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
The vast majority fill nameless but numbered graves, and the
descriptions are much too indefinite to hope for identification after
burial. What can you expect from a description like this, picked out at
random: "Woman, five feet four inches tall, long hair?" The body of
Eugene Hannon, twenty-two, found yesterday near the First Presbyterian
Church, was identified to-day by his father. He was a member of the
League of American Wheelmen, and his bicycle was found within a few
yards of his body. The father will lay the wrecked bicycle on the coffin
of his son.
Just now a woman, still young and poorly dressed, went by the shed where
I am writing, sobbing most pitifully. She lost her husband and children
in the flood and is on the verge of insanity.
Finding Solace in Work.
The day opened with heavy rain and an early morning thunder storm. The
hillside streams were filled to the banks and everything was dripping.
The air was chilly and damp, and daylight was slow in coming to this
valley of desolation and death. At an early hour the valley, where so
many have gone to rest, presented a most dismal scene. It looked,
indeed, like the valley of the dead. Nothing was moving, and all
remained within the meagre shelter offered them till the day had fairly
begun. As the day advanced, the tented hills began to show signs of
life, smoke arose from many a camp fire, and on every eminence
surrounding this valley of desolation could be seen the guards moving
among the tented villages.
The weather was most unpleasant for any one to be outdoors, but it
apparently had no effect on the people here, for as soon as the early
breakfast was over the thousands of workmen could be seen going to their
work, and soon the whole valley that in the early morning hours was
asleep was a teeming throng of life and activity. While the rain was far
from pleasant to the workers and many helpers, it was certainly
providential that the cool weather is continuing in order to prevent the
much-dreaded decomposition of the hundreds of human bodies yet
unrecovered and the thousands of animals that perished in the flood. The
air this morning, while tainted to some extent with the fumes arising
from the decaying bodies, was not near so bad as it would have been had
the morning been hot and sultry.
Working on the Stone Bridge Debris.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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