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
They brought a number of ropes and these were thrown over into the
boiling waters as persons drifted by in efforts to save some poor
beings. For half an hour all efforts were fruitless, until at last, when
the rescuers were about giving up all hope, a little boy, astride a
shingle roof, managed to catch hold of one of the ropes. He caught it
under his left arm and was thrown violently against an abutment, but
managed to keep hold, and was successfully pulled on to the bridge amid
the cheers of the onlookers. His name was Hessler and his rescuer was a
trainman named Carney. The lad was at once taken to the town of Garfield
and was cared for. The boy was aged about sixteen. His story of the
frightful calamity is as follows:
The Alarm.
"With my father I was spending the day at my grandfather's house in
Cambria City. In the house at the time were Theodore, Edward and John
Kintz, and John Kintz, Jr.; Miss Mary Kintz, Mrs. Mary Kintz, wife of
John Kintz, Jr.; Miss Treacy Kintz, Mrs. Rica Smith, John Hirsch and
four children, my father and myself. Shortly after five o'clock there
was a noise of roaring waters and screams of people. We looked out the
door and saw persons running. My father told us to never mind, as the
waters would not rise further.
"But soon we saw houses being swept away, and then we ran up to the
floor above. The house was three stories, and we were at last forced to
the top one. In my fright I jumped on the bed. It was an old fashioned
one, with heavy posts. The water kept rising and my bed was soon afloat.
Gradually it was lifted up. The air in the room grew close and the house
was moving. Still the bed kept rising and pressed the ceiling. At last
the posts pushed against the plaster. It yielded and a section of the
roof gave way. Then suddenly I found myself on the roof, and was being
carried down stream.
Saved.
"After a little this roof began to part, and I was afraid I was going to
be drowned, but just then another house with a shingle roof floated by,
and I managed to crawl on it, and floated down until nearly dead with
cold, when I was saved. After I was freed from the house I did not see
my father. My grandfather was on a tree, but he must have been drowned,
as the waters were rising fast. John Kintz, Jr., was also on a tree.
Miss Mary Kintz and Mrs. Mary Kintz I saw drown. Miss Smith was also
drowned. John Hirsch was in a tree, but the four children were drowned.
The scenes were terrible. Live bodies and corpses were floating down
with me and away from me. I would see persons, hear them shriek, and
then they would disappear. All along the line were people who were
trying to save us, but they could do nothing, and only a few were
caught."
This boy's story is but one incident, and shows what happened to one
family. No one knows what has happened to the hundreds who were in the
path of the rushing water. It is impossible to get anything in the way
of news save meagre details.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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