History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Vol. I, Part 138

Author: L.H. Everts & Co
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Philadelphia : Louis H. Everts
Number of Pages: 700

USA > Massachusetts > History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Vol. I > Part 138

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THE ALARM.

The reservoir was full. George Cheney was at his post of duty. It was his work to inspect the dam every morning. That morning about six o'clock he looked over the condition of affairs, and found them satisfactory. The gate was closed, as it had been for several days. The water was flowing over the waste-weir at the west end. He returned to the house, and the family sat down to breakfast. As they were finishing the meal a great noise was heard, and Cheney's father, who was standing by the window, exclaimed, " For God's sake, George, look there!" About 40 feet in length of the earthy portion of the dam upon the lower side beyond the gate was giving out, shooting down stream. Chency took in the situ- ation at a glance. Instantly he dashed down the bank and opened the gate full width, hoping to relieve the immense pressure. Pausing an instant, he saw portions of the exposed wall falling and streams of water foreing their way through. He was convinced the whole would give way soon. Hurrying to the barn, he threw a bridle upon his horse, and, springing upon the unsaddled animal, he began that wild ride which has passed into history. Dashing along the road that skirted the bank of the stream, and directly in the track of the coming flood, but fifteen minutes are said to have elapsed when he had passed over the three miles and reined up at the house of Mr. Spellman. Cheney said to him, " The reservoir is going." Spellman, who had seen it the night before and considered it safe, could not believe the frightened messenger, and replied, "No ; it can't be possible." A few minutes here lost by in- decision were full of peril; but, soon convinced that the dan- ger was real, he sent Cheney to Belcher's for a fresh horse to ride down and give the alarm. Collins Graves, on his morning ride delivering inilk, saw Cheney and Belcher, heard the frag- mentary story the former was telling, and replied, " If the dam is breaking, the folks below must know it," and drove out for Haydenville. The Williamsburg bells were rung at a quarter before eight o'clock. About fifteen minutes, it is supposed, elapsed between the time Cheney reached Spellman's and the time when Graves started.

Graves made directly for the manufactories, supposing others would easily hear the warning, but the operatives would be prevented by the noise of the machinery. At Skinnerville he was but a short time ahead of the flood, though he himself was not aware of that fact. At Haydenville there was less time, but it sufficed to save many lives that must have other- wise perished. Here, Myron Day, seated in a light wagon, catching the word from Collins Graves or others, and seeing the flood itself above the brass-works, started on the instant for Leeds. Lashing his horse into a foam, he barely kept ahead of the seething waves, until, dashing into the defile

LITTLE

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CYRUS MILLER is a grandson of John Miller, the first settler of Williamsburg. The history of the latter is very fully given in connection with the general sketch of the town. John Miller had three sons, Stephen, Cyrus, John, and one daughter, Mrs. Asa Wright, of Northampton.

This early pioneer lived for a year or two in the log house first erected by him, and then built a larger one. In the year 1735 he erected the house that until recently stood upon the old farm, and this is said to have been the first frame house in town. John Miller died Sept. 7, 1792, aged eighty years. His wife, Martha, died Nov. 24, 1805, aged eighty-seven years. Their son Cyrus sue- ceeded them on the old farm, and died June 17, 1825, aged sixty-eight years. He married, in 1781, Sarah Phin- ney, who survived him many years, and died March 24, 1859, at the age of ninety-eight years and four months.

Her father, Isaac Phinney, was from Cape Cod. He first removed to Hardwick, and then to Williamsburg, in 1772. He bought a tract of land east of the present church at Haydenville, containing sixty aeres, and gave in exchange for it a side-saddle.

The children of Cyrus Miller, Sr., were twelve in number, six boys and six girls, four of whom are now living : Cyrus (the subject of this sketch ), aged eighty-two; John, aged seventy-nine ; Mrs. Betsey Fairfield (a notice of whom ap- pears in the general history), aged ninety-four; and Mrs. Sarahı Graves, of Sunderland, aged ninety-two; their united ages being three hundred and forty-seven years.

Mrs. Sarah Miller, wife of Cyrus, Sr., was thirteen years old at the time of the famous Boston Tea-Party, Dee. 16, 1773, having been born the same year that the French power upon this continent was annihilated by the fall of Quebec.

She united with the church of Williamsburg when Rev. Joseph Strong was pastor, and on the formation of the Haydenville Church, in 1851, she united with that, at the age of ninety-one.

