USA > Pennsylvania > Cambria County > History of Cambria County, Pennsylvania, Volume I > Part 42
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53
It was probably at 3:50 P. M. that the first wave of the flood struck the Stone bridge, being twice held in check on its downward course-first at the Viaduct and next at Bridge No. 6 of the Pennsylvania railroad at the deep cut. In both in-
459
HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY.
stances the water ran over the tracks and through the cuts be- fore the obstructions gave way.
At 4:10 P. M. the great moving mass of water weighing 18.000,000 tons, reached the main portion of the town, and transformed into a seething lake, the little valley which had been so green and fair twenty-four hours previously. Was it to be wondered at that bridges, Gautier mill stacks, business blocks and houses toppled over as silently and quickly as straws, at the touch of this mighty current, which is estimated to have been moving at a rate of from twenty to thirty miles per hour at that time?
The current of the wave known as the 4:10, seemed to keep in a reasonably straight line with the Little Conemaugh river until it touched Westmont Hill at the Stone bridge, when, instead of following the channel, it turned up the Stonycreek. This turn of the water caused the great weight behind it to make another break and open a channel from the Little Cone- maugh to the Stonycreek, which on Main street extended from the Presbyterian Church to the residence of Frank W. Hay. This break was not sufficient to relieve the great force, and an- other channel was made between these rivers, which, with Main street as the point of measurement, reached from the Louther and Green building on the corner of Main and Clinton streets, to Jackson street. The effects were as terrible in these new-made channels as they were in the Little Conemaugh.
At 4:15 P. M., houses, planing mills, and rinks were float- ing around the buildings. At Walnut street the great force seemed to have spent its fury for another onslaught on the peo- ple below the Stone bridge. Observers on the roofs of the few houses that remained standing, and those huddled together in the eddy between Walnut and Union, south of Main, could see men, women and children being carried towards the Stone bridge and Westmont Hill.
With the giving away of the embankment of the Pennsyl- vania railroad from the Stone bridge almost to the passenger station, the angry waters made a new rush for victims below. House after house passed through the break, carrying people on their roofs to an almost certain death down the river. Some lives were even lost as they passed through the breach before the rails were torn asunder, it being wellnigh impossible for houses to be carried under without toppling over.
Within three minutes after the first mighty rush, these
460
HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY.
same arches were solidly filled with wreckage, which extended about four hundred and fifty yards up the Stonycreek to Main street. Many other buildings were carried up the creek al- most to Grubbtown (Eighth ward) and back again, probably within twenty minutes, only to add to the congestion in the end.
It is asserted by those who were at the Stone bridge that but one person, Mrs. Andrew Baker of Woodvale, passed through the arches of the bridge. She was taken from her home on the first wave, carried under the arch with terrible velocity, and rescued at Coopersdale.
Although many succeeded in escaping over the wreckage
Pennsylvania R. R. Stone Bridge at Johnstown, 1888.
to the hillsides, the bridge or the railroad, many lives were lost in the heroic attempt to save others or themselves. Those rescued in that portion of the town between the Presbyterian church and Clinton street, generally congregated at the Alma Hall, the John Thomas building or Dr. S. M. Swan's residence. From the aggregation of houses below Walnut street they gath- ered in the Morrell House and the residence of General Camp- bell, or remained on the roofs or in the third floors of their homes until the morning.
Others carried over to the South Side generally succeeded in climbing over the debris to the Dibert street school house, the residences of S. Dean Canan and Benjamin F. Horner, and elsewhere. One little boy living in Woodvale, swept away on
461
HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY.
the debris, floated towards the home of Rev. R. A. Fink, at the corner of Somerset and Willow streets. In passing the win- dow on the second floor he succeeded in catching hold there. Looking into the room and seeing Miss Columbia A. Horne, he asked in an entreating voice, "Missus, Can I come in?"
To these people and to those who had reached the hillsides all danger was passed by half past five o'clock, or as soon as the great body of water had moved through the break in the embankment, but to those in the mass of wreckage at the Stone bridge a greater horror was approaching.
