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قراءة كتاب History of the Johnstown Flood Including all the Fearful Record; the Breaking of the South Fork Dam; the Sweeping Out of the Conemaugh Valley; the Over-Throw of Johnstown; the Massing of the Wreck at the Railroad Bridge; Escapes, Rescues, Searches for Su
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History of the Johnstown Flood Including all the Fearful Record; the Breaking of the South Fork Dam; the Sweeping Out of the Conemaugh Valley; the Over-Throw of Johnstown; the Massing of the Wreck at the Railroad Bridge; Escapes, Rescues, Searches for Su
HISTORY
OF
The Johnstown Flood.
INCLUDING
ALL THE FEARFUL RECORD; THE BREAKING OF THE SOUTH FORK DAM;
THE SWEEPING OUT OF THE CONEMAUGH VALLEY; THE OVER-THROW
OF JOHNSTOWN; THE MASSING OF THE WRECK AT
THE RAILROAD BRIDGE; ESCAPES, RESCUES, SEARCHES
FOR SURVIVORS AND THE DEAD; RELIEF
ORGANIZATIONS, STUPENDOUS CHARITIES,
ETC., ETC.
WITH FULL ACCOUNTS ALSO OF THE
DESTRUCTION ON THE SUSQUEHANNA AND JUNIATA RIVERS, AND THE
BALD EAGLE CREEK.
BY
WILLIS FLETCHER JOHNSON.
ILLUSTRATED.
EDGEWOOD PUBLISHING CO.,
1889.
Copyright, 1889, by
WILLIS FLETCHER JOHNSON.
PREFACE.
The summer of 1889 will ever be memorable for its appalling disasters by flood and flame. In that period fell the heaviest blow of the nineteenth century—a blow scarcely paralleled in the histories of civilized lands. Central Pennsylvania, a centre of industry, thrift and comfort, was desolated by floods unprecedented in the records of the great waters. On both sides of the Alleghenies these ravages were felt in terrific power, but on the western slope their terrors were infinitely multiplied by the bursting of the South Fork Reservoir, letting out millions of tons of water, which, rushing madly down the rapid descent of the Conemaugh Valley, washed out all its busy villages and hurled itself in a deadly torrent on the happy borough of Johnstown. The frightful aggravations which followed the coming of this torrent have waked the deepest sympathies of this nation and of the world, and the history is demanded in permanent form, for those of the present day, and for the generation to come.
CONTENTS.
| CHAPTER I. | |
|---|---|
| The Conemaugh Valley in Springtime—Johnstown and its Suburbs—Founded a Hundred Years ago—The Cambria Iron Works—History of a Famous Industry—American Manufacturing Enterprise Exemplified—Making Bessemer Steel—Social and Educational Features—The Busiest City of its Size in the State, | 15 |
| CHAPTER II. | |
| Conemaugh Lake—Remains of an Old-time Canal System—Used for the Pleasure of Sportsmen—The Hunting and Fishing Club—Popular Distrust Growing into Indifference—The Old Cry of “Wolf!”—Building a Dam of Straw and Mud—Neglect Ripening into Fitness for a Catastrophe, | 31 |
| CHAPTER III. | |
| Dawning of the Fatal Day—Darkness and Rain—Rumors of Evil—The Warning Voice Unheeded—A Whirlwind of Watery Death—Fate of a Faithful Telegrapher—What an Eye-Witness Saw—A Solid Wall of Water Rushing Down the Valley, | 42 |
| CHAPTER IV. | |
| The Pathway of the Torrent—Human Beings Swept away like Chaff—The Twilight of Terror—The Wreck of East Conemaugh—Annihilation of Woodvale—Locomotives Tossed about like Cockle-shells by the mighty Maelstrom, | 51 |
| CHAPTER V. | |
| “Johnstown is Annihilated”—Appearance of the Wreck—An Awful Sabbath Spectacle—A Sea of Mud and Corpses—The City in a Gigantic Whirlpool—Strange Tokens of the Fury of the Flood—Scene from the Bridge—Sixty Acres of Débris—A Carnival of Slaughter, | 66 |
| CHAPTER VI. | |
| Pictures of the Flood Drawn by Eye-witnesses—A Score of Locomotives Swallowed up—Railroad Cars Swept away—Engineers who would not Abandon their Posts—Awful Scenes from a Car Window—A Race for Life—Victims of the Flood, | 81 |
| CHAPTER VII. | |
| Some Heroes of the Flood—The Ride of Collins Graves at Williamsburg Recalled—John G. Parke’s Heroic Warning—Gallant Self-Sacrifice of Daniel Peyton—Mrs. Ogle, the Intrepid Telegraph Operator—Wholesale Life Saving by Miss Nina Speck, | 97 |
| CHAPTER VIII. | |
| Stories of Suffering—A Family Swept away at a Stroke—Beside a Sister’s Corpse—A Bride Driven Mad—The Unidentified Dead—Courage in the Face of Death—Thanking God his Child had not Suffered—One Saved out of a Household of Thirteen—Five Saved out of Fifty-Five, | 106 |
| CHAPTER IX. | |
| Stories of Railroad Men and Travelers who were in the Midst of the Catastrophe—A Train’s Race with the Wave—Houses Crushed like Eggshells—Relics of the Dead in the Tree tops—A Night of Horrors—Fire and Flood Commingled—Lives Lost for the | |