History of the Johnstown Flood Part 21

"Mrs. Ranney and I were on one of the trains at Conemaugh when the flood came. There was but a moment's warning and the disaster was upon us. The occupants of our car rushed for the door, where Mrs. Ranney and I became separated. She was one of the first to jump, and I saw her run and disappear behind the first house in sight. Before I could get out the deluge was too high, and, with a number of others, I remained in the car. Our car was lifted up and dashed against a car loaded with stone and badly wrecked, but most of the occupants of this car were rescued.

As far as I know all who jumped from the car lost their lives. The remainder of the train was swept away. I searched for days for Mrs.

Ranney, but could find no trace of her. I think she perished. The mind cannot conceive the awful sight presented when we first saw the danger.

The approaching wall of water looked like Niagara, and huge engines were caught up and whirled away as if they were mere wheel-barrows."

D. B. c.u.mmins, of Philadelphia, the President of the Girard National Bank, was one of the party of four which consisted of John Scott, Solicitor-General of the Pennsylvania Railroad; Edmund Smith, ex-Vice-President of the same company; and Colonel Welsh himself, who had been stopping in the country a few miles back of Williamsport.

Mr. c.u.mmins, in talking of the condition of things in that vicinity and of his experience, said: "We were trout-fishing at Anderson's cabin, about fourteen miles from Williamsport, at the time the flood started.

We went to Williamsport, intending to take a train for Philadelphia. Of course, when we got there we found everything in a frightful condition, and the people completely disheartened by the flood. Fortunately the loss of life was very slight, especially when compared with the terrible disaster in Johnstown. The loss, from a financial standpoint, will be very great, for the city is completely inundated, and the lumber industry seriously crippled. Besides, the stagnation of business for any length of time produces results which are disastrous."

[Ill.u.s.tration: FOURTEENTH STREET, WASHINGTON, D. C., IN THE FLOOD.]

The first pa.s.sengers that came from Altoona to New York by the Pennsylvania Railroad since the floods included five members of the "Night Off" Company, which played in Johnstown on Thursday night, about whom considerable anxiety was felt for some time, till E. A. Eberle received telegrams from his wife, the contents of which he at once gave to the press. Mrs. Eberle was among the five who arrived.

"No words can tell the horrors of the scenes we witnessed," she said in answer to a request for an account of her experiences, "and nothing that has been published can convey any idea of the awful havoc wrought in those few but apparently never-ending minutes in which the worst of the flood pa.s.sed us.

"Our company left Johnstown on Friday morning. We only got two miles away, as far as Conemaugh, when we were stopped by a landslide a little way ahead. About noon we went to dinner, and soon after we came back some of our company noticed that the flood had extended and was washing away the embankment on which our train stood. They called the engineer's attention to the fact, and he took the train a few hundred feet further.

It was fortunate he did so, for a little while after the embankment caved in.

"Then we could not move forward or backward, as ahead was the landslide and behind there was no track. Even then we were not frightened, and it was not till about three o'clock, when we saw a heavy iron bridge go down as if it were made of paper, that we began to be seriously alarmed.

Just before the dam broke a gravel train came tearing down, with the engine giving out the most awful shriek I ever heard. Every one recognized that this was a note of warning. We fled as hard as we could run down the embankment, across a ditch, and for a distance equal to about two blocks up the hillside. Once I turned to look at the vast wall of water, but was hurried on by my friends. When I had gone about the distance of another block the head of the flood had pa.s.sed far away, and with it went houses, cars, locomotives, everything that a few minutes before had made up a busy scene. The wall of water looked to be fifty feet high. It was of a deep yellow color, but the crest was white with foam.

"Three of us reached the house of Mrs. William Wright, who took us in and treated us most kindly. I did not take any account of time, but I imagine it was about an hour before the water ceased to rush past the house. The conductor of our train, Charles A. Wartham, behaved with the greatest bravery. He took a crippled pa.s.senger on his back in the rush up the hill. A floating house struck the cripple, carried him away and tore some of the clothes off Wartham's back, and he managed to struggle on and save himself. Our ride to Ebensburg, sixteen miles, in a lumber wagon without springs, was trying, but no one thought of complaining.

