The Great Galveston Disaster: Containing a Full and Thrilling Account of the Most Appalling Calamity of Modern Times Including Vivid Descriptions of the Hurricane and Terrible Rush of Waters; Immense Destruction of Dwellings, Business Houses, Churches, and Loss of Thousands of Human Lives; Thrilling Tales of Heroic Deeds; Panic-Stricken Multitudes and Heart-Rending Scenes of Agony; Frantic Efforts to Escape a Horrible Fate; Separation of Loved Ones, etc., etc.; Narrow Escapes from the Jaws of De
John Stuart Mill · en
Mr. Park says twenty people arrived at Hitchcock on rafts from Galveston
before he left. These had been carried by the storm from Galveston to
Hitchcock, a distance of about eighteen miles. They also saw a pile
driven from the Huntington wharves high on the prairie far beyond
Virginia Point.
A gruesome sight passed along the street Monday afternoon. Workmen in
digging bodies from the debris found one of a handsome man with dark
hair and mustache and dressed in a light suit of clothes. He was on his
knees, his eyes were uplifted, and his clasped hands were extended as in
prayer. It was evident that the man had been praying when he was struck
and instantly killed. As a rule, the attitudes of those who were found
were with hands extended up as if endeavoring to save themselves.
The destruction of the Catholic Orphans’ Home and the loss of
seventy-five lives with it was told by one of three boys who came
through a terrible experience by dint of good Providence and nothing
else. It is a fact that three boys came into the city from there who had
passed through a terrible experience. With these three and one reported
on the bay shore but four out of a total of seventy-eight people lived
to tell the tale.
According to the story all the children were gathered with the Sisters
and the two workmen in the chapel on the ground floor in the west wing
of the building. The storm was raging terribly outside and they all
engaged in prayer. The east wing finally went down and they were driven
from the chapel to the floor above, the water coming in and threatening
to drown them. Some clambered out on the roof of the part remaining, but
not all. Finally along about 8 o’clock—they are not positive as to the
time by an hour—the remainder of the building went and the roof went
into the water.
DESTRUCTION OF CATHOLIC ORPHANS’ HOME.
What became of the others nobody can say. Campbell only knows that he
got out from the building somehow and caught a piece of drift, either a
part of the roof or something of the sort. The Murney boy broke through
a transom and got out. He drifted for some time and finally caught a
tree to which he clung and soon found that the two other boys had caught
the same tree. Prior to that they had been separated, but a strange fate
attracted them to the same place.
This tree, it developed later, had caught in the masts of the wreck of
the schooner “John S. Ames,” which lies almost south of the home. There
they remained all night. At one time Campbell was about to give up and
cried that he was drowning. The Murney boy caught him and lashed him to
the mast with a piece of rope that he found there. In that way was his
life saved.