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.
No one did, and she was carried to the improvised morgue in the
school-house, and now fills a grave as one of the "unidentified dead."
Miss Rose Clark was fastened in the debris at the railroad bridge, at
Johnstown. The force of the water had torn all of her garments off and
pinned her left leg below the water between two beams. She was more
calm than the men who were trying to rescue her. The flames were coming
nearer, and the intense heat scorching her bare skin. She begged the men
to cut off the imprisoned leg. Finally half of the men turned and fought
the fire, while the rest endeavored to rescue Miss Clark. After six
hours of hard work, and untold suffering by the brave little lady she
was taken from the ruins in a dead faint. She was one mass of bruises,
from her breast to her knees, and her left arm and leg were broken.
Just below Johnstown, on the Conemaugh, three women were working on the
ruins of what had been their home. An old arm-chair was taken from the
ruins by the men. When one of the women saw the chair, it brought back a
wealth of memory, probably the first since the flood occurred, and
throwing herself on her knees on the wreck she gave way to a flood of
tears.
"Where in the name of God," she sobbed, "did you get that chair? It was
mine--no, I don't want it. Keep it and find for me, if you can, my
album. In it are the faces of my husband and little girl."
Patrick Downs was a worker in one of the mills of the Cambria Iron
Works. He had a wife and a fourteen-year-old daughter, Jessie Downs, who
was a great favorite with the sturdy, hard-handed fellow-workmen of her
father.
She was of rare beauty and sweetness. Her waving, golden-yellow hair,
brushed away from a face of wondrous whiteness, was confined by a ribbon
at the neck. Lustrous Irish blue eyes lighted up the lovely face and
ripe, red lips parted in smiles for the workmen in the mills, every one
of whom was her lover.
Jessie was in the mill when the flood struck the town, and had not been
seen since till the work of cleaning up the Cambria plant was begun in
earnest. Then, in the cellar of the building a workman spied a little
shoe protruding from a closely packed bed of sandy mud. In a few moments
the body of Jessie Downs was uncovered.
The workmen who had been in such scenes as this for six days stood about
with uncovered heads and sobbed like babies. The body had not been
bruised nor hurt in any way, the features being composed as if in sleep.
The men gathered up the body of their little sweetheart and were
carrying it through the town on a stretcher when they met poor Patrick
Downs. He gazed upon the form of his baby, but never a tear was in his
eye, and he only thanked God that she had not suffered in contest with
the angry waves.
He had but a moment before identified the body of his wife among the
dead recovered, and the mother and child were laid away together in one
grave on Grove Hill, and the father resumed work with the others.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account