Official History of the Johnstown Flood
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Gc 974.802 J65c 1681199 REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION 3 1833 02222 8768 Adjutant Gen^hal's Office, Harrisburg, Pa. ^u^^^^J- uj^ //TV ^-ii*L^ OFFICIAL HISTORY OF THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD BY FRANK CONNELLY and GEORGE C. JENKS. ILL USTRATED. PITTSBURG: JOURNALIST PUBLISHING COMPxVNY Press Bl-ildi.vg, 79 Fifth Avenl'e. 1889. 1681199 Copyright, 1SS9, by Frank: Con.vi:llt and George C. Jenks- PREFACE. In presenting this, the first connected history of the Johnstown flood, we have only to say that the details have been carefully collected, the facts verified wherever possible, and the story told without embellishment. No pen can do justice to the scenes in the Conemaugh Valley during and immediately after the flood. We have been content to tell of the calamity as it was, and if there is a lack in description, the reader may rest assured that at least we have not essayed the impossible task of exaggerating the horrors. The silver lining to the cloud of death was the readiness with which everybody sprang for- ward to the relief of the suffering thousands. In paying tribute to the world's generosity the only pleasure to be found in compiling this book—a work eminently painful in itself—was ex- perienced by The Authors. K/ COKTE^TS. BOOK I. CHAPTEK I. PAGE Bursting of the Socth-Fork Daxj 9 CHAPTER II. The Bcrxi-vg Dkbris at the Bridge 24 CHAPTER III. The Wreck of the Day Express 31 CHAPTER IV. The Fate of the Hotels 41 CHAPTER V. The Lake before and after 43 CHAPTER VI. The Identified Dead 50 CHAPTER VII. The Financial Losses—History of Cambria Iron- Works ... 68 CHAPTER VIII. Reorganization of Johnstown 79 CHAPTER IX. The tliSTOuY of Johnstown 86 vii viii CONTENTS. BOOK II. CHAPTEPw I. P^GE CoNDrrioN OF the Survivors after the Flix>d—Hair-breapth Escapes, etc 93 CHAPTER II. How ONE EviL-DoER WAS DRIVEN TO HIS DeATH—ReLIC-IIl'NTERS AND Sight-Seers 106 CHAPTER III Establishment of Morgues and how they were conducted . 110 CHAPTER IV. Pathetic Scenes in the Ceueteries on the Hill-Sides where "Unknowns" were laid to rest 114 CHAPTER V. The Ride of Daniel Peyton, the Hero of the Conemaugh . 116 CHAPTER VI. The Roll-Call at the Gautier Mill—The Remnant op an Armv op Workmen 119 CHAPTER YII. The Churches of Johnstown 124 CHAPTER VIII. Rebuilding in the Town and on the Railroads 126 BOOK III. CHAPTER I. Formation and Work of the Pittslurg Relief Committee . 130 CHAPTER II. Trials of the Relief Committees early on the Scene . 150 A CONTENTS. ix CHAPTEK III. PAGE The Ajiericus Republican Cllb of Pittsburg 154 CHAPTEE IV. The Secret Societies and what tuey acco.mplisued 170 CHAPTER V. Heroic Work of the Undertakers and Embalmers 175 CHAPTER VI. The Red Cross Society 178 CHAPTER VII. Newspaper CoRREsroNDE.NTs— IIow thev worked and lived . 181 CHAPTER VIII. The 3Ien for the Emergency ' 189 CHAPTER IX. Work of ths Volunteer Physicians 197 book: IV. CHAPTER I. Adjutant-General Hastings's First Visit to Johnstown— Sketch of his Life 202 CHAPTER II. The Fourteenth Regiment and what it accomplished at Johns- town 208 CHAPTER III. How a-HE Money was raised and apportioned by the State . 211 X CONTEXTS. CHAPTER IV. PAGE Thr State takes Charge of Johnstown 215 CHAPTER V. Clearing awav the Dkbuis 222 CHAPTEPv VI. The Memceus of the State Commission 226 CHAPTER VII. How THE State distributed the Money 234 CHAPTER VIII. Johnstown a .Month after the Flood 2.39 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE CoNEX-iCGH Falls before the Flood 9 A Scene in Woodv, 18 The Stone Bridge ^ CONEMAUGH LaKE BEFORE THE FLOOD fFROM CLARKE COTTAGE) ... 42 Cambria Iron Company 68 '^ rcins of a soap-works Residence of Jame.s McMillan ^ Residence of Colonel Ca.mpbeli ^0^' Johnstown Clcb-House ^^'^ Ruins of Opera-Hou; 131 A Freak of the Flood l-IO A Demolished Chair Factory ^^^ Adjutant-Gener.vl D. H. Hastings I'O A Ca-mp Scene—Morning Ablutions 187 20S James B. Scott . WiLLLVM McCP.EERY 212 S. S. Marvin . James S. McKe yr^ HISTORY OF THE JOHKSTOWN FLOOD. BOOK I. NARRATIVE OF THE FLOOD-ITS CAREER FROM SOUTH ^ FORK TO THE ALLEGHENY-THE SCENE AT JOHNSTOWN -THE CONEMAUCrH VALLEY A VAST MAELSTROM-WRECK AFTER OF THE DAY EXPRESS-SOUTH FORK BEFORE AND —THE FIRE-JOHNSTOWN ARISING FROM ITS BED OF WOE, ETC., ETC. CHAPTER I. BURSTING OF THE SOUTH-FORK DAM. when Since that early period in the world's history survived first the Flood which Noah and his family possibili- gave token to the sons of men of the terrible element, the human ties hidden in