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
One of the curious finds in the debris yesterday was two proofs from
cabinet-size negatives of two persons--a man and a woman. The prints
were found within two feet of each other in the ruins near the
Merchants' Hotel. They were immediately recognized as portraits of Mamie
Patton, formerly a Johnstown girl, and Charles DeKnight, once a Pullman
palace car conductor. The two were found dying together in a room in a
Pittsburgh hotel several months ago, the woman having shot the man and
then herself. She claimed that he was her husband. The dress in which
the picture showed her was the same that she wore when she killed
DeKnight.
Tracks that were Laid in a Hurry.
If Pennsylvania Railroad trains ever ran over tougher-looking tracks
than those used now through Johnstown it must have been before people
began to ride on it. The section from the north end of the bridge to the
railroad station has a grade that wabbles between 50 and 500 feet to the
mile and jerks back and forth sideways as though laid by a gang of
intoxicated men on a dark night. When the first engine went over it
everybody held his breath and watched to see it tumble. These
eccentricities are being straightened out, however, as fast as men and
broken stones can do it.
The railroad bridge at Johnstown deserves attention beyond that which it
is receiving on account of the way it held back the flood. It is one of
the most massive pieces of masonry ever set up in this country. In a
general way it is solid masonry of cut sandstone blocks of unusual size,
the whole nearly 400 feet long, forty wide, and averaging about forty
deep. Seven arches of about fifty feet span are pierced through it,
rising to within a few feet of the top and leaving massive piers down to
the rock beneath. As the bridge crosses the stream diagonally, the
arches pierce the mass in a slanting direction, and this greatly adds to
the heavy appearance of the bridge. There has been some disposition to
find fault with the bridge for being so strong, the idea being that if
it had gone out there would have been no heaping up of buildings behind
it, no fire, and fewer deaths. This is probably unfair, as there were
hundreds of persons saved when their houses were stopped against the
bridge by climbing out or being helped out upon the structure. If the
bridge had gone, too, the flood would have taken the whole instead of
only half of Cambria City.
Photographers Forced to Work.
The camera fiend has about ceased his wanderings. An order was issued
yesterday from headquarters to arrest and put to work the swarms of
amateur photographers who are to be found everywhere about the ruins.
Those who will not work are to be taken uptown under guard. This order
is issued to keep down the number of useless people and thus save the
fast diminishing provisions for the workers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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