The Johnstown Horror!!! Part 28

Rapidly Burying the Dead.

The order that was issued last night that all unidentified dead be buried to-day is being rapidly carried out. The Rev. Mr. Beall, who has charge of the morgue at the Fourth ward school-house, which is the chief place, says that a large force of men has been put at work digging graves, and at the close of the afternoon the remains will be laid away as rapidly as it can be done.

In the midst of this scene of death and desolation, a relenting Providence seems to be exerting a subduing influence. Six days have elapsed since the great disaster, and the temperature still remains low and chilly in the Conemaugh Valley. When it is remembered that in the ordinary June weather of this locality from two to three days are sufficient to bring an unattended body to a state of decay and putrefaction that would render it almost impossible to prevent the spread of disease throughout the valley, the inestimable benefits of this cool weather are almost beyond appreciation.

The emanations from the half mile of debris above the bridge are but little more offensive than yesterday, and should this cool weather continue a few days longer it is possible hundreds of bodies may yet be recovered from the wreck in such a state of preservation as to render identification possible. Many hundreds of victims, however, will be roasted and charred into such shapeless ma.s.ses as to preclude a hope of recognition by their nearest relative.

Getting Down to Systematic Work.

The work of clearing up the wreck and recovering the bodies is now being done most systematically. Over six thousand men are at work in the various portions of the valley, and each little gang of twenty men is directed by a foreman, who is under orders from the general headquarters. As the rubbish is gone over and the bodies and scattered articles of value are recovered, the debris is piled up in one high ma.s.s and the torch applied. In this way the valley is a.s.suming a less devastated condition. In twenty-four hours more every ma.s.s of rubbish will probably have been searched, and the investigations will be confined to the smoking wreck above Johnstown bridge.

The Westmoreland Relief Committee complained of the Indiana county authorities for not having a committee to search the sh.o.r.es on that side for bodies. They say that all that is being done is by parties who are hunting for anything valuable they can find.

Up to two o'clock this afternoon only eight bodies had been taken out of the drift above the bridge. None of them was recognized. The work of pulling it out goes on very slowly. It has been suggested that a stationary engine should be planted on the east side of the pile and a rope and pulley worked on it.

The Keystone Hotel, a huge frame structure, was rapidly being pulled to pieces this morning, and when this has been done the work of taking out the bodies will be begun at this point.

The immense wreck will most undoubtedly yield up many bodies. The bodies of a woman and three children were taken from the debris in front of the First National Bank at ten o'clock this morning. The woman was the mother of the three children, ranging in age from one to five years, and she had them all clasped in her arms.

Booth & Flinn, the Pittsburgh contractors, have just put to work another large force of men. They have divided the town into districts, and the work is being conducted in a systematic manner. Main street is being rapidly opened up, and scores of bodies have been taken out this morning from under the Hurlburt House.

Only Found One of Her Family.

The first body taken from the ruins was that of a boy named Davis, who was found in the debris near the bridge. He was badly bruised and burned. The remains were taken to the undertaking rooms at the Pennsylvania Railroad station, where they were identified as those of William Davis. The boy's mother has been making a tour of the different morgues for the past few days, and was just going through the undertaking rooms when she saw the remains of her boy being brought in.

She ran up to the remains and demanded the child. She seemed to have lost her mind, and caused quite a scene by her actions. She stated that she had lost her husband and six children in the flood, and that this was the first one of the family that had been recovered. At the First Presbyterian Church, which is being used as a morgue, seventeen bodies taken from the debris and river have been brought in.

The relief corps from Altoona found a body near Stony Bridge this morning. On his person was found a gold watch and chain, and $250 in money, which was turned over to the proper authorities. This corps took out some thirty-two bodies or more from the ruins yesterday.

A.J. Hayes, whose wife's body was taken out of the river last night, had the body taken up into the mountains where he dug her grave and said:--"I buried all that is dear to me. As for myself I don't care how soon death overtakes me."

At quarter past one this afternoon, fifty bodies had been taken from the debris in front of the Catholic Church in Johnstown borough. About forty of the bodies were those of women. They were immediately removed to the morgue for identification.

Dr. Beall, who has the supervision of the morgues in Johnstown, said that so far 2,300 bodies had been recovered in Johnstown proper, most of which had been identified and buried.