Later in the day we were sent to Cresson and thence to Altoona."

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

No travelers in an upheaved and disorganized land push through with more pluck and courage than the newspaper correspondents. Accounts have already been given of some of their experiences. A writer in the New York _Times_ thus told of his, a week after the events described:

"A man who starts on a journey on ten minutes' notice likes the journey to be short, with a promise of success and of food and clothes at its end. Starting suddenly a week ago, the _Times's_ correspondent has since had but a small measure of success, a smaller measure of food, and for nights no rest at all; a long tramp across the Blue Hills and Allegheny Mountains, behind jaded horses; helping to push up-hill the wagon they tried to pull or to lift the vehicle up and down bridges whose approaches were torn away, or in and out of fords the pathways to which had disappeared; and in the blackness of the night, scrambling through gullies in the pike road made by the storm, paved with sharp and treacherous rocks and traversed by swift-running streams, whose roar was the only guide to their course. All this prepared a weary reporter to welcome the bed of straw he found in a Johnstown stable loft last Monday, and on which he has reposed nightly ever since.

"And let me advise reporters and other persons who are liable to sudden missions to out-of-the-way places not to wear patent leather shoes. They are no good for mountain roads. This is the result of sad experience.

Wetness and stone bruises are the benisons they confer on feet that tread rough paths.

"The quarter past twelve train was the one boarded by the _Times's_ correspondent and three other reporters on their way hither a week ago Friday night. It was in the minds of all that they would get as far as Altoona, on the Pennsylvania Road, and thence by wagon to this place.

But all were mistaken. At Philadelphia we were told that there were wash-outs in many places and bridges were down everywhere, so that we would be lucky if we got even to Harrisburg. This was harrowing news. It caused such a searching of time-tables and of the map of Pennsylvania as those things were rarely ever subjected to before. It was at last decided that if the Pennsylvania Railroad stopped at Harrisburg an attempt would be made to reach the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad at Martinsburg, West Virginia, by way of the c.u.mberland Railroad, a train on which was scheduled to leave Harrisburg ten minutes after the arrival of the Pennsylvania train.

"It was only too evident to us, long before we reached Harrisburg, that we would not get to the West out of that city. The Susquehanna had risen far over its banks, and for miles our train ran slowly with the water close to the fire-box of the locomotive and over the lower steps of the car platform. At last we reached the station. Several energetic Philadelphia reporters had come on with us from that lively city, expecting to go straight to Johnstown. As they left the train one cried: 'Hurrah, boys, there's White. He'll know all about it.' White stood placidly on the steps, and knew nothing more than that he and several other Philadelphia reporters, who had started Friday night, had got no further than the Harrisburg station, and were in a state of wonderment, leaving them to think our party caught.

"As the c.u.mberland Valley train was pulling out of the station, its conductor, a big, genial fellow, who seemed to know everybody in the valley, was loth to express an opinion as to whether we would get to Martinsburg. He would take us as far as he could, and then leave us to work out our own salvation. He could give us no information about the Baltimore and Ohio Road. Hope and fear chased one another in our midst; hope that trains were running on that road, and fear that it, too, had been stopped by wash-outs. In the latter case it seemed to us that we should be compelled to return to Harrisburg and sit down to think with our Philadelphia brethren.

"The c.u.mberland Valley train took us to Hagerstown, and there the big and genial conductor told us it would stay, as it could not cross the Potomac to reach Martinsburg. We were twelve miles from the Potomac and twenty from Martinsburg. Fortunately, a construction train was going to the river to repair some small wash-outs, and Major Ives, the engineer of the c.u.mberland Valley Road, took us upon it, but he smiled pitifully when we told him we were going across the bridge.

"'Why, man,' he said to the _Times's_ correspondent, 'the Potomac is higher than it was in 1877, and there's no telling when the bridge will go.'

