fourth stories. The men held a meeting and drew up some rules which all were bound to respect.

Mr. Walters was chosen president, and Rev. Mr. Beale was put in charge of the first floor, A. M. Hart of the second floor, Dr. Matthews of the fourth floor. No lights were allowed, and the whole night was spent in darkness. The sick were cared for, the weaker women and children had the best accommodation that could be had, while the others had to wait. The scenes were most agonizing. Heartrending shrieks, sobs, and moans pierced the gloomy darkness. The crying of children mingled with the suppressed sobs of the women. Under the guardianship of the men all took more hope. No one slept during all the long, dark night. Many knelt for hours in prayer, their supplications mingling with the roar of the waters and the shrieks of the dying in the surrounding houses.

In all this misery two women gave premature birth to children, Dr. Matthews is a hero—several of his ribs were crushed by a falling timber, and his pains were most severe. Yet through all he attended the sick. When two women in a house across the street shouted for help, he, with two other brave young men, climbed across the drift and ministered to their wants. No one died during the night, but a woman and children surrendered their lives on the succeeding day as a result of terror and fatigue. Miss Rose Young, one of the young ladies in the hall, was frightfully cut and bruised. Mrs. Young had a leg broken. All of Mr. Walters’ family were saved.

Mrs. J. F. Moore, wife of a Western Union Telegraph employee in Pittsburg, escaped with her two children from the devastated city just one hour before the flood had covered their dwelling-place. Mr. Moore had arranged to have his family move Thursday from Johnstown and join him in Pittsburg. Their household goods were shipped on Thursday and Friday. The little party caught the last train which made the trip between Johnstown and Pittsburg.

Mrs. Moore told her story. “Oh! it was terrible,” she said. “The reservoir had not yet burst when we left, but the boom had broken, and before we got out of the house the water filled the cellar. On the way to the depot the water was high up on the carriage wheels. Our train left at quarter to two P. M., and at that time the flood had begun to rise with terrible rapidity. Houses and sheds were carried away and two men were drowned almost before our eyes. People gathered on the roofs to take refuge from the water, which poured into the lower rooms of their dwellings, and many families took flight and became scattered. Just as the train pulled out I saw a woman crying bitterly. Her house had been flooded and she had escaped, leaving her husband behind, and her fears for his safety made her almost crazy. Our house was in the lower part of the town, and it makes me shudder to think what would have happened had we remained in it an hour longer. So far as I know, we were the only passengers from Johnstown on the train.”

Mrs. Moore’s little son told the reporter that he had seen the rats driven out of their holes by the flood and running along the tops of the fences.

One old man named Parsons, with his wife and children, as soon as the water struck their house, took to the roof and were carried down to the stone bridge, where the back wash of the Stony Creek took them back up along the banks and out of harm’s way, but not before a daughter-in-law became a prey to the torrent. He has lived here for thirty-five years, and had acquired a nice, comfortable home. To-day all is gone, and as he told the story he pointed to a rather seedy-looking coat he had on. “I had to ask a man for it. It’s hard, but I am ruined, and I am too old to begin over again.”

Mr. Lewis was a well-to-do young man, and owned a good property where now is a barren waste. When the flood came the entire family of eight took to the roof, and were carried along on the water. Before they reached the stone bridge, a family of four that had floated down from Woodvale, two and a half miles distant, on a raft, got off to the roof of the Lewis House, where the entire twelve persons were pushed to the bank of the river above the bridge, and all were saved. When Mr. Lewis was telling his story he seemed grateful to the Almighty for his safety while thousands were lost to him.

Another young man who had also taken to a friendly roof, became paralyzed with fear, and stripping himself of his clothes flung himself from the housetop into the stream and tried to swim. The force of the water rushed him over to the west bank of the river, where he was picked up soon after.

A baby’s cradle was fished out of a ruin and the neatly tucked-in sheets and clothes, although soiled with mud, gave evidence of luxury. The entire family was lost, and no one is here to lay claim to baby’s crib. In the ruin of the Penn House the library that occupied the extension was entirely gone, while the brick front was taken out and laid bare the parlor floor, in which the piano, turned upside down, was noticeable, while several chandeliers were scattered on top.