Show vie THOUSANDS OF DEAD BODIES scenes at alie loss of loved ones JOHNSTOWN 1120 a m june 3 four gentlemen relatives of the bembera of the south fork fishing club who had gone to learn the fate of their friends at the lake have just returned they report DO one at the lake except the custodians and some workmen the dam brok in the centre at 3 friday afternoon at 4 the lake was dry that great body of water had passed out in an hour an effort was made to avert the disaster by digging a sluiceway n one side to ease the pressure on dam but without avail the water passed over the dam about a foot above its top beginning at whatever happened in the way of a cloudburst took place during the night there had been but little rain up to dark and in the morning when the workmen awoke the lake was full and kept on rising rapidly until 2 when it began pouring over the dam and undermining it men were sent three or four timos during the day to warn the people below when the first break came there was a sound like tremendous and continued peals of thunder trees rocks and earth were shot into midair in great columns then the waves started down the ravine in the whole south fork there is not a tree standing rescuing parties are at workout tho mass 0 unknown wreckage in the river finding bodies and fragments at the rate of ten to fifteen an hour in other parts of the submerged districts many bodfis are being taken out A careful estimate at this time of the bodies recovered everywhere puts it seven hundred to eight hundred the total loss of life will certainly be six thousand to eight thousand the firby man from the dam at south fork has just arrived the jam burst open in the centre in a broad break A nameless paul bevere lies somewhere among the nameless dead who ho is may never be known buthis ride will bo famous in local history mounted on a grand big bay borso he came riding down tho pike which passes through conemaugh Gone maugh to johnstown like somo angel of wrath of old shouting his pretentious barning var ning bun for your lives to the hills run to the hills the people crowded out of their houses along the thickly settled streets awestruck awe struck and wondering who lie was nobody know some thought he was a maniac and laughed on at a deadly pace rode this man still ringing out his awful cry in a faw moments there came a cloud of ruin down the broad streets down the narrow alleys grinding twisting hurling overturning crashing annihilating the weak and the strong alike it was the charge of the flood wearing its coronet of ruin and devastation which grew at every instant of its progress it was forty feet high some say thirty according to others it was a sa and it traveled with swiftness like that which lay hidden in the heels of mercury on and on road the rider and on and rushed the wave dozens of people took heed of the warning and ran up the hills poor faithful rider it was an unequal contest just as he turned across the railroad bridge the mighty wave fell upon him and horse rider and bridge all went out into chaos together tho streets have been full of men carrying bodies to various places where they await identification since morning and tho work has only just begun every hour or so forces of men working on the heaps of debris have found a number of bodies buried in mud and wreckage it is believed that when flames are extinguished gui shed in the wreck at the bridge that hundreds of victims will bo discovered in fact this seems as certain as it does that bodies have bees found on the outskirts of houses and broken timber reports from outside points are also appalling shocking sights hav become so common that they have losic their terrors and the finding of a body here and there attracts little or no attention from the great crowds that constantly line the river banks and crowd al other accessible places scenes day was a man and wife who drew from a mass of rubbish parac of a cradle they looked at it a moment in silence and fell weeping in each others arms for their coved little one was gone william barnes is a broken hearted man for out of a family of ten just five are missing A handsome woman wandered ali rough the depot where the bodies lay passing from one to another she finally lifted the paper covering from the face of a young woman with traces of beauty showing through the stains of muddy water with a cry of anguish she reeled backward to be caught by a man who chanced to bo passing in a moment or so she had calmed herself to take one more look at the features of her dead she stood gazing at the unfortunate and dead woman who was a sister of the mourner until the body was placed in a coffin a few minutes later and sent away to its final home an utterly wretched woman named mrs benn stood by a muddy pool trying to find some trace of her once happy home she was half crazed with grief and her eyes were wollen agthe writer stepped up to her side she raised her pallid and languid face and remarked they are all gone ob god be merciful to them my husband and my seven dear little children have been swept away down the flood we were driven into the garret and the water followed us there jt was death to remain so I 1 raised the window and one by one placed my darling ones on the trusting to the great creator As I 1 liberated the last one of my sweet little boys he booked atmo and said mamma you always told me that the lord would care for me will he look after me now I 1 saw him drift away with loving face turned toward me and with a prayer on my lips for his deliverance he passed from my sight forever the next moment the roof crashed in and 1 floated outside to be rescued fifteen minutes later on the roof of a house near morinville Mo renville if I 1 could find one of my darlings I 1 could bow to the will of god I 1 have lost evey thing in the world bat my life these are fair samples of the instances and scenes familiar at every turn in this stricken city the town seems like a great tomb the people of johnstown have cupped supped so full of horrors that they go about in a sort of daze and are only half conscious of their every hour as one goes through the streets he hears the neighbors greeting each other and then inquiring without a show of feeling how many each had lost in his family today to day I 1 heard a gray haired man hail another across the street with this question 1 I lost five they are all gone bufa mary and I 1 this was the reply 1 I am worse off than that said the first old man 1 I have only my grandson left seven of us are gone and so they passed on without apparent excitement they and everyone else had heard so much of these melancholy conversations that somehow the calamity had lost its significance to them they treat it exactly as if tho dead persons had gone away and were coming back in a week one thing that makes the work of searching for bodies very slow is the strange ay that the great masses of objects were rolled into intricate masses of rubbish As the flood came down the valley of south fork it obliterated lite rated the suburb of woodville ville where not a house was left nor a trace of one the material they had contained was rolled on down tho valley over and over grinding it up to a pulp and finally leaving it against the unusual firm foundation of an eddy these contain human bodies but it is slow work to pick them to pieces inside of one or them today to day I 1 saw the remnant of a carriage and the body of a harnessed horse a baby cradle and doll a tress of comans womans hair a rocking horse and a piece of beef still hanging to a hook the city is much I 