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
Streams were running through the principal streets of the city. In some
parts all that was left of the thoroughfares were the cobble stones--by
which it was possible to trace streets for a short distance--and the
street railway tracks remaining in places for spaces of a hundred feet
or so. There were some buildings outside of the track of the full force
of the torrent, the roofs of which seemed not to have been reached.
Others had been on fire and had lost parts of their walls. It was a
dismal sight, this desolation, as shown up by the fitful camp fires. It
was only after climbing over perilous places, crossing streams and
narrowly escaping with our necks, that we came within sight of the car
at two o'clock this morning. We passed by a school house used as a
morgue. Several people were inside gazing by lamp light at the silent
bodies in a hunt for lost ones. Piles of coffins, brown and white, were
in the school playground, which resounded not many days ago with the
shouts of children, some of whom lie there now. There are heaps of
coffins everywhere throughout the city. Conversation with the deputy
sheriffs showed a deep-rooted hatred against the Huns, and a
determination to shoot them down like dogs if they were caught prowling
about near the exposed property. While we were toiling over debris we
heard three shots about a quarter of a mile off. We could learn nothing
of their report. The service done by the deputy sheriffs was excellent.
Mistaken Identification.
At St. Columba's Catholic Church the scenes were striking in their
individual peculiarities. One woman came in and identified a body as
that of Katie Frank. The undertakers labeled it accordingly, but in a
few moments another woman entered the church, raised the lid of the
coffin, scanned the face of the corpse, and then tore the label from the
casket. The undertakers were then warned by the woman to be more careful
in labelling coffins in the future. She then began to weep, and left the
church in despair. She was Katie's mother, and Katie is yet among the
wreck in the river below.
The lot of bodies held and coffined at Morrellville presented a
different feature. The mud was six inches deep, and the drizzling rain
added gloom to the scene. Here and there could be seen, kneeling in the
mud, broken hearted wives and mothers who sobbed and prayed. The
incidents here were heartrending.
At the Fourth ward school-house morgue a woman from Erie, whose name
could not be learned, went to the morgue in search of some one, but
fainted on seeing the long line of coffins. At the Kernville morgue one
little boy named Elrod, on finding his father and mother both dead,
seized a hatchet, and for some time would let no one enter the place,
claiming that the people were lying to him and wanted to rob him of his
father and mother.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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