"At the bridge was a throng of country people waiting to see it go down, and wondering how many more blows it would stand from foundering ca.n.a.l-boats, washed out of the Chesapeake and Ohio Ca.n.a.l, whose lines had already disappeared under the flood. A quick survey of the bridge showed that its second section was weakening, and had already bent several inches, making a slight concavity on the upper side.

"No time was to be lost if we were going to Martinsburg. The country people murmured disapproval, but we went on the bridge, and were soon crossing it on the one-foot plank that served for a footwalk. It was an unpleasant walk. The river was roaring below us. To yield to the fascination of the desire to look between the railroad ties at the foaming water was to throw away our lives. Then that fear that the tons of drift stuff piled against the upper side of the bridge, would suddenly throw it over, was a cause of anything but confidence. But we held our breath, balanced ourselves, measured our steps, and looked far ahead at the hills on the Western Virginia sh.o.r.e. At last the firm embankment was reached, and four reporters sent up one sigh of relief and joy.

"Finding two teams, we were soon on our way to Martinsburg.

"The Potomac was nine feet higher than it was ever known to be before, and it was out for more than a mile beyond the tracks of the c.u.mberland Valley Railroad at Falling Waters, where it had carried away several houses. This made the route to Martinsburg twice as long as it otherwise would have been. To weary, anxious reporters it seemed four times as long, and that we should never get beyond the village of Falling Waters.

It confronted us at every turn of the crooked way, until it became a source of pain. It is a pretty place, but we were yearning for Johnstown, not for rural beauty.

"All roads have an end, and Farmer Sperow's teams at last dragged us into Martinsburg. Little comfort was in store for us there. No train had arrived there for more than twenty-four hours. Farmer Sperow was called on to take us back to the river, our instructions being to cross the bridge again and take a trip over the mountains. Hope gave way to utter despair when we learned that the bridge had fallen twenty minutes after our pa.s.sage. We had put ourselves into a pickle. Chief Engineer Ives and his a.s.sistant, Mr. Schoonmaker joined us a little while later. They had followed us across the bridge and been cut off also. They were needed at Harrisburg, and they backed up our effort to get a special train to go to the Shenandoah Valley Road's bridge, twenty-five miles away, which was reported to be yet standing.

"The Baltimore and Ohio officials were obdurate. They did not know enough about the tracks to the eastward to experiment with a train on them in the dark. They promised to make up a train in the morning.

Wagons would not take us as soon. A drearier night was never pa.s.sed by men with their hearts in their work. Morning came at last and with it the news that the road to the east was pa.s.sable nearly to Harper's Ferry. Lots of Martinsburg folks wanted to see the sights at the Ferry, and we had the advantage of their society on an excursion train as far as Shenandoah Junction, where Mr. Ives had telegraphed for a special to come over and meet us if the bridge was standing.

"The telegraph kept us informed about the movement of the train. When we learned that it had tested and crossed the bridge our joy was modified only by the fear that we had made fools of ourselves in leaving Harrisburg, and that the more phlegmatic Philadelphia reporters had already got to Johnstown. But this fear was soon dissipated. The trainman knew that Harrisburg was inundated and no train had gone west for nearly two days. A new fear took its place. It was that New York men, starting behind us, had got into Johnstown through Pittsburg by way of the New York Central and its connections. No telegrams were penned with more conflicting emotions surging through the writer than those by which the _Times's_ correspondent made it known that he had got out of the Martinsburg pocket and was about to make a wagon journey of one hundred and ten miles across the mountains, and asked for information as to whether any Eastern man had got to the scene of the flood.

"The special train took us to Chambersburg, where Superintendent Riddle, of the c.u.mberland Valley Road, had information that four Philadelphia men were on their way thither, and had engaged a team to take them on the first stage of the overland trip. A wild rush was made for Schiner's livery, and in ten minutes we were bowling over the pike toward McConnellsburg, having already sent thither a telegraphic order for fresh teams. The train from Harrisburg was due in five minutes when we started. As we mounted each hill we eagerly scanned the road behind for pursuers. They never came in sight.

