| Show THE GREAT FLOOD As the days have passed since may 31 when Conne maugh reservoir burst the magnitude of the visitation precipitated upon the towns along Conne maugh river has seemed to increase in fact some time had to elapse before its vastness could be fully realized by the public the principal weight of the calamity fell upon johnstown and its environs here the scenes which followed the flood have baffled the pens of the most graphic writers who have undertaken to portray them dead bodies by the hundred have been extricated from the mud and debris and it is reasonably certain that hundreds of corpses were swept on to the ohio river six improvised morgues are in johnstown and in these bodies are held until decomposition renders it unsafe to keep them longer these temporary places for the dead are in the churches and schoolhouses the largest one being in the fourth ward schoolhouse where planks have been laid over the tops of desks and on them the remains are placed the dead bodies which are dug from the banks are covered with mud ani are taken to the anteroom ante room of the school where they are placed under a hydrant and the mud and slime washed off with a slash of a knife the clothes are ripped open and an attendant searches t the yen e pockets for val valuables or papers for identification fand four men then lift the corpse upon a rude table and there it is thoroughly washed embalming fluid injected into the arm and then with ther grim bodies the corpse liel in a large room until it is identified or becomes offensive in the latter case it Is hurried off to a large grave that will hereafter have a monument elt over it bearing the inscription unknown nM A dispatch dated june 4 says the number of unknown dead is hourly growing because the pestilence stalks in johnstown and the blost bloate ed disfigured masses of flesh cannot cann ot be held much longer bodies of stalwart workingmen lie ile beside the remains of dainty ladies many of whom wh om are till still 8 decked with costly V V F earrings and jewels on their fl fingers rich bich and poor throng these quarters baal and gaze with awe struck faces at the masses of mutilation in hope of recognizing missing ones so abw as to accord the body decent burial AFFECTING INCIDENTS A wealthy young philadelphian named ogle recently became engaged to t johnstown lady miss carrie diehl dieb they were to be wedded in the middle of june and both parties were preparing prepare ng for the ceremony the lover heard of the flood but knowing the residence of his 4 dear one was up in the hills he felt little fear to make sure however he be started for johnstown arrivi arriving nj june 4 near the fourth street morgue he met mr diehl thank god you are safe he exclaimed and then added Is carrie well she was visiting in the valley when the flood came was the mournful reply then he beckoned the young man to enter the chamber of death A moment later young ogle was kneeling beside a rough bier and was kissig kissi fig a white face from the lifeless finger he X slipped a thin gold ring and placed it on his own then he slipped quietly out one of a thousand made to mourn by y the bursting of the south fork dam mamma mamma cried a child she had bad recognized a body that no DO one else could and in a moment the corpse w was as ticketed boxed and delivered to laborers who rho bore it away to join the long I 1 funeral procession A mother recognized her baby boy keep it a few minutes she asked the undertaker in chaice charge in afew moments she returned carrying carryl ng in her arms r little weite casket then she hired two men to bear it to the cemetery no hearses are seen in johnstown relatives recognize their dead secure coffins get them carried the A best way they can to the morgues wor gueS and then to we the graveyards A prayer some tears and i a few more of the dead thousands are A re buried in ID mother eartha frequent visitor at these horrible places is david john lewis all I 1 over johnstown he rides a powerful gray horse and of each one be 1110 IF meets whom he knows he as have hae you sew seen my sister si ater hardly waiting for a repty he gallops gallopo away either to seek ingress to the ta morgue or ride along the river ii ver bank one week ago lewis was worth 65 his all being invested in a large larg commission business today he owns the horse lie he rides the clothes on 01 his bla back and that is all in A 4 buried five 01 of fierce wave were his near relatives his sisters an annie diet lizzle lizzie and maggie the latter w wa so married and her little boy avid and ok babe also drowned the flood and ore lire claimed among its victims not oly the living but the dead june 4 a 4 handsome coffin was found half burned in some charred wreckage down near the point inside was round found the body of a man shrouded for burial but so scorched about the head and face as tobe le the supposition is the house III which the dead man had lain ai been crushed and the debris F partially consumed by fire desecration OP THE DEAD chairman maxham of the citi zells ns committee tells tella of frightful desecration of the dead and of the looting of houses on the day after the disaster he was working among the victims on the hillside above