The Johnstown Horror!!! Part 45

"You notice that there are gaps in the mountain chains which form the sides of the triangle. Through the gap at our left comes the Conemaugh River, flowing from the mountain on its way westward. River, did I say?

I don't wonder you smile. It doesn't look much like a river--that little bubbling stream. Can you imagine it swelling into a mighty sea, that puny thing, that is smiling in its glee over the awful havoc it has created? Now you are beginning to understand how it is that Johnstown proper lies within the forks of two streams. The Conemaugh runs by us at our feet to the right. See, there is a wrecked and overturned car down there. If thrown across the stream it would almost bridge it. That is Stony Creek on the other side of the flat, running down through that gap which forms the apex of the triangle. It skirts the mountains on the right and the two streams meet. You can't see the meeting point from here, for our embankment curves, but they do meet around that curve, and then the united rivers flow under the now famous stone bridge, which was built to carry this railroad across the stream. Oh! yes, we will go down there, for that bridge formed the gorge which proved so destructive.

Savage Fury.

"I would like to take you away up to the dam if we had time and point out the destruction all along down the valley until the flood rushed through that gap to the left and then spread over Johnstown. But it is too late in the day for that, and the walk is a most tiresome one, so you will have to take my word for it. Of course, you have read that the dam was constructed in a most outrageous manner. Well, that is true. It is a wonder the valley wasn't swept long ago. No, the loss of life wasn't great in the upper part of the valley because the people took the warning which the Johnstonians refused and mostly escaped. The little town of South Fork was badly shattered and Mineral Point was swept away.

"But the real fury of the flood is seen in its marks on the soil.

Gracious! how it leveled forests, swept away bowlders, cut out new channels and destroyed everything in its path. I cannot begin to give you even an idea of the wonderful power of that flood. At East Conemaugh not a vestige of the place was left. Where once stood a row of houses the river now runs, and the former river-bed is now filled with dirt and stones. It was in this vicinity, you know, where so many engines and cars were wrecked--smashed, twisted, broken and scattered along the valley for half a mile. It was here, too, where the pa.s.sengers in the two trains met such a thrilling experience, and where so many of them were killed. The body of one of the pa.s.sengers, Miss Bryan, of Germantown, was found away down here in Johnstown.

"It took but a few minutes for the flood to rush down upon Woodvale and sweep it out of existence, and then it made a mad break through that gap over there on the extreme left. The houses which you see on the hillside over there--figure 6--belong to Conemaugh borough, a different place from East Conemaugh, you understand. The borough also extended down over the flat. By the way, there is something very funny about all these separate boroughs. Most all of them are naturally parts of Johnstown--such as Conemaugh, Kernville, Cambria City, Prospect and the like, but there have been so many petty jealousies that they have refused to unite. But that is neither here nor there now, for in the common calamity they are one.

Laughing at Danger.

"Now you would have thought that the people on the Johnstown flat would have got out of the way when warned of danger, wouldn't you? But they simply laughed. You must remember that a good portion of the place was flooded long before the dam broke. The rise of the two rivers did that.

The water ran from two to five or six feet high in some of the houses.

But, bless you, that was nothing. The place had been flooded so many times and escaped that everybody actually howled down all suggestions of danger. Telegrams had been coming into town all the afternoon and they were received by Miss Ogle, the brave lady operator, who stuck to her post to the last, but they might as well never have been sent for all the good they did.

"Well, now with Johnstown spread out before you you can readily understand what happened when the flood burst through the gap. There was no time to run then. No time to pray, even. You notice the river makes a sharp curve, and naturally enough the impetus of the water spread it over a wide territory. The Conemaugh houses on the flat went down like so many pasteboard houses. A portion of the flood followed the stream and the other portion went tearing along the line of the hills which form the left side of the triangle.

Wiped Out of Existence.

"Now look away over to the left and then away over to the hills on the right, and what do you see? That distance is how great? Two miles, do you say? Yes, fully that and probably more. Well, now for two or three squares inland from this stream at our feet there is nothing but a barren waste of sand--looks like a desert, doesn't it? Can you imagine that all that immense strip was covered with stores, business houses and dwellings? Where are they now? Why, just look at that circular hole just beneath us on the other side of the stream. That was the gas works once.

The great iron receiver, or whatever you call it, went rolling, das.h.i.+ng, cras.h.i.+ng away before the flood, and not a vestige of it has been found yet. Can you ask, then, what became of the houses? Simply wiped out of existence.

"There! I put down the figure 2 on the map. It is a brick building, as you see, but there is a big hole knocked in it. That is the B. and O.

depot. Figure 3--Two more brick buildings with one end completely gone.

These are the Cambria Iron Company's offices and the company's stores.

