[Illustration: THE BATTLE WITH THE WATERS.] at once hastened across the debris, and aided in relieving my wife from the timbers in which she was pinioned. Then he immediately disappeared from my sight; but I afterward learned he was Harry Philips, who was reared in Johnstown, was then practicing his profession of dentistry in Pittsburg; was home on a visit, and in the house of Dr. L. T. Beam, and was the only person who escaped with his life, while his mother, niece, nephew and brother-in-law were lost in the flood. My eldest son had disappeared. I believed I had heard his dying moan. All the other inmates of my house at the time it was struck, were now floating on different fragments of houses, and being rushed with fearful velocity in a westerly course to and across the Stony Creek River. “They saw a stout roof on the edge of the debris and succeeded in reaching it; an old lady on bended knees and holding with her hands, floated by on a shutter, and Winter assisted her to gain the roof; the current suddenly turned and swept them rapidly up Stony Creek, a distance of half a mile; they came to rest above Morris street in the Fifth Ward, and lay for a considerable time; some inexplicable force then carried them across the river, and they lay for a while in the mouth of Franklin street; the Catholic church was on fire, and the town clock struck five; a cold and pitiless rain poured down upon them; the current now changed and buildings and wreckage were borne rapidly down the stream; as houses were broken to pieces, clinging wretches with wild shrieks sank to watery graves; the two sons were separated from the remainder of the family on the roof; it drifted once more down the stream, was struck by a heavier building and pushed upon the bank; over various drift they climbed till they reached a three-story brick which stood intact; they entered it just as the town clock struck six--two awful hours, and yet no member of the family lost. Happier far their fate than that of many others. The two boys returned to their parents at four o’clock the next day.”