"In McConnellsburg the entire town had heard of our coming, and were out to greet us with cheers. They knew our mission and that a party of compet.i.tors was tracking us. Landlord Prosser, of the Fulton Hotel, had his team ready, but said there had been an enormous wash-out near the Juniata River, beyond which he could not take us. We would have to walk through the break in the pike and cross the river on a bridge tottering on a few supports. Telegrams to Everett for a team to meet us beyond the river and take us to Bedford, and to the latter place for a team to make the journey across the Allegehenies to Johnstown settled all our plans.

"As well as we could make it out by telegraphic advices, we were an hour ahead of the Philadelphians. Ten minutes was not, therefore, too long for supper. Landlord Prosser took the reins himself and we started again, with a hurrah from the populace. As it was Sunday, they would sell us nothing, but storekeeper Young and telegraph operator Sloan supplied us with tobacco and other little comforts, our stock of which had been exhausted. It will gratify our Prohibition friends to learn that whisky was not among them. McConnellsburg is, unfortunately, a dry town for the time being. It was a long and weary pull to the top of Sidling Hill. To ease up on the team, we walked the greater part of the way. A short descent and a straight run took us to the banks of Licking Creek.

"Harrisonville was just beyond, and Harrisonville had been under a raging flood, which had weakened the props of the bridge and washed out the road for fifty feet beyond it. The only thing to do was to unhitch and lead the horses over the bridge and through the gully. This was difficult, but it was finally accomplished. The more difficult task was to get the wagon over. A long pull, with many strong lifts, in which some of the natives aided, took it down from the bridge and through the break, but at the end there were more barked shins and bruised toes than any other four men ever had in common.

"It was a quick ride from Everett to Bedford, for our driver had a good wagon and a speedy team. Arriving at Bedford a little after two o'clock in the morning, we found dispatches that cheered us, for they told us that we had made no mistake, and might reach the scene of disaster first. Only a reporter who has been on a mission similar to this can tell the joy imparted by a dispatch like this:

"'NEW YORK--n.o.body is ahead of you. Go it.'

"At four o'clock in the morning we started on our long trip of forty miles across the Alleghenies to Johnstown. Pleasantville was reached at half-past six A. M. Now the road became bad, and everybody but the driver had to walk. Footsore as we were, we had to clamber over rocks and through mud in a driving rain, which wet us through. For ten miles we went thus dismally. Ten miles from Johnstown we got in the wagon, and every one promptly went to sleep, at the risk of being thrown out at any time as the wagon jolted along. Tired nature could stand no more, and we slumbered peacefully until four half-drunken special policemen halted us at the entrance to Johnstown. Argument with them stirred us up, and we got into town and saw what a ruin it was."

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

Nor was the life of the correspondents at Johnstown altogether a happy one. The life of a newspaper man is filled with vicissitudes. Sometimes he feeds on the fat of the land, and at others he feeds on air; but as a rule he lives comfortably, and has as much satisfaction in life as other men. It may safely be a.s.serted, however, that such experiences as the special correspondents of Eastern papers have met with in Johnstown are not easily paralleled. When a war correspondent goes on a campaign he is prepared for hardship and makes provision against it. He has a tent, blankets, heavy overcoat, a horse, and other things which are necessaries of life in the open air. But the men who came hurrying to Johnstown to fulfill the invaluable mission of letting the world know just what was the matter were not well provided against the suffering set before them.

The first information of the disaster was sent out by the a.s.sociated Press on the evening of its occurrence. The destruction of wires made it impossible to give as full an account as would otherwise have been sent, but the dispatches convinced the managing editors of the wide-awake papers that a calamity destined to be one of the most fearful in all human history had fallen upon the peaceful valley of the Conemaugh. All the leading Eastern papers started men for Philadelphia at once. From Philadelphia these men went to Harrisburg. There were many able representatives in the party, and they are ready to wager large amounts that there was never at any place a crowd of newspaper men so absolutely and hopelessly stalled as they were there. Bridges were down and the roadway at many places was carried away.