Cyrus Miller, the younger, was educated in the common schools of his native town, attending at Williamsburg, two miles distant. He has passed a long and useful life ; a man of strong, practical common sense, of excellent judg- ment, a safe counselor, and a reliable friend. He married, first, Harriet Kingman Hannum, and second, Philena Ford, who had one son, Galusha F., at the time of her marriage with Mr. Miller. The children of Mr. Miller by his second wife were Edwin F., Arthur T., and Lewis C.

Cyrus Miller's business has been that of farming, having through life tilled the fields of his ancestors. In polities he was formerly a Whig, and afterward a Republican, but has never been willing to share in the excitements of political life. He was a Methodist in his religious senti- ments, and assisted liberally in establishing and sustaining the Methodist Church of Williamsburg.

At the formation of the Congregational Church of Ilay- denville, which was very much of a union non-seetarian organization, he united with that, and has been a useful, consistent member to the present time.

Mr. Miller was a severe sufferer by the flood of May 16, 1874. The water, coming with mighty force and breast high, poured into the house in which he lived, the family barely escaping with their lives by fleeing to the high grounds.

Mr. Miller is now passing a serene old age, surrounded by his family and friends, and esteemed by the community in which he has lived from his childhood.

Daniel Collins

DR. DANIEL COLLINS, a son of Rev. Daniel Collins, a Congregational clergyman, of Lanesboro', was born in that place, Oct. 2, 1780; graduated at Williams College, in the class, of 1800, and settled in Williamsburg, in 1804, for the practice of medicine. For forty years he was the principal physician in the place, and was constantly occupied in a large and laborious practice. His business was not limited to this town, but a large share of it was done in the neighboring counties. As a physician, Dr. Collins occupied a commanding position. He was skillful in the diagnosis of disease, and this was peculiarly his forte. He was a man of excellent judgment, and in the practice of his profession always acted promptly and energetically in accordance with his own convictions. He was a man of liberal feelings, whose breast was always open to the relief of suffering and want, and whose gener- osity, though unostentatious, knew no reserve. Dr. Collins, in his younger days, had in charge a large number of young Inen who were in the pursuit of a classical or scientific educa- tion. At his death, in November, 1857, he bequeathed to the town the sum of $12,000 for the support of schools.

He was never married, and left the remainder of his prop- erty, about $1200, to various benevolent societies. Dr. Col- lins was an earnest and active politician ; at first a Feder- alist, then joining and leading the anti-Masonic party, and in his later years an unflinching Democrat. The latter party, under his leadership, increased largely in point of numbers. He always refused political distinction, and at one time, when supported for the Legislature, declined in favor of Dr. Meekins. Some peculiarities further illustrative of his char- acter may be of interest. In personal bearing, Dr. Collins was reserved and dignified; in form, tall and slim. His language was given with scrupulous regard to grammati- cal accuracy. He seldom attended church, save in the early years of his practice, but was always present at the funerals of his old friends and patrons.

In business affairs he was ever reliable. His word was regarded as good as his note. Ile paid his indebtedness with remarkable punctuality, and with strict regard to justice. It was a common thing for him to pay more than was demanded of him. He would often say, in his emphatic tone, "That isn't enough,-you can't live so."

These generous qualities gave him great influence with all classes, and over some minds he exercised alinost complete sway. He always responded promptly to the call of his patients, and his singular appearance as he rode along on horseback-al- ways at a moderate gait, however urgent the demand-will long be remembered. No man who ever lived in the town was capable of using more severe and cutting sarcasm than

Dr. Collins, but underneath a rough and sometimes repulsive exterior beat a warm and generous heart.

The beautiful marble monument erected over his grave bears the following inscription : " Daniel Collins, M.D., born in Lanesboro', Oct. 2, 1780; located in Williamsburg in 1804; was the principal physician in the town for forty years. Died Nov. 6, 1857, aged seventy-seven years. Punctuality, activity, energy, and fidelity in the discharge of his duties marked his character.

" The brittle thread of life is broken, The body lies in its kindred dust : The spirit dwells with God."

The Rev. Mr. Perkins, pastor of the Congregational Church, delivered an eloquent discourse on the day of his funeral, from which the following paragraph is extracted :

" You now part with one who has been with you from his early manhood-for the period of fifty years ; one, as I judge, naturally of a noble nature, keen perceptions, kind feelings ; however affected by his single life, or unfavorably manifested in sudden expressions, still kind, as many a house of sickness and heart of sorrow has testified, and as a loving, feeble, long- bedridden sister has often barne witness, in grateful acknowl- edgments, for pecuniary aid. A man independent in his pur- poses and judgments ; far as the cast from west from cringing subserviency and fawning sycophancy ; quick in thought and expression, able to see through men at a glance ; hence tossing them into the scales as readily as a drug for weight, and out again as unhesitatingly ; of strictest integrity, that made him impa- tient of all unfairness ; with a high sense of honor that flashed and burned at wrong, no matter against whom committed, himself or a stranger. A man with a high idea of what a man should be, and with feelings outraged by immorality, which burst forth in language not justified. A man with traits nobler, if sharper, than common.

