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
Lying upon the shore they came upon the dead and mangled body of a woman
upon whose person there were a number of trinkets and jewelry and two
diamond rings. In their eagerness to secure the plunder, the Hungarians
got into a squabble, during which one of the number severed the finger
upon which were the rings, and started on a run with his fearful prize.
The revolting nature of the deed so wrought upon the pursuing farmers,
who by this time were close at hand, that they gave immediate chase.
Some of the Hungarians showed fight, but being outnumbered were
compelled to flee for their lives. Nine of the brutes escaped, but four
were literally driven into the surging river and to their death. The
inhuman monster whose atrocious act has been described was among the
number of the involuntary suicides. Another incident of even greater
moment has just been brought to notice.
Anxious to be a Murderer.
At half-past eight this morning an old railroader who had walked from
Sang Hollow stepped up to a number of men who were congregated on the
platform stations at Curranville and said:--"Gentlemen, had I a shotgun
with me half an hour ago I would now be a murderer, yet with no fear of
ever having to suffer for my crime.
"Two miles below here I watched three men going along the banks
_stealing the jewels from the bodies of the dead wives and daughters of
men who have been robbed of all they held dear on earth._"
He had no sooner finished the last sentence than five burly men, with
looks of terrible determination written on their faces, were on their
way to the scene of plunder, one with a coil of rope over his shoulder
and another with a revolver in his hand. In twenty minutes, so it is
stated, they had overtaken two of the wretches, who were then in the act
of cutting pieces from the ears and fingers from the hands of the bodies
of two dead women.
Brutes at Bay.
With revolver leveled at the scoundrels the leader of the posse shouted,
"Throw up your hands or I'll blow your heads off!" With blanched faces
and trembling forms they obeyed the order and begged for mercy. They
were searched, and as their pockets were emptied of their ghastly finds
the indignation of the crowd intensified, and when _a bloody finger of
an infant, encircled with two tiny gold rings_, was found among the
plunder in the leader's pocket, a cry went up "_Lynch them! Lynch
them!_" _Without a moment's delay ropes were thrown around their necks
and they were dangling to the limbs of a tree, in the branches of which
an hour before were entangled the bodies of a dead father and son._
After the expiration of a half hour the ropes were cut, and the bodies
lowered and carried to a pile of rocks in the forest on the hill above.
It is hinted that an Allegheny county official was one of the most
prominent actors in this justifiable homicide.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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