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
"Oh, it was terrible," she said. "The reservoir had broken, and before
we got out of the house the water filled the cellar, and on the way to
the depot it was up to the carriage bed. Our train left at a quarter to
two P.M., and at that hour the flood had commenced to rise with terrible
rapidity. Houses and sheds were carried away, and two men were drowned
almost under our very eyes. People gathered on the roofs to take refuge
from the water which poured into the lower rooms of their dwellings, and
many families took fright and became scattered beyond hope of being
reunited. Just as the train pulled out I saw a woman crying bitterly.
Her house had been flooded and she had escaped, leaving her husband
behind, and her fears for his safety made her almost crazy. Our house
was in the lower part of the town, and it makes me shudder to think what
would have happened had we remained in it an hour longer. So far as I
know we were the only passengers from Johnstown on the train, and
therefore I suppose we are the only persons who got away in time to
escape the culminating disaster."
Mrs. Moore's little son told me how he had seen the rats driven out of
their holes by the flood and running along the tops of the fences. Mr.
Moore endeavored to get to Johnstown yesterday, but was prevented by the
suspension of traffic and says he is very glad of it.
What the Eye Hath Seen.
The scenes at Heanemyer's planing mill at Nineveh, where the dead bodies
are lying, are never to be forgotten. The torn, bruised and mutilated
bodies of the victims are lying in a row on the floor of the planing
mill which looks more like the field of Bull Run after that disasterous
battle than a work shop. The majority of the bodies are nude, their
clothing having been torn off. All along the river bits of clothing--a
tiny shoe, a baby dress, a mother's evening wrapper, a father's coat,
and in fact every article of wearing apparel imaginable may be seen
hanging to stumps of trees and scattered on the bank.
One of the most pitiful sights of this terrible disaster came to my
notice this afternoon when the body of a young lady was taken out of the
Conemaugh river. The woman was apparently quite young, though her
features were terribly disfigured. Nearly all the clothing excepting the
shoes was torn off the body. The corpse was that of a mother, for
although cold in death she clasped a young male babe, apparently not
more than a year old, tightly in her arms. The little one was huddled
close up to the face of the mother, who when she realized their terrible
fate had evidently raised it to her lips to imprint upon its lips the
last kiss it was to receive in this world. The sight forced many a stout
heart to shed tears. The limp bodies, with matted hair, some with holes
in their heads, eyes knocked out and all bespattered with blood were a
ghastly spectacle.
Story of The First Fugitives.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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