" You part not only with an old citizen, but with an old family physician. The full measure of this in the case of one who has been your physician more than half a century, no language can express. In how many touching scenes has he shared | By how many tender sympathies has he been connected with your families ! His feet have pressed every inch of your streets. He made every object a witness to his professional faithfulness, in season and out of season. All your homes have been familiar with his footsteps. Your doors have gladly opened at his coming. Your families have experienced his tender care and warm sympathies. To a great congrega- tion now gone he has ministered. You do well to remember him kindly, and to bury his faults willingly."

421

HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE COUNTY.

near Leeds, a glance backward showed the torrent just above. Shouting the alarm with all his might, he escaped by turning sharply up the hill to the left,-the rider, the warning, the flood, all reaching the doomed village of Leeds at nearly the same time. On first entering Haydenville, Graves gave notice at the brass-works, and then rode to Hart's barber-shop and to Elam Graves' store, then turned around to ride back, not knowing even yet how fearful was the coming danger. En- tering the dugway northward, he met Jerome Hillman riding down from Skinnerville, who shouted, "Turn around ! the reservoir is right here." The action of these three . men- Cheney, Graves, and Day-saved many lives, though Day more fully than the others understood the coming peril, and appreciated its rapidity and its destructiveness. Ile rode knowing it was just behind him, for he had seen it.

As in all similar cases, it is easy to see afterward what might hare been done. Had Cheney burst into the streets of Wil- liamsburg with a loud ery of alarm, and not consulted Spell- man, ten minutes-perhaps fifteen-would have been saved. Had Spellman, himself, really felt the truth of Cheney's words, quicker movements would have followed. If Graves had time to ride into Haydenville, give an alarm, eall at two places, try to ride back, then turn around and still alarm others, it seems as if there was time for all to have escaped in that village, had the alarm first brought been caught up and given with a loud cry on the instant. Yet honor is justly due to these men who made the wild valley ride, for their services in saving life. Their names have gone into poetry and history with the long list of men, in all climes and ages, who have risked their lives to save others.

The cry given by them was caught up, and scores of brave men performed deeds of heroism,-in many cases dying in the attempt to save their families or their neighbors.

Jerome Hillman, above alluded to, had ridden from Skin- nerville to Haydenville for the morning's mail, and started home, when he saw the flood coming, and was obliged to turn and go back to Haydenville, meeting Collins Graves, as stated. His own wife had perished as the wave rolled over Skinnerville.

Two other names should at least be added to the number of those who carried the fearful news of the coming flood. Rob- ert P. Loud, living in sight of the reservoir, happening to step to his door, saw the dam when it gave way. Instantly com- prehending the danger, he started on a run for Williamsburg. He made the two and a half miles' distance in an incredibly short space of time. On foot, panting, almost breathless, he urged some other person, at one point, to go the rest of the way ; the other not believing in the necessity, Loud rallied again, and ran on. He was just in time ; hurried down the street to Adams' saw-mill; could not make Mr. Tilton, who was at work there, hear, but threw a stick at him, and pointed up stream.

It is a question whether it was not Loud that really started whatever public cry there was at Williamsburg. All the de- scriptions written, and all that can now be told by eye-wit- nesses, indicate that the coming of Cheney, the talk at Spell- man's, the getting of a horse at Belcher's, and the starting off of Graves, was all a sort of a silent affair,-no public outery until Loud's alarm was emphasized by the sight of the flood itself. Loud was seriously injured by his exhausting run. There is still another link in the transmission of the alarm. Thomas Ryan worked in the Haydenville mill. His family lived just below Williamsburg. One of his sons was at Williamsburg, and heard the talk between Belcher and Che- ney. The boy had an old horse, but he drove out at once ; alarmed his mother, so that the family escaped. His mother sent him on to Haydenville to tell his father. He rode down, following Graves, a few minutes later. He was with IIillman when Graves met the latter, and rode into Haydenville with them. Ile went to the mill and told his father. It helped confirm the news brought by the others. From the testimony,

it appears there was not much public outcry until Graves entered the village a second time with Jerome Hillman. It was then that the shout arose, " The reservoir is right here !"

Myron Day fully understood the danger, and is said to have shouted all along the road to Leeds. Thus was the alarm given from the reservoir above to the villages below.