johnstown when he noticed a colored man hand a colored wo aan an a gold watch and chain with the remark hold my watch for rae I 1 am afraid ill I 1 11 loose it the n was apparently working industriously triou sly upon the wreck aud and maxham did not think anything of we the circumstance until he saw the negro step up to the woman again hand and her another wath and repeat llis is remark suspecting cometh ing wrong maxham had the woman placed under arrest her pockets were found to be filled with watches and jewelry there were several b ggs that were bloody fingers ad been cut off the dead for or the gold later maxham discovered several cart loads of shoes and clothing secreted back on one of tile roe hills A man had a clothes line strung full of clothing evidently taken from the flood victims as ey were wet and muddy when the officers attempted to seize the the fellow opened fire upon them with a revolver they reamed the salute and did not stop after r regaining the clothes to see what oat the effect had been As to the e failure of the johnstown coun to afford police protection there ase are found many extenuating cir cum atances one fourth of the coun oilmen ate are believed to have lost their ies s in the flood and there is freely one of the living who did not lot meet with some terrible loss rive ive italians were caught june 4 while in the act of eshum ing g bodies at the cemetery fortu y for them there were but few people around or they would have been een undoubtedly strung up As it as they were taken charge of by a le e of soldiery soldiers and locked up in a boiar petty thieving was constantly going on autant adjutant general hastings at mid gilt ju june ne 4 wired governor beaver wa report of the day it was a most one and shows that the stricken city was recovering from the blow struck ather at her the f portia rt Is as follows the 1 ne fourteenth lae regiment arrived ft toda today strong the bur ases g of johnstown johnstown and sheriff of the afa ambria county formally requested ue troops this morning there has amen ito on no violence or d disorderly ederly cona duct 0 several thieves have been at about lo 10 laborers are f work abild and squads are coming in pm all sides the present force will probably be doubled tomorrow there is plenty of food and clothing the survivors are regaining their health chairman hnorman of the citizens zensi committee was waa exhausted on june 4 and james scott of pittsburg was elected in his place and the organization made perfect A dispatch of that date said it would take a week to 10 complete the work of burial four long trenches feet long seven feet wide and three feet deep form the graves for victims of the flood whose bodies have been recovered at nineveh ten miles below johnstown this is the first opening of the narrow valley through which the Conne maugh dashes like a mill race from the fields of mud many bodies have been taken the searchers find many bodies by means of a hand or a piece of clothing sticking through the mud they carry long sticks which they plow through the soil the westmoreland commissioners purchased an acre of ground on the side of the mountains and converted it into a cemetery laborers were at work all day june 4 cleaning the trenches the scenes at the cemetery Beme tery were depressing and pathetic the torches of the laborers looked from across the field like so many jack o lanterns luring their vic victims tinis on to destruction coroner hommer of allegheny has been doing excellent work his jury was organized june 1 and have heard plenty of testimony coroner hommer will push on to south fork as soon as the railroad is opened and with th the jury ejury make a full examination of the lake and take the testimony of those who escaped and a description of the lake ly by those who have been in it BRAVE RESCUES edward C will is a young of cambria 27 years old whom no one suspected of having more than ordinary courage when the flood was at its height and people floating down with the rush of the torrent in hundreds will rushed to a boat and senseless to the pleadings of his wife and relatives shoved the frail craft far out into the angry current and gliding rapidly alongside of a floating roof upon which a woman and two children were kneeling with blanched faces skillful skillfully Jy evaded the obstructions that every minute crush his frail craft and lift irig the terrorized creatures in the boat shot across the current back to the bank whence he came A shout of applause swelled from the throng that lined the bank but unmoved by the plaudits pl audits young will repeated the perilous journey not once buta but even seven times until twenty two lives had been saved this is but one instance in many J H klein claims the distinction of being the only new yorker in johnstown who escaped the flood and the 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 b by among those he saved were iv bev phillips who as he glided by was try trying to hold his wife and two chilgren chil children fren 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 haa been working hard to alleviate the suffering of the victims TRAINS CAUGHT IN TRE THE FLOOD it is definitely settled that at least 20 to 40 were lost on the two