USA > Iowa > Dubuque County > The history of Dubuque County, Iowa : containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, etc. > Part 58
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The damage done to property is estimated as follows :
Horn's house, destroyed. $ 6,000
Horn's stock of goods. 10,000
Blenkiron's stock of goods. 2,000
J. Becker's place. 3,000
Klassen's place.
2,000
Carey's house.
1,000
Hotel.
2,500
Blenkiron's house and Kapp's residence.
2,000
F. Coate's blacksmith-shop.
1,000
Mill barn and damage to dam and race.
3.000
It is said that $60,000 will not more than equal the value of the property destroyed. The damage to the railroad by washing away of the bridge, and the destruction of the road-bed for over half a mile below the lower bridge, could not even be guessed at. Some idea of the volume of water that rushed down may be known from the fact that parts of house-roof were piled up on the railroad bridge. Below for a mile and a half the bank was lined with the wrecked part of houses, a picture of desolation and waste not often seen any- where. Dollars and cents will repair all that, but they cannot bring back the thirty-nine lives that were lost.
Messrs. Coates, Kistler and Sullivan were on the ground all day doing all they could to help in the recovery of the bodies. They provided domestic and other essentials, and will take charge of the friendless dead. Mayor Burch went out in the morning with his own force of men, and put them to work with instructions to stay while they could be of any assistance. About a dozen skiffs were brought from town, and a number of axes, and early in the day a force of nearly fifty men with charitable hearts and willing hands were search- ing the ruins of houses, the water, the mud, the brush and every spot that gave them a hope that a lost one might be found. It would afford us pleasure to mention some of the noble men and women who searched and toiled all day as ministering angels to those who were helpless, but we should have to name too many. The Odd Fellows' committees were there from different lodges to look after lost members, of whom there were some.
The time of the sad occurrence is placed between 1 and 2 o'clock, and Mr. Kingsley, who appears to have been a good witness of the whole affair, says that not more than thirty minutes elapsed from the taking of the first house until the last one was gone. Such a complete ruin, in such a brief time, was never before seen. The ravenous storm took all there was to take, and that the loss of life, terrible as it was, was not greater, is simply because there were no more houses to be swallowed. Among all those who lived there but few survive to tell the horrid story. Mr. Kingsley, Martin Carey, Lambert Hinkle and John Harker were saved by catching on trees, where they stayed until daylight. The little Kapp boys owe their preservation to the piece of passing roof and a tree, and the little five-year-old, sole survivor of the Klassen family, passed through
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HISTORY OF DUBUQUE COUNTY.
the wildest surrounding of deatlı on a mad current, where it did not seem possible for a human being to survive, and was saved by a plank. Such are the strange happenings at such a time. The strong father is swept to death in a house, and the tender little boy is saved on a plank in the howling, foam-flecked water. Mr. Pearce and his family were on their way home from town, where they had been during the daytime celebration, and delayed at Mr. Becker's for the storm to pass over. It never passed over them. Within ear-shot of their own home they met deatlı. In the morning it was feared that Mrs. Blenkiron and her sister had been lost, but fortunately they had left their doomed liouse while there was yet time. Her husband gave her the books of the store and told her to go to her mother's, on Grandview avenue, as fast as she could. She and her sister went, wading through water to their knees for some distance. Her husband, singularly enough, remained and was lost. When found, he was a short distance below the mill, holding tightly to the limb of a bush. Had he abandoned his store when he sent his wife he might have been saved.
All this is fearful to contemplate. The loss of property in various shapes is fearful, but it is nothing in comparison with the loss of life. This is the third time the dam has been swept away, once in 1852, in 1857 and now. In 1857, two lives were lost. It is not likely that the village will ever be rebuilt, for this is too dreadful an experiment to be forgotten. The area that is drained by the creek that pours its flood over the Catfish dam, is of many miles, and gathers quantities of water vast enough to be terrible when they are let loose. It will be a long while before this will be forgotten, and it will be a long while before the thousands of our people who visited that scene of desolation, will forget the ruined houses, destroyed stocks of goods, dead men, women and children, upon whom they looked. God grant no one may ever look upon the like again, and God be merciful to the very few who are left to mourn the many who went beneath the water yesterday, and go beneath the earth to-day.