THE FLOOD.

Not many minutes had passed after George Cheney started before the dam began to crumble more and more ; great masses of earth slipped away from before the wall. The wall itself fell away faster and faster, and soon, with a sudden roar, the great mass was carried out at once. The imprisoned waters, pouring through with indescribable fury, began their terrible work of destruction. For three miles they had only the channel and the original banks of the stream to spend their force upon. Neither dwelling nor mill was in their way, nor was human life exposed until the village of Williamsburg was reached. But in all this upper channel the flood left a wondrous story of power clearly written in the uncovered primeval rocks, the torn hill-sides, the upturned trees, and the bowlders tossed like bubbles upon the wild current. The approach of the flood upon the settled portions of the valley is variously described by eye-witnesses.

"To one the thick-coming mass of water seemed like the heaviest ocean waves ; to another the sound was like the tearing of shingles from many buildings; to a third it sounded as the heavy sullen thunder that succeeds the sununer storm. It was preceded and surrounded by a dense spray or fog thick as the heaviest smoke.“

At Skinnerville, Williamsburg seemed enveloped in smoke, and one remarked to another as the bell rang, "They are all burning out up there." The height of the flood-wave cannot be accurately stated. It varied of course with the nature of the valley, widening out and lowering upon the alluvial meadows, and rising higher in the narrow portions between the hills. It is usually spoken of as 20 feet high, but its spray was thrown 40 feet in height at some places. It struck Williamsburg very soon after Graves left. Cheney undertook to follow Graves, but was cut off within two hundred yards and obliged to re- turn. The intervening minutes had been a wild scene of hur- rying to and fro, rapid flight, and fearful struggles to alarm and save the people, and yet many of the lost, it is supposed, had not heard the alarm or understood it, and were carried away to certain death with never a word of warning.

" The waters came down the reservoir stream with awful force, and, ignoring the old channel to the east, surged against the buildings on the street leading to the depot, taking off all the houses on the back street from Adams' mill to Dr. E. M. Johnson's, thus marking out a new channel almost directly south, until it struck the hill, which stemmed the current again to the east. In a brief time- scarcely fifteen minutes-the water had passed so that its path could be traced. The channel was obliterated as it had been known, and in its place was the jagged, scarred bed of the destroying stream."

The flood having passed Williamsburg and the wider flats between there and the railroad station, at the latter point it was crowded back by the form of the hills to the original channel, and roared by " with all of its burden of crushed houses, barns, trees, logs, stones, cattle, and human beings." It poured itself over the pleasant meadows above the village of Skinnerville. The operatives in the great mill, 75 to 80 in number, had escaped, owing their lives wholly to the warning of Collins Graves and their own prompt action. Barely reach- ing the railroad embankment, they turned and saw the "im- mense wave fold in its tremendous clashing arms of timber the solid brick factory," and, crushing it like an egg-shell, the whole was borne down in the overwhelming current. As at Williamshurg, stores and dwelling-houses were torn from their foundations and swept away,-a whole village destroyed by water as completely as Herculaneum or Pompeii of old by lava. The stream, with all these accumulated materials borne upon its surface, or swept along by its resistless power, flowed on- ward through the narrow defile of the hills, lifting itself

422

IIISTORY OF THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY.

to its full height above the village of Haydenville. There was no pause in its on ward course to save the wealth of capital, or the greater wealth of human life, in that beautiful and thrifty place.

Two hundred and twenty men were at work in the factory, and all save one escaped. He lost his life trying to return for a pair of boots, against the warning of his companions. These men owe their escape to the alarm brought by Ryan, Graves, and Hillman, for with the noise of the machinery around them they would hardly have noticed the flood in time to seek safety in flight; and whether these three knew the real danger or not, whether they rode or drove to Haydenville, it is certain they carried the news there somehow, and did it before the flood struck the place.

The old foundry was struck by a floating house and demol- ished, and then the waters hurled the same building like a battering-ram against the side of the great factory ; a breach was made, the centre fell in, the ends folded together, and " the solid structure melted away as if it had been snow."

" An instant sufficed for the destruction of everything touched by the moun- tainous flood, which rolled on in its appalling force for a briefer time than many a dream, speedily became exhausted, and in an hour the river had nearly sul- sided to its wonted bed; the citizens walked the streets once more and began the dread search for the dead. The river-flats and all the banks were crammed with the débris. Great drives of timber; trees intermingled in the strangest, most shocking way with women's clothing,-less often with men's: with mal- tresses, quilts, and sheets ; with belting and machinery from the mills; with fragments of bills and letters; with soap and potatoes and stove-wood ; with rocks and stone steps : with fragments of chairs and tables, and now and then a piece of a piano or a cabinet-organ; with little children's hats and tiny shoes; with household utensils and all the fragments of manufacture and of domestic lite; these with now and then a poor horse with agonized mouth and staring eyes, or a faithful ox or cow; and then, most horrible and soul-harrowing, the bruised, disfigured, and sometimes maimed bodies of human beings which an hour lufore had been in the full flush of life,-these were the ever-recurring pictures."