sections of the day express that left pittsburg may 31 and the johnstown accommodation about to leave johns town that afternoon As there have been numerous conflicting reports about how many trains were caught in the floods a reliable source source has ascertained that there were three trains caught by the water A passenger on a train says he counted up at least 20 whom he saw drown on june 4 three hundred more bodies had been found opposite nineveh this makes found at that point adjutant general hastings on june 4 stated he wished positively to deny stories published in certain newspapers to the effect that there had been wholesale lynching lunching lyn ching and rioting at johnstown since june 2 on J june une 4 the fo following flowing description of johnstown was telegraphed the water receded in the night almost as rapidly as it came and behind it remu remains ins the sorriest sight sigh t imaginable the dove that came has no green leaf of promise for its wings are draped with the hue of mourning and desolation ola tion before the windows of the associated press headquarters lies the great skeleton of the dead johnstown great ribs of rocky sand stretch across the che scarred and covered with abrasions acres of mud acres of wreckage acres of unsteady tottering buildings macres acres of unknown dead acres 0 of ghastly objects have been eagerly sought for since friday acres of smoking steaming ruins acres for somebody lie out there in the sunshine hundreds Hundred of bodies are lying along the river banks and under piles of big timber and trouble will come from there because they are hard bard to find and harder to dig out out in the centre of the river on the extreme edge of the mass which rests against the bridge the pittsburg Pitta burg firemen have a stream playing on the wreckage they are literally in the middle of the river putting out the fire Bonfi bonfires are gutting burning everywhere fire is the agent employed to help the committees get rid of the refuse and broken wood by means of fire the cambria iron company cleared awa away V most of the lighter lumber and will soon be able to work on the heavier piles the completion of a temporary track and bridge which gerboff permute the passage of trains over t the river has bas been a blessing for it allows men to work much faster than before and to get tools and materials closer at hand band this was the day set bet aside by the citizens committee for burying the unidentified dead that had bad been lying in the morgue since sunday at 10 the men in charge of the bur bury ing have been busy all day there are no pathetic scenes at these burials bu rials the men hired to do d the work seem to do it just as a matter of business the bodies are being interred in the cemetery nearest the place where the bodies are found about noon a procession of fifty cof fined ned bodies waa w as seen going up the hill above the railroad not a mourner was present and uie the sight waa wa a ghastly one to behold it will take several days to bury the bodies now in the dif ferent graveyards as there were few graves dug until this morning rind anad no implements to dig them with A lage fatge detachment of men arrived from pittsburg this morning and were put to work digging graves altogether about oodles bodies have been taken to different cemeteries this morning the burned wreckage against the bridge is being dynamited to allow water to pos pass in the main channel many skeletons and fragments of bodies were found in the opening this channel will take the overflow from the lower part of johnstown proper 9 ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT HARRISON HABBISON following is a washington dispatch dated june 4 in response to a call all issued by the commissioners of the district of columbia a public meeting to devise means for aiding sufferers by the flood at johnstown and vicinity was held this afternoon the meeting was called to order by commissioner douglass Dou glasa who introduced trod president harrison harrisod Harri soi as the presiding officer of tire the meeting upon taking the chair the president said everyone here today is distressingly conscious of the circumstances which have convened this meeting it would be impossible to state more impressively than the newspapers have already done the distressing incident which has fallen upon the city of johnstown and neighboring hamlets and a large section of pennsylvania situated on the susquehanna Busque banna river the grim pencil of dore would be inadequate to portray the horrors of this visitation in such a meeting as behave we have here in the national capital and other like gatherings that are taking place in the cities of this land we have only the eyes of hope and light in the general gloom when such calamities and visitations fall upon auy any section of our country we can do no more than throw about the dark picture ture a golden border of clig charity rity applause X a use it to is in such affairs as ap these e ese s e that the brotherhood of man Is welded and where is sympathy and help hek more appropriate a roa thanin than in the batic national inal calud it I 1 am riad lad to say that early this morning 0 that city not long ago tailed bf by pestilence |