What else can you see? Just around the curve where I mark down figure 4 is another brick building--the Millvale school-house. It is out of range from this point, but you shall see it by and by. These buildings are actually the only ones left standing in all that desert of sand, a covering four or five feet deep left by the flood and hiding whatever is underneath as effectually as the ashes of Mt. Vesuvius blotted out Pompeii. There may be a thousand bodies under that sand for all that anybody knows. Just ahead of us in the great area roughly shown by this figure 5 lie the tents of the workmen engaged in putting Johnstown in order. Now, if you draw a line from the Conemaugh hills right down back of the B. and O. depot through the camp of the workmen, and thence to Stony Creek, the only buildings you will find standing between us and that imaginary line are these I have already marked with figures as 2, 3 and 4 on the map. Did you ever see anything so destructive in your life?

A Famous Morgue.

"You say you see a good many buildings in what appears to be the centre of the town. So you do, but just wait until you stroll among them. There are many there, it is true, but after all, how many are good for anything? Oh! the water has been doing a tremendous amount of damage.

Why, over there, up to the very foot of the hills--I will mark the spot No. 7--behind the buildings which you see, it has simply torn things up by the roots. That is the Fourth Ward, and the ruins are full of the dead, and the Fourth Ward Morgue has had more bodies in it than any of the others.

"You remember that I told you that one current swept over that way. It caught up houses and they began to drift all over the place, cras.h.i.+ng into each other and grinding people between the timbers. All this time the houses down here by the Conemaugh had been floating toward the bridge. Logs, boards, lumber and houses from the banks of Stony Creek had been coming down, too, and thus formed that tremendous jam above the stone bridge, which actually turned the current of the creek back upon itself. Some of the houses from the centre of the city and from the Fourth ward got into Stony Creek and actually went up the stream. Others floated all over town in circles and finally, having reached the Conemaugh, got caught in the jam at last and were destroyed by the fire which broke out there. After a time, too, the pressure at the bridge became so tremendous that the river burst a new channel for itself and then many houses came down again.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SELLING DAMAGED GOODS.]

"But I am antic.i.p.ating. Let us walk down to the bridge--it is not far--for the bridge is the key to the situation. We must pa.s.s the freight depot, for we follow the track. You see it is a busy place. You know we have had a change of administration here, and Adjutant General Hastings is in command. We are all heartily glad of it, too, for the worst kind of red tapeism prevailed under the Pittsburgh regime.

"And then the deputies--a lot of brutes appointed by the Sheriff. What an ignorant set they were. Most of them couldn't even read. They were the only toughs in town. They had captured all the tomato cans left over from the great flood which the Bible tells about and had cut out tin stars to decorate themselves with. Anybody who could find a piece of tin could be a deputy. And how they did bulldoze.

"But all this is changed now. The deputies--we called them the tin policemen--have been bounced and the place is now guarded by the soldiers. Business has taken the place of red tape, and General Hastings has turned the freight depot into offices for his various departments, for a system has been established which will reach all the victims, bury all the dead, discover all the living and clean up the town. There is now a central bureau, into which reports are turned, and the old haphazard way of doing things has been swept as clean as the sand before us. There is General Hastings' horse standing at the steps, for the general is in the saddle most of the time, here, there, everywhere, directing and ordering.

"Dinner! h.e.l.lo, dinner is ready. Now you will see how the officers at headquarters live. You see, the table has been spread on the platform facing the railroad tracks. Ah! there is Hastings himself--white slouch hat, white s.h.i.+rt, blue flannel trousers, and boots. He looks every inch a soldier, doesn't he? There! he is beckoning to us. What do you suppose he wants. Oh! he wants us to dine with him. Shall we? It will be plain fare, but as good as can be found. A dudish society reporter from Philadelphia dropped into town the other morning. He met a brother reporter from the same paper.

"'Oh!' he groaned. 'Where can I find a restaurant?'

"'Restaurant!' shrieked the other. 'Where do you think we are?

Restaurant! You come with me and I'll try to steal you a ham sandwich, and you'll be mighty lucky to get that.'

"'Oh! but I am so hungry. Can you direct me to the nearest hack stand?'

"The brother reporter turned and fled in dismay, and the society man hasn't been seen around here since. But it ill.u.s.trates the time the boys have been having getting anything to eat. So we had better accept the general's invitation. What have we here? Oh! this is fine. You don't mind tin plates and spoons and coffee cups, of course, especially as we have ham and potatoes, bread and coffee for dinner. That's a right good meal; but I tell you I have eaten enough ham to last me for a year, and when I get out of Johnstown and get back to Philadelphia I am going to make a break for the Bellevue and eat. And there won't be any ham in that dinner, you can bet.