THE STORM IN DUBUQUE.
In the upper end of the city, the first thing one naturally speaks of is ill- starred Seventeenth street, which was gullied and gouged to such an extent that all former damage there seems not worth mentioning in comparison. It is barely possible to cross it with a horse and buggy, coming from Madison on to Main-there being on the lower side a hole three feet deep, reaching to the middle of Main street. The sidewalk in front of S. Root's residence was some- what torn up, and the street more so. H. T. Woodman's yard was infringed upon at one corner, and half the steps leading from the yard to the street are torn away, while below is left a chasm of eight or ten feet. But it is in front of the seminary that the worst ruin is wrought. Of the stone wall in front of the seminary, not a trace was left. Instead thereof, was a great gulf, up to the foundation wall of the "Blue Church "-a chasm over a hundred feet wide and between thirty-five and forty feet deep. The chasm reached to within ten feet of the seminary wall, and the face of the precipice was perpendicular for twenty feet, after that sloping somewhat to the bottom-and the bottom is fifteen feet below where the surface of Seventeenth street was when it was a street. Of the stone work that had been started on Seventeenth street as the foundation for an improvement, of course not a trace was left-not even of the ground upon which it was laid, for many a foot deep. It looked as if the sem- inary itself would come down with another storm half as severe as the last. Great gullies extended for rods into the lots on the south side of the street, in some cases six, eight or ten feet deep. Fortunately, the foundation of the
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HISTORY OF DUBUQUE COUNTY.
" Blue Church " is not cut under any farther than it was before. Seminary street, coming down by the east side of the seminary, was gullied so as to be impassable by teams, and the sidewalks and steps leading from it to Seven- teenth, remained extending into vacant air, twenty feet above the chasm below, for a while, and then fell. The house occupied by Mrs. McKay, southwest corner of Main and Clay, was there, but none of its four corners were on a level with any other, and the water, sand and floating filth swept through at a ruinous rate. The same with the little store occupied by Mrs. Probst, who, by flood and fire and death, suffered losses enough without this, which ruined everything, not on shelves, that was ruinable in the cellar and house.
The street-car track, where it crossed Seventeenth street, was buried under between two and three feet of sand, for several rods each way, except under the middle of the street, where a gulley had been cut that had to be bridged before the cars could cross.
On the southeast corner of Clay and Seventeenth, A. Stine's stone building took in as much water and mud as its cellar could hold, and a foot or two on its first floor. The proprietor, during the night, held the door while two and one-half feet of water raged outside.
Across the way, the house of Mr. Kueniker, the butcher, was twisted, gut- ted and filled with rocks and mud.
Passing on toward the foot of Fourteenth street, all the cellars were filled, and other damage done. Near the foot of the street, some strect-sprinkler's wagon stood, the wheels and body covered with sand, only the tub being visible -a ridiculous centennial sphynx.
To return to the starting-point, at the corner of Main and Seventeenth street. The flood swept over Joseph Herod's grass plat and flower garden, several feet deep, the high-water mark being visible more than half-way up his high board fence, which was on the lean everywhere, having been gullied under here and there. The trees and tree-boxes in front of his house, and a part of the sidewalk, were probably somewhere between that and the river. His flower beds were under an accumulation of root and rubbish. A part of the founda- tion of one of his out-houses was washed out ; a door leading to his cellar was forced in, and the cellar filled; and from that the water made its way into Elder Bingham's cellar, doing some little damage, of which, under the circum- stances, he was not disposed to make any complaint.
Across the alley from Herod's, on the south side of Seventeenth street, lived Mrs. Tierney, whose cellar was filled till the water ran over the floor above, doing considerable damage.
On the north side of Seventeenth, between Main and Locust, were the house, garden and greenhouse of Mr. Becket, which are ruined ayain. For year after year he had expended upon them infinite labor and patient industry. Year after year he had been washed out by the flood accumulating above, till last year he built around nearly the whole of his place a solid stone wall, several feet high-a foot or so higher than the highest flood ever known in this valley- and one of his neighbors stated, that when he finished it he remarked that " there was a wall that God Almighty couldn't wash out; " but it was scarcely a moment's impediment to that torrent which swept over it and swept parts of it away. Fragments of his glass-covered greenhouses were visible here and there on the flats, half a mile to a mile away.