Clouds had hung heavy over the town all the afternoon; night dropped early, and darkness, the dreary companion of the miserable and distressed, revealed to the already frenzied people that another danger threatened them. The origin of the fire which broke out near the east end of the Stone bridge has never been fully determined.
The fire may have been caused by the combustion of a car of lime or an upset stove in a dwelling. Efforts made to stop it in its incipiency were futile, as utensils in which to carry water were unobtainable. Very soon it became a raging fire that continued to burn until Sunday evening, June 2d, when it was extinguished by the Pittsburg Fire Department, which brought its apparatus for that purpose. At ten o'clock Friday evening the reflection from it was so bright that the print of a newspaper could be read in the part of town below Clinton street.
It is not known nor is it generally believed that any living person perished in the flames, but more than seventy charred bodies were found there afterward.
All through the night the town clock in the belfry of the First English Lutheran Church mournfully tolled the hours, and to the members of the family separated, it seemed as if the day would never dawn when search could be instituted for their missing ones whom they hardly dared to hope were not lost.
But with its return the most horrible sights met their eyes in the chaos which existed around them. Little babes, alone or locked in their mothers' arms, were wedged in the wreckage; men, women and children who had been strong in life but twelve hours before, were now cold in death. Many veterans of the Civil war who had passed through that terrible struggle from Bull Run to Appomattox, and had fought in the Bloody Angle at Gettysburg, in front of Marye's Heights at Fredericksburg,
462
HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY.
and in the terrible slaughter of the Wilderness, were simply ap- palled. No such scene of human sacrifice as presented itself on that fair morning of the first day of June had ever come to their knowledge.
A family consisting of father, mother and six children were found in one little room, where all had died together, probably within a period of sixty to one hundred and twenty seconds. The strong, muscular father had been as helpless as the little child.
This condition of affairs extended from the upper end of the Tenth ward to the Twentieth, while down the river as far even as Blairsville bodies were washed ashore among the debris, and a few even were found in the Ohio river below Pittsburgh.
That morning 2,205 lifeless bodies were lying buried in sand or wreckage at Johnstown and its immediate vicinity, ninety-nine hundredths of whom had yielded their lives within a space of five minutes.
Standing on any hillside, the oldest resident could scarcely have traced the slightest resemblance to his native town in the scene that lay before him that next morning. Water, water everywhere-buildings intact or partially wrecked stood like solitary sentinels, or little groups of them rose above the acres of wreckage which stretched in all directions. In that part of town below Franklin street, lying between the rivers, the eddy formed by the current caused the debris to settle between Main and Stonycreek streets. This debris consisted of logs, portions of buildings, freight cars, parts of locomotives, engines from East Conemaugh, lumber, the contents of dwellings, mills, shops and liveries, dead and living animals, all piled to the height of twenty feet.
From Walnut street to the Presbyterian Church, between Main street and the Stonycreek, was the new-made channel, en- tirely clear of everything with the exception of the homes of F. W. Hay and General J. M. Campbell.
From the Presbyterian Church to Levergood street in the Fourth ward, between Main street and the Stonycreek, the de- struction was only partial. The buildings from the Christian Church to the Jordan and Hinchman store, inclusive, were standing, but were, of course, more or less damaged. Those on Franklin, Lincoln and Vine streets had suffered to the same extent and were surrounded with wreckage fifteen feet high.
One particular incident worthy of note occurred at the
463
HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY.
First National Bank. Dwight Roberts, the cashier, was in the teller's room on the first floor when the flood reached that build- ing. Before escaping up the stairs, he saw the waters rapidly rise to a point above the lower sash, while there was still not a drop on the floor of the bank. This fact illustrates the swift- ness of the destroyer, the water rising to a height of nine feet above the pavement in so short a space of time that not a drop had crept in through the inside cellarway or around the doors and windows.
The Second ward was swept almost clean of the hundred and odd houses in it, the only ones saved from total destruction
-
-
-
House of John Schultz.
being Dr. John Lowman's, Jacob Fend's, Isaac E. Chandler's, James McMillen's, and the double dwelling of C. T. Frazer and S. P. S. Ellis, the Club House, now the Capital Hotel. the office of the Cambria Iron Company, and the building of the Wood. Morrell & Co., subsequently that of the Penn Traffic Company, destroyed by fire recently. Very little debris lodged here, as it was in the direet channel of the current, which, however, almost leveled the vacant cellars with sand.