1 better patrolled than at any time since the flood cund oc many members of the police force of pittsburg came m and offered their services one of them showed his spirit by striking a man whom he saw open a trunk a tremendous blow over tho head knocking him senseless several b ig trunks and safes lie in full sight on the big plain in the lower part of the town but no one dared touch them after that general hastings estimated the loss of life at not loss than seven thousand it has not been generally believed that the district in the neighborhood of Kerny ille would be so prolific of producing corpses as it has proven to be an associated press correspondent visited that part of the town where both tho river and stony creek have done their worst he found that within the past twenty four hours almost one thousand bodies have been recovered or were in sight the place is a great repository of dead bodies every day adds a long list of dear ones to the lost one hundred and fifty persons wera taken out of the sand along stony creek this morning one hundred and seventy five bodies were recovered today to day at Morrill ville four are still alive but severely injured grand view cemetery baa buried m it all met their death in the flood they have mea digging graves seven hundred dead bodies in the hospital on the bedford street convent and fifteen dead at the school heuse hospital adams street convent three hundred bodies were found today in the sand banks along stony creek in the vicinity of the baltimore ohia there are bodies at ninivah Ni novah 1 ever since the recovery of the first body the populace have not had near enough coffins for the dead although hundreds arrive daily and owma to the decomposed condition of most of the bodies they have to be and are boxed up in rough board boxes merely store boxes and buried at once A man named christ myers has been rendered completely insane by the fact that his mother father two sisters and a brother are among the missing when notified of the loss of his family he threw up his hands and exclaimed my god what will come next from that time which was last night he has been hopelessly insane at times bordering on violence and wanting to kill himself pa june 4 over one thousand bodies have been found since sunrise today to day and the most skeptical concede that the remains of thousands more rest beneath the debris above johnstown and the surrounding valley affected by the flood is or was from to probably one third of the dead will never be recovered and it will take a list of the missing for weeks hence to enable even a close estimate to be made of the number of lives thai were snuffed out in that brief hour that this estimate can never be accurate is understood when it is remembered that in many instances whole families and their relatives were swept avay and found a common grave beneath the wild waste of waters the total extinction of the city leaves no data to ever demonstrate that the names of these unfortunates ever found a place on the pages of eternal history all indications point to the fact that the death list will result over five thousand and in my opinion the missing will reach in number it was declared by general hastings tonight to night that at present there are said to be 2200 recovered bodies JOHNSTOWN juno L up to the ragged sides of prospect hill the same to which several hundred terrified people fled to escape the flood an associated press correspondent scrambled thia afternoon he came upon the pneumonia scourge which bids fair to do for a number of the escaped victims what the flood could not death has pursued them to the highest places and the terror will not die little house on the arll and there are a hundred or two of them had thrown its doors open to receive the braided braised and half clad fugitives on the dark day of the deluge and every one was now a crude hospital half the who scaled the hi ht were so overcome with fright that they have ben bedridden bed ridden ever since there has been pneumonia on the hill but only a few isolated cases today to day however several fresh cases developed among the flood fugitives and a local physician said tho prospects for a scourge are all too promising the enfeebled condition of the patients the unhealthy atmosphere pervading the valley and the necessarily close quarters in which the people are crowded render the spread of the disease almost certain A wealthy young philadelphian named ogle recently became engaged to a johnstown lady miss carrie diehl they to be wedded inthe middle of june and both parties were preparing for the ceremony the lover heard of the terrible flood but knowing the residence of his dear one was up in the hills ho felt little fear to make sure however he started for johnstown arriving to day near the fourth street morgue he met mr diehl thank glod you are fafel he exclaimed and then added Is carrio wella she was visiting in the valley when the flood come was the mournful reply then he beckoned tho young mau to enter the chamber of death A moment later young was kneeling beside a rough bier and was kissing a cold white face from the lifeless finger he slipped a thin gold ring and placed it ou his own then he slipped quietly out one of a thousand made to mourn by the bursting of the south fork dam mamma mamma a child sho had recognized a body that no one eke could and in a moment tho corpse was ticketed boxed and delivered to laborers who bore it away to join the long funeral procession the mother recognized her baby boy keep it a few minutes she asked the undertaker in charge in a few moments she returned carrying in her arms a little white casket then she hired two men to bear it to the cemetery no hearses are seen in johnstown relatives recognize the dead secure coffins get them carried the best way they can to the morgues and then to the graveyards A prayer some tears and a few more of the dead thousands are buried in mother earth A frequent visitor at these horrible places is david john lewis all over johnstown he rides a powerful gray horse and to each one he meets whom he knows he asks have you seen my sister hardly waiting for a reply he gallops away either to seek ingress to the morgue or ride along the river bank one week ago lewis was worth his all being invested in a largo commission business today to day he owns the horse he rides tho clothes on his back and that is all in a fierce wave were buried five of his relatives his sisters annie lizzie and maggie the latter was married and her little boy and a babe also drowned the flood claimed among its victims not only the living but the dead today to day a handsome coffin was found half burned in some charred wreckage down near the point inside was found the body of a man shrouded for burial but so scorched about the head and face as to be unrecognizable tho tion is the hous in which the dead man had laid had been crushed and the debris partially consumed by fire i J H klein claims the distinction of being the only new york er in johnstown who escaped the flood and honor of having rescued or assisted in rescuing sixty people his base of operations was the merchants hotel and his plan was to lift persons from the windows of houses swimming by adoner those he saved were rev phillips who as he glided by was trying to hold his wife and two children above the water by means of a table on which he placed them and raised the load to his head the house swung against the hotel and stayed just long enough for the rescue to be complete klein has been working hard to alleviate tho suffering of the victims |