Mineral street is the one commencing at the junction of Seventeenth and Locust, and running up Blake's Hollow and out toward West Dubuque, at the southwest side of Seminary Hill. The most of this hollow was under water
490
HISTORY OF DUBUQUE COUNTY.
from five to ten feet, in fact, was one broad lake, above the surface of which not the tops of the pickets of the fences -even where the fences were not carried away -were to be seen. At that terrible midnight, by the brightness of the almost uninterrupted lightning, a vast sheet of water was to be seen, covered with fences, sidewalks, pig-pens, outbuildings (some overturned and partially demolished, some carried off as complete as they had stood upon the ground), uprooted shade trees and other trees, tree-boxes, wagon-boxes, cordwood, garden vegetables, cistern tops, with an occasional sawhorse, cellar-door or croquet-mallet, went rushing and whirling by, while the squealing of drowning porkers, the clamor of perishing chickens, the lowing of terror-stricken cattle trying to make their way to safer ground, filled up the rare intervals between the rattling of heaven's dreadful artillery. The next morning the scene was one of almost unmitigated desolation. Every loss except loss of life had been sustained.
Mr. Compton's cellar was not only filled to overflowing, but the parlor was filled with three or four inches of water and mud. Fences mostly carried away. A cord of wood, purchased a day or two before, was borne off, not a stick left. In fact, nothing was left about the premises but the house.
Mrs. Morrissey's house, occupied by Mr. Griffin, was filled to the window sills. They woke to find the bureau afloat and tumbling about the room, and the bed held down only by their own weight.
Mrs. Shoemaker was awakened, as she lay in bed, by the feeling of "some- thing cold." She reached out her hand, and it went into the water. What a time she and her husband had in wading out may be imagined.
Mr. Hamell, living in Mr. Flick's house, west side of the street, awoke to find the cellar full and a foot of water on the next floor. Mr. Flick built the house on the supposition that it would be forever above the highest water.
Henry S. Hetherington had built his foundation wall, and the wall around his lot, so high that the highest water would not get over it. The flood came, and his cellar was filled in the twinkling of an eye. He managed to get out of it one tub and one can of coal oil, and then had to hurry out to save his own life. The water came to the studding upon which the floor above rested, within four inches of the surface of the living-rooms. He was not disposed to com- plain much of his loss-such vegetables as were in his cellar, soap, etc. His two cisterns, one containing 60 and the other 120 barrels, had to be emptied of the vilest filth that had accumulated in the back alleys of Blake's Hollow. Near the southwest corner of Mr. Hetherington's lot was a large tree, which withstood the torrent and stopped the drift-wood as it came down; thus de- prived of its velocity, it swung around against Mr. H.'s fence, which is bedded into a solid rock wall, and formed an accumulation of forty cords, more or less, of debris of all kinds.
A short distance beyond Mr. Hetherington's lived Capt. Benjamin Agard, in another handsome two story house. The account given of Mr. Hethering- ton's premises will do very well for these, except that Mr. Agard's family used the basement for a dining-room. The family liad left the table ready set Tuesday night. They didn't eat breakfast there Wednesday morning. When they visited the place Wednesday noon, the flood had subsided so that there was over a foot of space between the ceiling and the surface of the water, and there the table and dishes were floating. A portion of an "elbow," entering the chim- ney, prompted an inquiry, which resulted in the information that a P. P. Stewart cook-stove was down there when last heard from, and that we could probably find it if we chose to dive for it. Their two cisterns were also filled with filthy water. Mrs. Hewitt (Mrs. Agard's mother), who is one of the family,
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HISTORY OF DUBUQUE COUNTY.
seemed to grieve mainly over the loss of some fifty or sixty " blooded " chick- ens, which she had brought through the infantile perils of teething, measles, etc., only to perish by this calamity. Not one was left to tell its little tail.
These are merely a few instances of the condition of scores of houses in Blake's Hollow.