With a few exceptions, all the buildings in the Third ward on the north side of Main street from Franklin to Clinton streets, back to Locust, were greatly damaged, but not de- stroyed. North of Locust to the Little Conemaugh every house
464
HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY.
was swept away, save a few on the former street and two on the lower side of Clinton street.
Above Clinton to Jackson not a house was left except one corner of the Convent of the Sisters of Mercy, lying directly in the path of the second cut from the Little Conemaugh to the Stonycreek. It seems almost miraculous that it should have been saved, and not a human life lost in the building.
The portion of the town above Levergood street to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was entirely destroyed, and but little wreckage left thereon. Owing to the high elevation at Adams and Bedford streets the buildings were left intact. At this point were located the headquarters of A. J. Moxham, J. B. Scott and others who came to our assistance. The Carroll lot on the corner of Bedford and Baumer streets was used as a commissary, and the Adams street school house served as the principal morgue.
Nearly all the homes in the Fifth ward were washed away excepting a few on Franklin street, between those of Joseph Morgan and S. Dean Canan, some between Haynes and Dibert on the northerly side of Napoleon street, and an occasional one on Napoleon below Haynes. Southwest of Napoleon street the loss was total and all the ground was covered with wreckage ten or fifteen feet high.
While the Sixth ward suffered the complete destruction of many houses, the majority were damaged more by the water and floating debris.
In the Seventh ward the conditions were about the same, and Sandyvale Cemetery lay beneath a new pall. The back- water from the Stone bridge reached its level in Grubbtown, below the corner of Franklin street and the Valley Pike, al- though the water ran into the houses on the upper side of Franklin street.
With one or two exceptions, all the dwellings and shops north of Railroad street in the Ninth ward were totally de- stroved, and even some on the upper side of the street did not escape. Lying on high ground, the major portion of the Tenth ward suffered little damage outside of the destruction of the Gautier mills and the buildings north of Railroad street, which included the public school house and the Conemaugh Fire Com- pany house and apparatus. At that time Center street was not in existence, an irregular highway running by sufferance over the old canal basin, taking its place.
465
HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY.
A relative comparison shows that more human lives were sacrificed and more property lost in Woodvale than in any other district of the valley. It had been a thickly populated resi- dential borough, with Maple avenue, its principal thoroughfare, one of the most beautiful in this vicinity. After the water passed through there was not the slightest trace of a single dwelling, shop or mill between the hill and the river, except a wall of the old flouring mill. This solitary sentinel was all that remained of the once flourishing and prosperous borough, where had been the Johnstown works of the Johnstown Street Steel Railway Company, now the Lorain Steel Company.
The Twelfth ward, situated on Prospect Hill, wholly es- caped, and through it, over the Ebensburg road, assistance came from the east and west until the railroads were reopened.
Every building in the Thirteenth ward below the Penn- sylvania Railroad street, except the school house, was totally destroyed. It was here that the embankment between the Stone bridge and the station broke and let the pent-up waters flow onward.
The Cambria Iron Works are principally located in the Fourteenth ward, and they, with many other buildings along the Conemaugh river, were greatly damaged, but not anni- hilated, as the force of the water had been much lessened by its temporary abeyance at the Stone bridge.
The Fifteenth and Sixteenth wards, comprising the bor- ough of Cambria, suffered severely in the loss of life and prop- erty. Lying as it did in the curve of the Conemaugh river, when the embankment at the bridge gave way the water naturally made a channel directly through the borough, sacrificing so many lives and leaving but few houses between Broad street and the river.
The Seventeenth ward suffered no damage except that caused by a slight amount of backwater. This district belonged to Stonycreek township at the time of the flood, and became a part of Johnstown borough in the fall of 1889. It was not the Seventeenth ward of the city of Johnstown until 1891, there being but sixteen wards at the organization of the city in 1890.
The portion of the borough of South Fork lying between the hills, about three miles below the dam, was, of course, washed away. Several lives were lost and much property de- stroyed, including the bridge of the Pennsylvania railroad, and a large part of the tracks to the viaduct. This bridge of the Vol. I-30
466
HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY.
