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 man returns from the valley of death with more horrible remembrance
of the flood than Dr. Henry H. Phillips, of Pittsburg. He is the only
one known to be saved out of a household of thirteen, among whom was his
feeble old mother and other near and dear friends. His own life was
saved by his happening to step out upon the portico of the house just as
the deluge came. Dr. Phillips had gone to Johnstown to bring his mother,
who was an invalid, to his home in the East End. They had intended
starting for Pittsburg Friday morning, but Mrs. Phillips did not feel
able to make the journey, and it was postponed until the next day. In
the meantime the flood began to come, and during the afternoon of Friday
the family retired to the upper floors of the house for safety. There
were thirteen in the house, including little Susan McWilliams, the
twelve-year-old daughter of Mr. W. H. McWilliams, of Pittsburg, who was
visiting her aunt, Mrs. Phillips; Dr. L. T. Beam, son-in-law of Mrs.
Phillips; another niece, and Mrs. Dowling, a neighbor. The latter had
come there with her children because the Phillips house was a brick
structure while her own was frame. Its destruction proved to be the more
sudden and complete on account of the material.
The water was a foot deep on the first floor, and the family were
congratulating themselves that they were so comfortably situated in the
upper story, when Dr. Phillips heard a roaring up toward the Cambria
Iron Works. Without a thought of the awful truth, he stepped out upon
the portico of the house to see what it meant. A wall of water and
wreckage loomed up before him like a roaring cloud. Before he could turn
back or cry out he saw a house, that rode the flood like a chip, come
between him and his vision of the window. Then all was dark, and the
cold water seemed to wrap him up and toss him to a house-top three
hundred yards from where that of his mother had stood. Gathering his
shattered wits together the Doctor saw he was floating about in the
midst of a black pool. Dark objects were moving all about him, and
although there was some light, he could not recognize any of the
surroundings. For seventeen hours he drifted about upon the wreckage
where fate had tossed him. Then rescuers came, and he was taken to safe
quarters. A long search has so far failed to elicit any tidings of the
twelve persons in the Phillips' house.
Mr. G. B. Hartley, of Philadelphia, was one of the five out of
fifty-five guests of the Hurlburt House who survived.
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