History of the Johnstown Flood Part 3

"I was just walking up the steps to the depot when I heard a fearful roar up the valley. It sounded at first like a heavy train of cars, but soon became too loud and terrible for that. I boarded a train, and as I sat at the car window a sight broke before my view that I will remember to my dying day. Away up the Conemaugh came a yellow wall, whose crest was white and frothy. I rushed for the platform of the car, not knowing what I did, and just then the train began to move. Terrified as I was, I remember feeling that I was in the safest place and I sank back in a seat. When I looked out again what had been the busy mill yards of the Cambria Iron Company was a yellow, turbulent sea, on whose churned currents houses and barns were riding like s.h.i.+ps in a brook. The water rus.h.i.+ng in upon the molten metal in the mills had caused deafening explosions, which, coupled with the roar and grinding of the flood, made a terrifying din. Turning to the other side and looking on down the valley, I saw the muddy water rus.h.i.+ng through the main streets of the town. I could see men and horses floundering about almost within call.

House-tops were being filled with white-faced people who clung to each other and looked terror-stricken upon the rising flood.

"It had all come so quickly that none of them seemed to realize what had happened. The conductor of my train had been pulling frantically at the bell-rope, and the train went spinning across the bridge. I sat in my seat transfixed with horror. Houses were spinning through beneath the bridge, and I did not know at what moment the structure would melt away under the train. The conductor kept tugging at the bell-rope and the train shot ahead again. We seemed to fairly leap over the yellow torrents, and I wondered for an instant whether we had not left the rails and were flying through the air. My heart gave a bound of relief when we dashed into the forest on the hillside opposite the doomed town.

As the train sped along at a rate of speed that made me think the engineer had gone mad, I took one look back upon the valley. What a sight it was! The populous valley for miles either way was a seething, roaring cauldron, through whose boiling surface roofs of houses and the stand-pipes of mills protruded. The water was fairly piling up in a well farther up, and I saw the worst had not yet come. Then I turned my eyes away from the awful sight and tried not to even think until Pittsburg was reached.

"I cannot see how it is possible for less than five thousand lives to have been sacrificed in Johnstown alone. At least two-thirds of the town was swept away. The water came so quickly that escape from the low districts was impossible. People retreated to the upper floors of their residences and stores until the water had gotten too deep to allow their escape. When the big flood came the houses were picked up like pasteboard boxes or collapsed like egg-sh.e.l.ls. The advance of the flood was black with houses, logs, and other debris, so that it struck Johnstown with the solid force of a battering-ram. None but eye-witnesses of the flood can comprehend its size and awfulness as it came tumbling, roaring down upon the unprotected town."

[Ill.u.s.tration: TYPICAL SCENE IN JOHNSTOWN.]

The appearance of the flood at Sang Hollow, some miles below Johnstown, is thus pictured by C. W. Linthic.u.m, of Baltimore:

"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, rus.h.i.+ng 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, das.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.sed 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 Sat.u.r.day, 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, rus.h.i.+ng 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 t.i.tanic 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 Ma.s.sachusetts broke, dashed down the valley on horseback in the van of the flood, warning the people and saving countless lives:

"He draws no rein, but he shakes the street With a shout and a ring of the galloping feet, And this the cry that he flings to the wind: 'To the hills for your lives! The flood is behind!'

"In front of the roaring flood is heard The galloping horse and the warning word.

Thank G.o.d! The brave man's life is spared!

From Williamsburg town he n.o.bly dared To race with the flood and take the road In front of the terrible swath it mowed.

For miles it thundered and crashed behind, But he looked ahead with a steadfast mind: 'They must be warned,' was all he said, As away on his terrible ride he sped."

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 pa.s.s.

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 pa.s.ses 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, cras.h.i.+ng--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 ma.s.sive oaks, while hard by lay the gallant horse that had so n.o.bly 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 gla.s.s 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 G.o.d'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 Sat.u.r.day 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 pa.s.sed 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 sc.r.a.ps 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 G.o.d! 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 crus.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d, 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. Pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sing. 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.