Pennsylvania railroad over the Little Conemaugh was a beau- tiful piece of workmanship. It was a single-span stone arch, seventy-eight and one-half feet in height, erected by the state of Pennsylvania in 1832 for the old Portage railroad, and was in use to the day of the flood, intact and as magnificent as ever.
The natural channel of the Little Conemaugh gave it a peculiar location. At this point the river is divided by a ridge about a hundred yards in width, and the channel carries the water around the ridge and down to the viaduct for the distance of almost a mile. The mass of logs and lumber blocked the single span, which checked the water and raised it 14 feet above the level of the bridge. Flowing from the upper side of the ridge, the water found its level, rushed through the cut in the rocks where the tracks of the Pennsylvania road were laid, and fell like a cataract over the splendid viaduct. The water was making a fall of ninety feet over the lower side of the structure, before it gave way. When it did, the second im- petus was given.
The little village of Mineral Point, lying between the north- erly side of the Little Conemaugh river and the high hill, was a half-mile below the viaduct. The flood rushed on it with such rapidity that, although within few feet of high ground, many persons were drowned, and every house within reach of the water and the township bridge were swept away.
No. 6 Bridge was situated where the curved stone arch crossing for the Pennsylvania railroad is now located, at the deep cut four miles above Johnstown. The channel of the river here is somewhat similar to that at the viaduct, the ridge only being longer and the river curving at greater length. This channel was also blocked by the logs and the water forced to come through the cut, before that iron structure with heavy stone piers was washed away.
Of the old Portage roadbed, used as a driveway from the foot of Plane No. 1 almost to Franklin borough, not a vestige remained to locate what had been at one time the beautiful drive, except one or two pieces of stone cribbing found here and there at the foot of the high hill.
The four main tracks of the Pennsylvania road from a point three-fourths of a mile above Conemaugh, to and oppo- site the Gautier works, with all the sidings, the roundhouse con- taining several engines, the station and coal tipple were com- pletely torn out.
467
HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY.
The log cribbing filled with stones in the Little Conemaugh above Conemaugh station was built after the flood and used for several months to protect the trestle whereon the tracks of the road were laid. This cribbing will probably remain there for a long period.
All the houses from Front street to Greeve, in the eastern part of the borough of East Conemaugh, and those back be- vond Chestnut in the lower part, were carried away. Prior to the flood the principal business street of the village was Front street, facing the railroad, with its center of trade where the
BRAGDON.PGH.PA
City Hall, Destroyed in the Flood.
stone pier of the overhead bridge is now located. But since that time Greeve has become the principal business street and the lower portion of the town has only recently been rebuilt. The ill-fated day express was standing just above the overhead bridge when the water struck it, snuffing out the lives of many of its passengers. After the flood the Pennsylvania railroad pur- chased one hundred feet or more on the southerly side of the river, and moving the channel of the river south, widened its right of way to that extent.
Engineer John C. Hess, residing at Conemaugh, was on his engine a few miles above that place when he saw the flood ap-
468
HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY.
proaching. With the whistle opened to its full limit, he started immediately for Conemaugh as fast as skill and steam could carry him. Stopping the engine in front of his home he barely succeeded in getting his family away before both home and engine had disappeared. Although many lives were lost in this village, Engineer Hess's alarm was the means of saving many others both here and at Franklin.
The borough of Franklin lies on the southerly side of the Little Conemaugh, and all that thickly inhabited portion of it, between the old Portage roadway and the river was entirely destroyed, together with a large number of its residents. The earth was simply scooped out many feet deep, and a well eigh- teen feet in depth was washed to the bottom. A small portion of this locality was refilled eight years after the flood, that is the land now owned by the Cambria Steel Company, formerly the property of the old Highland Agricultural Grounds. Pass- ing through Franklin, the channel entered the Eleventh ward, or Woodvale, to which we have already referred.
