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.Johnson, Willis Fletcher
History
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.
The Post-office letter carriers have only just begun to make their
rounds in that part of the town which is comparatively uninjured. Bags
of first-class mail matter are alone brought into town. It will be weeks
before people see the papers in the mails. The supposition is that
nobody has time to read papers, and this is about right. The letter
carriers are making an effort, as far as they can, to distribute mail to
the families of the deceased people. Many of the letters which arrive
now contain money orders, and while great care has to be taken in the
distribution, the postal authorities recognize the necessity of getting
these letters to the parties addressed, or else returning them to the
Dead Letter Office as proof of the death of the individuals in question.
It is no doubt that in this way the first knowledge of the death of many
will be transmitted to friends.
It is fair to say that the best part of the energies of the State of
Pennsylvania at present are all turned upon Johnstown. Here are the
leading physicians, the best nurses, some of the heaviest contractors,
the brightest newspaper men, all the military geniuses, and, if not the
actual presence, at least the attention, of the capitalists. The
newspapers, medical reviews, and publications of all sorts teem with
suggestions. Johnstown is a compendium of business, and misery, and
despair. One class of men should be given credit for thorough work in
connection with the calamity. These are the undertakers. They came to
Johnstown, from all over Pennsylvania, at the first alarm. They are the
men whose presence was imperatively needed, and who have actually been
forced to work day and night in preserving bodies and preparing them for
burial. One of the most active undertakers here is John McCarthy, of
Syracuse, N. Y., one of the leading undertakers there, and a very
public-spirited man. He brought a letter of introduction from Mayor
Kirk, of Syracuse, to the Citizens Committee here. He said to a
reporter:--
"It is worthy of mention, perhaps, that never before in such a disaster
as this have bodies received such careful treatment and has such a
wholesale embalming been practiced. Everybody recovered, whether
identified or not, whether of rich man or poor man, or of the humblest
child, has been carefully cleaned and embalmed, placed in a neat coffin,
and not buried when unidentified until the last possible moment. When
you reflect that over one thousand bodies have been treated in this way
it means something. It is to be regretted that some pains were not
taken to keep a record of the bodies recovered, but the undertakers
cannot be blamed for that. They should have been furnished with clerks,
and that whole matter made the subject of the work of a bureau by
itself. We have had just all we could do cleaning and embalming the
bodies."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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