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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)

"The scenes, as I neared Johnstown, were the most heart-rending that man
was ever called to look upon. Probably three thousand people were
scattered in groups along the Pennsylvania Railroad track and every one
of them had a relative lying dead either in the wreckage above, in the
river below, or in the still burning furnace. Not a house that was left
standing was in plumb. Hundreds of them were turned on their sides, and
in some cases three or four stood one on top of the other. Two miles
from Johnstown, on the opposite side of the river from where I walked,
stood one-half of the water-works of the Cambria Iron Company, a
structure that had been built of massive stone. It was filled with
planks from houses, and a large abutment of wreckage was piled up fully
fifty feet in front of it. A little above, on the same side, could be
seen what was left of the Cambria Iron Works, which was one of the
finest plants in the world. Some of the walls are still standing, it is
true, but not a vestige of the valuable machinery remains in sight. The
two upper portions of the works were swept away almost entirely, and
under the pieces of fallen iron and wood could be seen the bodies of
more than forty workmen.

"At this point there is a bend in the river and the fiery furnace
blazing for a quarter of a mile square above the stone bridge came into
view.

"'My God!' screamed a woman who was hastening up the track, 'can it be
that any are in there?'

"'Yes; over a thousand,' replied a man who had just come from the
neighborhood, and it is now learned that he estimated the number at one
thousand too low.

"The scenes of misery and suffering and agony and despair can hardly be
chronicled. One man, a clerk named Woodruff, was reeling along
intoxicated. Suddenly, with a frantic shout, he threw himself over the
bank into the flood and would have been carried to his death had he not
been caught by some persons below.

"'Let me die,' he exclaimed, when they rescued him. 'My wife and
children are gone; I have no use for my life.' An hour later I saw
Woodruff lying on the ground entirely overcome by liquor. Persons who
knew him said that he had never tasted liquor before.

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