a naturally peaceful impressed race has from time to time been awfully moods. with the power of water when in its savage de- The original Flood, although it almost entirely by populated the earth, has probably been exceeded The world others since in the number of fatalities. no means was young in the days of Noah, and we have drowned of knowing how many human beings lay beneath the waste of waters when the Ark rested 10 HISTORY OF upon Mount Ararat. It is hardly likely, however, that there were more than have on several occasions been killed in China, when the great Hoang-IIo has overflowed and inundated thousands of square miles of territory, with a loss of life, at one time, of seven hundred and fifty thousand. 2^ay, Holland, with its record of four hundred thousand people drowned when the dykes gave way, has doubtless seen greater havoc from water, in point of numbers, than was visited upon the earth in the Flood of Holy Writ. Coming down to our own times and country, we have had several disastrous floods, the worst, until that at Johnstown, being the canying away of the silk- mills at ilill Eiver, Massachusetts, by the bursting of a resei'voir, and the drowning of several hundred girls and men, some years since. When the world heard of that calamity, it was horror-stricken. It thought noth- ing more terrible of that nature could ever be told ; but, in view of tlie Johnstown flood, the trouble at Mill Eiver was of a very ordinary kind. Great disasters can only be measured by comparison, and it is thus that we can say there has never been such a whole- sale loss of life at one time, from anj- cause, in any civilized country, within the last few centuries, as that at Johnstown, on Friday, 3Iay 31, 1889. Johnstown lies in a narrow valley at the foot of the Allegheny Mountains. It is situated on a point of land between the Conemaugh Eiver and Stony Creek, with a precipitous hill on one side and a gentle slope on the other. Before the flood it was a busy, thriving place, with a population of thirty thousand. It was one of the principal points between Philadel- phia and Pittsburg, and was gaining in commercial importance from year to year. Its only trouble was THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. H the ever-present fear of floods from the great water- sheds of the mountains. above the oitv; but, as people can get used to anything, the residents of Johnstown thought but little about this peril, talcing an occasional inundation as a matter of course, and sweeping out the water from their basements and yards as com- posedly as they performed any other ordinary, every- day duty. There was the dam at South-Fork Lake, a few miles above the city, it is true, and it was thoroughly understood that, should it ever give way, a torrent of water would sweep down the Conemaugh Valley with a force that must inevitably carry all be- fore it. it But never had burst ; it had been there for seventeen years, and the people of Johnstown were not to be frightened by a remote possibility. There bad been alarms at intervals of the breaking of the dam, but these alarms had all proven baseless, and a warning of that kind now had but little effect upon even the most timid residents of the city. At last the day came when the warnings were real- ized, and the fair valley was converted into a seething caldron, in which five thousand human beings were shut out from the world forever. It had been raining almost continuously for a week. All the mountain streams, that usually trickled peace- fully through the verdure in silvery threads, had be- come wide, muddy torrents. There were roaring waterfalls where there had been small rills trickling almost noiselessly down the hill-sides, and rapid whirlpools had taken the place of rock-strewn slial- lows. The face of nature was completeh' changed, and instead of smiling benignantly, as was its wont, was corrugated with a dark frown that meant mischief. The South-Fork Lake, ordinarily placid as a sheet of 12 HISTORY OF glass, -was rolling up waves and dashing over the dam with a vindictive haste that boded the disaster so soon to follow. Trees bent before the tempest, and, drop- ping their leafy crests, wept as they whispered to Mother Earth of the coming horror. Boulders and loose logs tumbled headlong down the mountains to herald the approach of the destroyer. And still the rain came down without ceasing and seemed to de- clare doggedly that the time had come for general destruction in the Yalley of the Conemaugh. Already the houses in Johnstown and the villages in its vicinity were flooded in their lower stories.