The Johnstown Horror!!!: or, Valley of Death, being A Complete and Thrilling Account; of the Awful Floods and Their Appalling RuinWalker, James Herbert
History
The Johnstown Horror!!!: or, Valley of Death, being A Complete and Thrilling Account; of the Awful Floods and Their Appalling Ruin
In the Central dead house in Johnstown proper, as early as 9 o'clock
to-day there lay two rows of ghastly dead. To the right were twenty
bodies that had been identified. They were mostly women and children and
they were entirely covered with white sheets, and a piece of paper
bearing the name was pinned at the feet. To the left were eighteen
bodies of the unknown dead. As the people passed they were hurried along
by an attendant and gazed at the uncovered faces seeking to identify
them. All applicants for admission if it is thought they are prompted
by idle curiosity, are not allowed to enter. The central morgue was
formerly a school-house, and the desks are used as biers for the dead
bodies. Three of the former pupils yesterday lay on the desks dead, with
white pieces of paper pinned on to the white sheets that covered them,
giving their names.
Looking for Their Loved Ones.
But what touching scenes are enacted every hour about this mournful
building. Outside the sharp voices of the sentinels are constantly
shouting: "Move on." Inside, weeping women and sad-faced, hollow-eyed
men are bending over loved and familiar faces. Back on the steep grassy
hill which rises abruptly on the other side of the street are crowds of
curious people who come in from the country round about to look at the
wreckage strewn around where Johnstown was. "Oh, Mr. Jones," a
pale-faced woman asks, walking up, sobbing, "can't you tell me where we
can get a coffin to bury Johnnie's body?"
"Do you know," asks a tottering old man, as the pale-faced woman turns
away, "whether they have found Jennie and the children?"
"Jennie's body has just been found at the bridge," is the answer, "but
the children can't be found." Jennie is the old man's married daughter,
and she was drowned, with her two children, while her husband was at
work over at the Cambria Mills.
They Ran for Their Lives.
Miss Jennie Paulson, who was on the Chicago day express, is dead. She
was seen to go back with a companion into the doomed section of the day
express in the Conemaugh Valley, and is swept away in the flood.
Last evening, after the evening train had just left Johnstown for
Pittsburgh, it was learned that quite a number of the survivors of the
wrecked train, who have been at Altoona since last Saturday, were on
board. After a short search they were located, and quite an interesting
talk was the result. Probably the most interesting interview, at least
to Pittsburghers, was that had with Mrs. Montgomery Wilcox, of
Philadelphia, who was on one of the Pullman sleepers attached to the
lost express train. She tells a most exciting tale and confirms beyond
the shadow of a doubt the story of Miss Jennie Paulson's tragic death.
A Fatal Pair of Rubbers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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