Dynamite and Derricks Used.

At one o'clock this afternoon the use of dynamite was resumed to burst the logs so that the debris in the dam at the bridge can be loosened and floated down the river. The dynamite is placed in holes bored into the ma.s.sive timbers. When the log has been broken a chain is attached to its parts and it is then hoisted by a machine on the bridge and dropped into the current of the river. Contractor Kirk has abandoned the idea of constructing a dam to overflow the ma.s.s of ruins at the bridge. The water has fallen and cannot be raised to a serviceable height. A powerful windla.s.s has been constructed at a point about one hundred feet below the bridge, and a rope attached to it is fastened to logs at the edge of the debris. In this way the course between one of the six spans of the railroad bridge has been cleared out. Where dynamite has been used to burst the logs another span has been freed of the debris, a s.p.a.ce of about twenty by forty feet being cleared. The men are now well supplied with tools, but the force is not large enough to make rapid headway. It is believed that many more bodies will be found when the debris is loosened and started down the river.

Dynamite Tears the Bodies.

Thirteen bodies were taken from the burning debris at the stone bridge at one time this afternoon. None of the bodies were recognizable, and they were put in coffins and buried immediately. They were so badly decomposed that it was impossible to keep them until they could be identified. During a blast at the bridge this afternoon two bodies were almost blown to pieces. The blasting has had the effect of opening the channel under the central portion of the bridge.

In Unwholesome Company.

I came up here from Nineveh last night with the most disreputable crowd I ever traveled with. They were human buzzards flocking to the scene of horrors.

There was danger of a fight every moment, and if one had been started there is little doubt that it would have been short and b.l.o.o.d.y, for the conduct of the rowdy portion of the travellers had enraged the decent persons, to whom the thought of drunkenness and ribaldry at such a time was abhorrent, and they were quite ready to undertake the work of pitching the demoralized beings off the cars.

Wedged in here and there between intoxicated ruffians, who were indulging in the foulest jests about the corpses on which they were about to feast their eyes, were pale faced women, sad and red eyed, who looked as if they had had little sleep since the horrible collapse of the dam. Some of them were bound for Johnstown to claim and bring back bodies already identified, while others were on a trip for the ruins to commence a long and perhaps fruitless search for whatever might be left of their relatives. Some of those who misbehaved were friends of the lost, who, worn out with loss of sleep, had taken to drink and become madmen, but the greater part were merely sight-seers or robbers of the dead.

Avaricious Tramps.

There were many tramps whose avarice had been stimulated by hearing of diamond rings and watches found on the dead. There was one little drunken hunchback who told those in the car who listened to him that years ago he had quarrelled with his parents in Johnstown and had not seen them since. He was on the way now to see if anything was left of them. One moment he was in maudlin tears and the next he was cracking some miserable joke about the disaster. He went about the car shaking dice with other inebriated pa.s.sengers, and in the course of half an hour had won $6. Over this he exhibited almost the glee of a maniac, and the fate of his people was lost sight of. Then he would presently forget his gains and go sobbing up the aisle looking for listeners to his pitiful story.

There were two sinister looking Hungarians in the smoking car and their presence excited the anger of a handful of drunken maniacs. They made loud speeches, denouncing the conduct of Hungarians who robbed the Johnstown dead, levelling their remarks at the particular two. As they grew more excited they demanded that the pa.s.sengers make a move and lynch the fellows. A great deal of trouble would have ensued, doubtless, if the train had not at that moment stopped at Sang Hollow, four miles from Johnstown. The conductor shouted out that the pa.s.sengers must leave the car and walk along the track the remainder of the distance.

A Strange Procession.

We started out in the fast gathering darkness and the loiterers who held back made a long string. The drunken ruffians staggered along the tracks, howling with glee and talking about corpses, showing what their object was in coming. The tired out and disheartened women crowded under the shelter of the more respectable men. There was one member of the Pennsylvania National Guard in the troop with his bayonet, and he seemed to be the rallying point for the timid.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP OF THE DISTRICT SWEPT BY THE FLOOD.]

When the mob reached the outskirts of Johnstown they came across a little camp of military with outposts. I had been told that soldiers were keeping people who had no business there out of the lost city, and to insure my pa.s.sage through the lines I had procured an order from Mr.