Such was the flood. A simple test of its power is afforded by the statement that two mill-stones weighing a ton are said to have been carried from near the store of Mr. Ross to the button-factory, a distance of half a mile.

THE LOSS OF LIFE.

This is the most appalling part of the destruction, and was perhaps never paralleled by any similar disaster from a similar cause. It required heroic hearts to commence in a business- like way the work of gathering the bodies of the dead. To think over the affecting incidents that were crowded into that brief hour would have unmanned the firmest. Emotion had to give way to earnest labor. The largest proportion of the bodies were obtained in a short time. All day long, Saturday and Sunday, the sad work went on. At Williamsburg the dead were gathered in the town-hall. They were of all ages and conditions ; the gray-haired grandsire, the aged mother, manhood in its prime, youth in its strength, childhood in its innocence, were all there.

Quite a number of bodies were so deeply buried amid the ruins all along the valley that they were only found after many days.

The following is a list of the names of the lost in the flood of May 16, 1874, with their ages :

Williamsburg .- Mrs. Susan M. Lamb, fifty-four, wife of George S. Lamb; George Ashley, sixteen ; E. C. Hubbard, fifty-six ; Emma C. Wood, twenty-five, of Chicopee, and her son, Harold HI. Wood, one ; Dr. Elbridge M. Johnson, thirty- six ; Mrs. Mary F. Johnson; Edward M. Johnson, eight ; Mary Il. Johnson, six ; Charlotte Johnson, four; Mrs. John- son, sixty-nine, mother of Dr. Johnson; Theodore J. Hitch- coek, thirty-four; William H. Adams, fifty-one; Archie Lancour, twenty-one; Mrs. E. M. Chandler, thirty-nine, Mary Chandler, nine, wife and daughter of Conductor Chand- ler, of the New flaven and Northampton Railroad. Mr. Chandler left his wife and daughter in bed to take his train about six A.M. He first heard of the loss of his family on the

arrival of his train in the depot at New Haven, less than four hours after leaving home. The bodies of his wife and daugh- ter were in their night-clothes, and probably they were in bed when the house was carried off. Mary Seully, twenty-six ; John Scully, three; Elizabeth Scully, eight months; Mary Brennan, sixty-two; Michael Burke, sixty-one; Michael Burke, nine; Jennie Burke, eight ; Annie Burke, five ; Frederie Burr; James Stevens, fifty-four ; Mary J. Adams, thirty-six ; William Adams, seven ; Henry Birmingham, forty-eight ; Laura Birmingham, forty-four ; Mary Bir- mingham, twenty ; Lillie D. Birmingham, sixteen; Carrie Birmingham, eight. Mr. Birmingham was superintendent of James Mill. The entire family were lost. Elizabeth W. Kingsley, sixty ; Annie R. Kingsley, twenty-five (wife of E. D. Kingsley) ; Nellie J. Kingsley, three; Lyman Kings- ley, one; Mrs. Sarah S. Bartlett, twenty-five; Viola B. Colyer, four; Mary Carter, twenty-eight ; Alexander Rob- erts, forty-two ; Carrie H. Roberts, thirty-seven ; Nellie Roberts, seven ; Olive F. Roberts, two. Mr. Roberts was engineer of the train leaving Williamsburg at about eleven A.M. His entire family, except a son of sixteen years, were lost. The son was taken from the flood while clinging to the limb of a tree, unconscious, and almost in the throes of death. John Atkinson, forty-eight; Mary Ann McGee, fourteen ; Jeremiah Ward, seventy-one; Electa Knight, eighty ; Spen- eer Bartlett, seventy-five; Soloma Bartlett, fifty-five; Mrs. Sarah Snow, seventy-eight; Willie H. Tilton, four; Eliza Downey, twenty-eight; Edmund Downey, two; Johanna Downey, fifty-four ; Frank Murray, twenty-five; Mary Mur- ray, twelve.

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History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Vol. I, Part 138

Author: L.H. Everts & Co Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Philadelphia : Louis H. Everts Number of Pages: 700

Author: L.H. Everts & Co
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Philadelphia : Louis H. Everts
Number of Pages: 700