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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. — John Shaqi

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)

Then with a shudder, as if at last it comprehended its peril, the engine
leaped forward like a thing of life, and speeded down the valley. But
fast as it went, the flood gained upon them. Hope, however, was in the
ascendant, for if they could but get across the bridge below the track
would lean toward the hillside in such a manner that they would be
comparatively safe. In a few breathless moments the shrieking locomotive
whizzed around the curve and they were in sight of the bridge. Horror
upon horrors! Ahead of them was a freight train, with the rear end
almost on the bridge, and to get across was simply impossible! Engineer
Bennett then reversed the lever and succeeded in checking the engine as
they glided across the bridge, and then they jumped and ran for their
lives up the hillside, as the bridge and tender of the locomotive they
had been on were swept away like a bundle of matches in the torrent.




CHAPTER VII.


There have been many famous rides in history. Longfellow has celebrated
that of Paul Revere. Read has sung of Sheridan's. John Boyle O'Reilly
has commemorated in graceful verse the splendid achievement of Collins
Graves, who, when the Williamsburg dam in Massachusetts broke, dashed
down the valley on horseback in the van of the flood, warning the people
and saving countless lives:

          "He draws no rein, but he shakes the street
          With a shout and a ring of the galloping feet,
          And this the cry that he flings to the wind:
          'To the hills for your lives! The flood is behind!'

          "In front of the roaring flood is heard
          The galloping horse and the warning word.
          Thank God! The brave man's life is spared!
          From Williamsburg town he nobly dared
          To race with the flood and take the road
          In front of the terrible swath it mowed.
          For miles it thundered and crashed behind,
          But he looked ahead with a steadfast mind:
          'They must be warned,' was all he said,
          As away on his terrible ride he sped."

There were two such heroes in the Conemaugh Valley. Let their deeds be
told and their names held in everlasting honor. One was John G. Parke, a
young civil engineer of Philadelphia, a nephew of the General John G.
Parke who commanded a corps of the Union Army. He was the first to
discover the impending break in the South Fork dam, and jumping into the
saddle he started at breakneck speed down the valley shouting: "The dam;
the dam is breaking; run for your lives!" Hundreds of people were saved
by this timely warning. Reaching South Fork Station, young Parke
telegraphed tidings of the coming inundation to Johnstown, ten miles
below, fully an hour before the flood came in "a solid wall of water
thirty feet high" to drown the mountain-bound town.

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