Langworthy Hollow is the valley next east of Blake's Hollow, at the eastern foot of Seminary Hill. The street was filled with the debris of sidewalks, bridges and buildings. Every bridge was carried away, and the streamlet along- side of it cut into it to the middle of the macadamized track in scores of places, and in other places cut clear through. A few rods from the lower end thereof was, across the sewer, the addition to a house, with roof and everything complete, except that it lay on its side. This is the kitchen to Mr. Kauffmann's house, which was to be found something over a quarter of a mile above, opposite Cush- ing's vinegar factory.
Cushing's vinegar factory suffered considerably. The bridges and other improvements in front of the building were swept away. The torrent burst in the basement doors, and one of the doors was found where it had floated against a wood-pile, out near the road. Then the basement floor overflowed, and a number of barrels of vinegar floated away-how many is not known, but five barrels thereof were found lying around loose in the vicinity, here and there. Between thirty and forty cords of wood were carried off.
Half a mile or a little less beyond the vinegar factory is-or was-a dairy, kept by a man whose name was Jaqueline. His barn, 120 feet long by 23 wide and 28 feet high, was carried away, and not one board left beside another. With it went and were lost a ton and a half of hay, a quantity of oats, three wagon boxes, his harness, three cords of wood, etc. His loss of live stock was only one animal of the kind that Sam Hussey would call a " steer," a three-months-old calf, and some pigs. Four horses floated down the street with the barn, but when it crashed to pieces they got loose from the wreck and escaped unhurt.
Couler avenue, at its southern commencement, showed few signs of devasta- tion ; but before one had gone more than a couple of blocks, the debris of side- walks, fences and buildings began to accumulate, and the street was one scene of wreck and desolation. 'The most of the sidewalks on both sides were torn up. All along, the men, women and children, with pumps and pails, were clearing the cellars of the water and mud which had washed into them. Some of the houses were deluged so suddenly that the inmates barely escaped with their lives. All this region, clear to the river, was under water-in some places five or six feet. The market gardens were almost ruined-sometimes two feet of sand and mud being plastered on top of the growing vegetables. In front of Music Hall, and again in front of the Iowa Brewery, immense piles of lumber, fences and similar debris had lodged, until it was impossible for teams to pass till the rubbish had been cleared away. Somewhere between twenty and forty cords of such debris found a resting-place in the lower corner of Tivoli garden, around which but about two rods of fencing was left.
Ohde, the cooper, had a sad scene of destruction to look upon ; the sidewalk floated against the fence and knocked it over; and the beautiful garden was utterly ruined; it was worse than ruined, it was not there at all. The very soil on which it had been, was swept away. Jacob Althauser, cooper, had just finished a large number of beer kegs, which he was to ship the next day; they were swept, heaven knows where-if heaven knows anything about beer kegs. His loss was about $400, besides loss to his garden. By the side of the brick building constituting the street-car headquarters, stood the huge wagon
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HISTORY OF DUBUQUE COUNTY.
which carried to the celebration the girls who represented the thirty-seven States; it was canted up at an angle unpleasant to the eye, and the mud had accumulated around it to a level with the hubs. Peter Specht's cellar, in which was stored a portion of his groceries, was flooded, causing a loss of $175. Glab's cellars were filled with a muddy mixture; but by way of compensation, a haystack from Collins' place, some distance above, floated down bodily on to Glab's premises, without tipping over or losing the symmetry of its form in transit. Charles Klingenberg's grocery cellar was filled-some lard spoiled, but he considered his loss not worth mentioning. Heeb's cellar was filled full, over- flowing the floor of the bar-room. The cellar contained nothing of any account to be injured, but it took the rest of the week to pump it dry and clean it out. The fences at the corner of IIeeb's lot were gone, and any quantity of rubbish piled there or thereabouts. John Heim's brickyard was completely wrecked. He lost 75,000 brick in kiln, and 40,000 finished. The yard was washed out in several places, and required at least two weeks' labor to put it in good order. Besides this, Mr. Heim's cellar was filled, and a large stock of liquors and provisions destroyed; also a quantity of hay, vegetables, etc., the whole amounting to well on toward $1,000. Mr. Houp's residence was moved five or six feet froin its foundation. Mrs. Keck's fences were carried away, and gardens covered with debris. She thought she had lost $150. Otto Klein's groceries were damaged to the amount of $250. C. Ohde's fence and gardens, $100. John