A Renowned Building.

"Now, have you had enough? Then we will continue our walk along the tracks to the bridge. First we pa.s.s the Pennsylvania Railroad pa.s.senger station. What a busy place it is! The tracks are filled with freight cars packed with supplies, and the platform is filled with men and women ready to take them. In this station a temporary morgue was established.

It has been moved now to the school-house, No. 4, you know, on the map.

Now, as we round the curve you see it. That is the famous building that saved so many lives--the only one left in the great barren waste of sand. You know the water formed an eddy about it, and thus, as house after house floated and circled about it men and women would clutch the roof and climb upon it. The water reached half way to the ceiling on the second floor on a dead level.

"Now you can see where the two rivers come together. What a jam that was. It extended from the fork down to the bridge--No. 10. When the flames began to demolish it the pile towered far above the bridge. Now it is level with the water, but so thickly is it packed that the river runs beneath it. Let us stand here on the railroad embankment at the approach to the bridge, and watch the workmen. You notice how high the approaches are on either side, and you can readily understand how these high banks caught the drift. The stone arches of the bridge are low, you perceive. When the flood was at its height houses were actually swept over the bridge. From the debris left in the river and on the sides you can imagine what an immense dam it was that was formed, and just how it happened that the rivers turned back on themselves. I met a woman up Stony Creek early this morning. She was laughing over the adventure she and her children had. They floated down the creek to the bridge and then floated back again, and were finally rescued in boats. I asked her how she could joke about it.

"'Oh!' she said, 'I am never bothered about anything. I was as cool then as I am now, and rather enjoyed it.'

"But she wasn't very cool. She was bordering on the hysterical. She and her children are now living with friends, for their house was completely wrecked.

A Telegraph Office.

"A good many people had experiences similar to hers before the river broke through the railroad embankment just above the bridge here and swept tracks and everything else down upon the Cambria Iron Works. There they are, just behind us. I will mark them on the map--No. 11. Then the flow rushed through Cambria City, just below. That place is in a horrible condition--houses wrecked and streets full of debris. But there is no necessity of going there. You can see all the horrors you want right here.

"Look across the bridge, up the hill a little way. Do you see that old, tumble-down coal shed? It is where the Western Union established its office, and in that neighborhood most of the reporters have been living--sleeping in brick-kilns, hay lofts, tents, anywhere in fact.

What a nice time they have had of it. They have suffered as much as the flood victims.

"Phew! What a stench. It comes from the debris in the river. It is full of the dead bodies of horses, dogs; yes, and of human beings. We hear stories occasionally of women being taken from that ma.s.s alive. They are false, of course, but there was one instance that is authentic. A woman was found one week after the flood still breathing. She had been caught in some miraculous way. She was taken to Pittsburgh, where she died. I was kicking about over the debris a day or two ago, and heard a cat mewing under the debris somewhere. I know half a dozen people who have rescued kittens and are caring for them tenderly. A flood cat will command a premium before long, I have no doubt.

"Ha! What's that? Yes, it is a body. The sight is so common now that people pay no attention to it. We have been living in the midst of so much death, of so many scenes of a similar character, that I suppose the sensibilities have become hardened to them. There, they are placing the body on a window shutter and are carrying it up to the school-house. It will be laid on a board placed over the tops of the children's desks.

You will notice coffins piled up all about the school-house. Of course, the body is awfully disfigured and cannot be identified. The clothing will be described and the body hurried away to its nameless grave.

Fragment of a Bible.

"Have you enough? Then let us walk back toward headquarters and go down upon the flat into the centre of the town. What is that you have there?

A piece of a Bible? Yes, you will find lots of leaves lying around.

There is a story--I don't know how true it is--that many people have thrown their Bibles away since the flood, declaring that their belief, after the horrors they have witnessed, is at an end. I can hardly credit this. But there is one curious thing that is certain, and everybody has noticed it. Books and Bibles have been found in the rubbish all over the town, and in a great many instances they are open at some pa.s.sage calling attention to flood and disaster. I have found these myself a dozen times. It is a remarkable coincidence, to say the least.

"Some people may find a warning in all this. I don't pretend to say, but as we walk along here let me tell you of a conversation I had with a man who was worth nearly $20,000 before the flood. He has lost every cent, and is glad enough to get his daily meals from the supplies sent here.

"'I don't know what to think of Johnstown,' he said. 'We have been called a wicked place. Perhaps all this is a judgment. Just when we have been most prosperous some calamity has come upon us. We were never more prosperous than when this flood overwhelmed us.'

"Well here we are back at General Hastings' headquarters. Now we will go down the embankment, cross the river and plunge ahead into town.