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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.

Name: 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.
Author: Johnson, Willis Fletcher

Johnson, Willis Fletcher

Floods -- Pennsylvania -- Johnstown (Cambria County)

Up Stony Creek Gap, above the contractors, the United States Army
engineers began work on Friday under command of Captain Sears, who is
here as the personal representative of the Secretary of War. The
engineers, Captain Bergland's company from Willet's Point, and
Lieutenant Biddle's company from West Point, arrived on Friday night,
having been since Tuesday on the road from New York. Early in the
morning they went to work to bridge Stony Creek, and unloaded and
launched their heavy pontoons and strung them across the streams with a
rapidity and skill that astonished the natives, who had mistaken them,
in their coarse, working uniforms of over-all stuff, for a fresh gang of
laborers. The engineers, when there are bridges enough laid, may be set
at other work about town. They have a camp of their own on the outskirts
of the place. There are more constables, watchmen, special policemen,
and that sort of thing in Johnstown than in any three cities of its
size in the country. Naturally there is great difficulty in equipping
them. Badges were easily provided by the clipping out of stars from
pieces of tin, but every one had to look out for himself when it came to
clubs. Everything goes, from a broomstick to a base ball bat. The bats
are especially popular.

"I'd like to get the job of handling your paper here," said a young
fellow to a Pittsburgh newspaper man. "You'll have to get some newsman
to do it anyhow, for your old men have gone down, and I and my partner
are the only newsmen in Johnstown above ground."

The newsdealing business is not the only one of which something like
that is true.

There has been a great scarcity of cooking utensils ever since the
flood. It not only is very inconvenient to the people, but tends to the
waste of a good deal of food. The soldiers are growling bitterly over
their commissary department. They claim that bread, and cheese, and
coffee are about all they get to eat.

The temporary electric lights have now been strung all along the
railroad tracks and through the central part of the ruins, so that the
place after dark is really quite brilliant seen from a distance,
especially when to the electric display is added the red glow in the
mist and smoke of huge bonfires.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.