Fuselman the same. W. Riemnan's garden was completely cov- ered with mud and rocks from the hill, and his fence and sidewalks were mis- placed, while his tannery was badly damaged and liquors destroyed. In order to save the lives of his children, he was obliged to carry them across the street to a neighbor. Damage, $250. The garden of Mr. Kusch (the old man with the dog team) was almost entirely washed out, causing him a loss of about $100. Mr. and Mrs. George Vogle. living opposite Glab's, woke up about 1 o'clock to find their dwelling flooded and the furniture floating about the room. They managed to escape from the house and took refuge on a fence, from which they were rescued by Mr. Glab. Their loss is about $200. Mr. Glab's loss on furniture, clothes, provisions, etc., is about $500. A large barn back of the brewery was moved two or three feet from its foundation. Robert Thompson estimated the damage to his household furniture and garden at $100. About $300 damage was done to the property of Mrs. C. Ernst, a widow. All the fences and sidewalks were carried away, and her house flooded. Adolph Klee's fences were carried off, and his garden damaged to the extent of $100. S. H. Lampson's place was also considerably damaged, fences and sidewalks being carried away, and his barn moved twenty feet from its founda- tion. The favorite and valuable horse, "Billy O'Neill" was in the barn, and when help reached him was standing in nearly three feet of water; to save him he was brought into Mr. Lampson's house until the flood subsided. A horse was found in front of Rhen's saloon, hitched to his feeding-trough, with no label on either horse or trough to indicate to whom they belonged. They may have come from Peru Bottom or Bellevue. There is nothing impossible of belief with regard to this centennial storm. The above are but so many cases out of hundreds of similar ones that might be given of the condition of things on Couler avenue.
Eagle Point avenue was found in a similar condition, sidewalks everywhere except where they were originally built; cellars and basements being pumped out ; gardens torn up or flooded over with sand; fences broken down; the road guttered till in places it was impassable ; one gash, a furlong beyond the
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HISTORY OF DUBUQUE COUNTY.
Fifth Ward Schoolhouse, being five or six feet deep. The bridge over the small stream just west of the schoolhouse, at the end of which H. Mueller's grocery was located, was impassable until cleared of its pile of rubbish-old roots, beer kegs, cornstalks, potato-tops, shade trees, etc.
On the low lands toward the C., D. & M. railroad-shops, the water was deeper, and the only reason the destruction was not worse was simply that this part of the city, because it does lie low, is not so thickly inhabited. At H. Meyer's, northwest corner of Jackson and Nineteenth streets, three pumps were at work. Diagonally across, on the southeast corner, a lamp-post was broken over, the fence driven in, and the garden ruined. Near this same cor- ner we found a well curb and windlass, sitting handsomely on a patch of green grass.
The boards, brush, hay, garden truck, etc., floating down with the current, soon clogged the culverts under the river railroad track, and the low lands to the landward were covered to the level with the rails, leaving a broad expanse of "back-water " extending up to White street, in some places two feet deep on Jackson street, three and a half to four feet deep on Washington street, and five or six feet deep between there and the railroad track. As may be surmised, the condition of things here was even worse, because the water was deeper than anywhere else in the city, in some instances pouring in through the windows and compelling the occupants to take refuge in the attic, for the structures here are mostly of an unpretentious character, about half of them boasting of neither cellar nor second story. In one of those which had a cellar, the man of the house and his son, the latter married and having a home of his own on the bluffs, but caught out at his father's on the night of the Fourth, hearing the storm, arose, and in the darkness the father started down the cellar to see whether any damage was being done. The cellar steps had become loosened at the bottom, and the cellar was nearly full of water that floated up. The father being unaware of this, when he put his weight on the cellar steps, down they went and down he went. The son heard the commo- tion, and, hearing nothing afterward, called for his father, but in vain. He knew the old man could not swim; and down plunged the son, raking with spread fingers amid the slime at the bottom for his father's hair or but the hem of a garment, by which to drag him to the surface. Again and again he went down, not waiting to take sufficient breath, in his fear for his father's life. In his horror and despair he hardly knew whether to be mad or glad when he heard the old man calling his name. The father had plunged through and succeeded in reaching the other side of the cellar, where he had raised the out- side door and so escaped drowning.
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