McCreery, chairman of the Chamber of Commerce Committee at Pittsburgh, stating that I was ent.i.tled to go through. I knew that the drunken lunatics behind me could have no such doc.u.ments, and I imagined the soldiers would stop them. Nothing of the kind happened. Whole troops surged through the line. No pa.s.ses were asked from them and they showed none. They only quieted down for a moment when they saw the uniforms of the National Guard.

Reinforcing Disorder.

The mob merely helped to swell the host of thieves, cutthroats and pickpockets with which the region is infested.

The trains which had pa.s.sed us, going from Johnstown to Pittsburgh looked as if they might be made up of joyous excursionists. The cars were crowded to the platforms, and for some reason or other dozens of the inebriated pa.s.sengers thought it appropriate to cheer and yell, though G.o.d knows the whole surroundings were calculated to make a human being shed tears of anguish. The sight of the coffins in the baggage cars, some of them containing the dead, had no dampening effect upon the spirit of these roysterers.

The reaction from debauches and excitement is terrible, and there can be little doubt that many minds will give way under the strain. One of the wonders of the disaster is the absence of suicide and the apparently calm way in which the most wofully bereaved support themselves under their terrible loss. It must be an unnatural calm. Men have quietly told me that they have lost their entire families and then have suddenly changed the subject and talked of some absurdly trivial matter with an air of great interest, but it was easy to see that there was some numbing influence over the mechanism of the mind. It is unnatural and awful. It is almost impossible to realize that the troops of workmen leisurely digging in the ruins as if engaged in everyday employment are really digging for the dead, and it is only in the actual sight of death and its emblems that one can persuade one's self that it is all true.

The want of sleep conduces to an unnatural condition of the mind, under which these awful facts are bearable to the bereaved.

Picketing the Ruins.

It was like a military camp here last night. So many citizens have been knocked down and robbed that the soldiers had special instructions to see that no queer characters got through to the centre of the town. I had an excellent chance of seeing how impossible it was for an unauthorized person to move about the town easily, although he could get into the interior. I had been kindly invited to sleep on a wisp of hay in a neighboring barn, but being detained late in the valley reached the press headquarters after my host had left. It was a question of hunting shelter or sleeping on the ground.

A gentleman whom I met told me that he was living in a Baltimore and Ohio day pa.s.senger coach about a mile out, and that if we could find our way there I was welcome to a soft place on the floor. We spoke to the nearest picket. He told us that it would be madness to try to cross one part of the ground unless we had revolvers, because a gang of Huns were in hiding ready to knock down pa.s.sengers and hold up any one who seemed defenceless. However, after a little cogitating, he said that he would escort us to General Hastings' headquarters, and we started, picking our way over the remains of streets and pa.s.sing over great obstructions that had been left by the torrent. Ruin and wreck were on every hand. You could not tell where one street began and another left off, and in some places there was only soft mud, as devoid of evidence of the former presence of buildings as a meadow is, though they had been the sites of business blocks. It was washed clean.

A Weird Journey.

Our guide told us the details of the capture of five marauders who had been robbing the dead. They had cut off the head of a woman found in the debris to get her earrings. He said that a number of deputy sheriffs had declared that at dawn they would march to the place where the prisoners were and take them out and hang them. My military friend said that he and his comrades would not be particularly anxious to interfere. The scene as we picked our way was lighted up by camp fires, around which sat groups of deputy sheriffs in slouch hats. They were a grim looking set, armed with clubs and guns. A few had rifles and some wore revolvers in their belts in regular leather cowboy pockets. The camp fires were about two hundred yards apart and to pa.s.s them without being challenged was impossible. At the adjutant general's office we got a pa.s.s ent.i.tling us to pa.s.s the pickets, and bidding our guardsman good-night we started off escorted by a deputy sheriff. There were long lines of camp fires and every few rods we had to produce credentials. It was a pretty effect that was produced by the blazing logs. They lighted up the valley for some distance, throwing in relief the windowless ruins of what were once fine residences, bank buildings or factories. Embedded in the mud were packages of merchandise, such as sugar in barrels, etc., and over these we stumbled continually.

A Muddy Desert.