Then came the determined and exhausting struggle to reach Johnstown. The stories of the different trips have been told. From Sat.u.r.day morning till Monday morning the correspondents fought a desperate battle against the raging floods, risking their lives again and again to reach the city. At one place they footed it across a bridge that ten minutes later went swirling down the mad torrent to instant destruction. Again they hired carriages and drove over the mountains, literally wading into swollen streams and carrying their vehicles across. Finally one party caught a Baltimore and Ohio special train and got into Johnstown.

It was Monday. There was nothing to eat. The men were exhausted, hungry, thirsty, sleepy. Their work was there, however, and had to be done.

Where was the telegraph office? Gone down the Conemaugh Valley to hopeless oblivion. But the duties of a telegraph company are as imperative as those of a newspaper. General Manager Clark, of Pittsburgh, had sent out a force of twelve operators, under Operator Munson as manager _pro tem._, to open communications at Johnstown. The Pennsylvania Railroad rushed them through to the westerly end of the fatal bridge. Smoke and the pall of death were upon it. Ruin and devastation were all around. To get wires into the city proper was out of the question. Nine wires were good between the west end of the bridge and Pittsburgh. The telegraph force found, just south of the track, on the side of the hill overlooking the whole scene of Johnstown's destruction, a miserable hovel which had been used for the storage of oil barrels. The interior was as dark as a tomb, and smelled like the concentrated essence of petroleum itself. The floor was a slimy ma.s.s of black grease. It was no time for delicacy. In went the operators with their relay instruments and keys; out went the barrels. Rough shelves were thrown up to take copy on, and some old chairs were subsequently secured. Tallow dips threw a fitful red glare upon the scene. The operators were ready.

Toward dusk ten haggard and exhausted New York correspondents came staggering up the hillside. They found the entire neighborhood infested with Pittsburgh reporters, who had already secured all the good places, such as they were, for work, and were busily engaged in wiring to their offices awful tales of Hungarian depredations upon dead bodies, and lynching affairs which never occurred. One paper had eighteen men there, and others had almost an equal number. The New York correspondents were in a terrible condition. Some of them had started from their offices without a change of clothing, and had managed to buy a flannel shirt or two and some footwear, including the absolutely necessary rubber boots, on the way. Others had no extra coin, and were wearing the low-cut shoes which they had on at starting. One or two of them were so worn out that they turned dizzy and sick at the stomach when they attempted to write.

But the work had to be done. Just south of the telegraph office stands a two-story frame building in a state of dilapidation. It is flanked on each side by a shed, and its lower story, with an earth floor, is used for the storage of fire bricks. The second-story floor is full of great gaps, and the entire building is as draughty as a seive and as dusty as a country road in a drought. The a.s.sociated Press and the _Herald_ took the second floor, the _Times_, _Tribune_, _Sun_, _Morning Journal_, _World_, Philadelphia _Press_, Baltimore _Sun_, and Pittsburgh _Post_ took possession of the first floor, using the sheds as day outposts.

Some old barrels were found inside. They were turned up on end, some boards were picked up outdoors and laid on them, and seats were improvised out of the fire-bricks. Candles were borrowed from the telegraph men, who were hammering away at their instruments and turning pale at the prospect, and the work of sending dispatches to the papers began.

Not a man had a.s.suaged his hunger. Not a man knew where he was to rest.

All that the operators could take, and a great deal more, was filed, and then the correspondents began to think of themselves. Two tents, a colored cook, and provisions had been sent up from Pittsburgh for the operators. The tents were pitched on the side of the hill, just over the telegraph "office," and the colored cook utilized the natural gas of a brick-kiln just behind them. The correspondents procured little or nothing to eat that night. Some of them plodded wearily across the Pennsylvania bridge and into the city, out to the Baltimore and Ohio tracks, and into the car in which they had arrived. There they slept, in all their clothing, in miserably-cramped positions on the seats. In the morning they had nothing to wash in but the polluted waters of the Conemaugh. Others, who had no claim on the car, moved to pity a night watchman, who took them to a large barn in Cambria City. There they slept in a hay-loft, to the tuneful piping of hundreds of mice, the snorting of horses and cattle, the nocturnal dancing of dissipated rats, and the solemn rattle of cow chains.