The boroughs of Morrellville and Coopersdale, now the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, Twentieth and Twenty-first wards of the city of Johnstown, were divided by the Conemaugh river, therefore those sections lying close to the banks were slightly damaged. From this point onward in its course, to Blairsville Intersection, the water carried the wrecked buildings with their human freight, strewing the debris and the bodies all along the shores of the river, and especially at Dornock Point and Roger's Mills were so many found that a temporary cemetery was located at the bend in the river below Nineveh. Subse- quently these were reinterred in Grandview Cemetery and else- where.
By reason of the watchfulness of the people of Bolivar, many people floating down the stream were rescued by means of ropes thrown over the side of the West Penn railroad bridge, which had not been demolished.
FIRST ORGANIZATION FOR RELIEF.
The only means of access to the main part of town from the south side was by way of the Moxham bridge, and this fact to- gether with the six feet of water which at this time was flow- ing through the channel between the Presbyterian church and the residence of F. W. Hay, made it very difficult to ascer- tain who was living and who could help.
469
HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY.
However, a sufficient number of citizens agreed to meet at the Adam Street school house at three o'clock in the after- noon of Saturday, June 1st, to organize relief committees, and at the appointed hour the meeting was called to order and Arthur J. Moxham elected chairman. After some discussion as to the best way of giving prompt relief. it was decided that Mr. Moxham should remain in general charge, and the follow- ing committees were appointed :
On Local Distribution of Supplies: John Thomas, Father Tahaney, Louis von Lunen, Charles B. Cover, Charles Shields, and D. J. Duncan.
On Finance: James McMillen, George T. Swank, W. C. Lewis, John D. Roberts, Dwight Roberts, and Cyrus Elder.
On Teams and Messengers: James A. McMillan, John H. Waters, and B. W. Welch.
On Information and Transportation : Robert S. Murphy, and Cyrus Brown.
On Commissary: Captain H. H. Kuhn, John Masterton, and William Boyd.
On Removing Dead Animals : Charles Zimmerman. Jr.
On Morgues : Rev. D. J. Beale and Rev. H. L. Chapman.
On Removal of Debris; Tom L. Johnson.
On Time-keeping and Books: John S. Tittle.
On Removal of Dangerous Buildings : John Coffin, Richard Eyre, George Gocher, and William F. Carpenter.
On Police: Captain James H. Gageby and Alexander N. Hart, the latter of whom was made chief of police.
On Fire Department: William Ossenberg, who was made chief, with headquarters on Main street.
On Employment : Howard C. Evans.
On Sanitary Affairs: Dr. W. B. Lowman, Dr. W. E. Matthews, and Dr. Benjamin E. Lee.
On Registration : Dr. McConaughy and Dr. McCann.
The same day the Committee on Information located in the building on the southwest corner of Adam and Main streets, and all persons were requested to make a report of those who were known to be living, and those who had been lost.
It will be observed that the organization covered every es- sential point for prompt relief. Within twenty-four hours the survivors had organized to help their fellow-citizens, while the munificent aid coming in from the outside was taxing all man's ingenuity to get it across the rivers to those in such distress.
470
HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY.
The citizens had appointed a committee to remove the debris. Even the thought was pluck, but it would have taken years to accomplish it without the help which the world gave. Thou- sands of workmen came on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, many with picks and shovels, promising to remain for one week and help the living bury the dead and clean the town.
On Saturday a rope bridge was constructed from the Stone bridge to a point near the Steel Works, and thereafter until Sunday evening all supplies, coffins, workmen and helpers crossed here. At the company office a wire was stretched across the Little Conemaugh, and with a small skiff a ferry was the means of gaining access to the town. Wednesday following the flood, Redfield Proctor, secretary of war, located two pontoon bridges across the Stonycreek, one near Poplar street, and the other at the Beulah fording, near Franklin street. These ren- dered excellent service until June 27th, when temporary trestle bridges were constructed at these points, and the pontoons taken to Washington City.
Postmaster Herman Baumer immediately began to place the people in communication with the outside world, and on Sunday, with some store boxes, equipped a temporary post- office in the brick building on the northwest corner of Main and Adams street. His only supplies were a few envelopes he had picked up here and there, blank leaves of books which suf- ficed for letter paper, and a few postals and glueless stamps res- cued from the old postoffice which had occupied the lower floor of the Tribune building. For the first few days all mail-incom- ing and out going-passed over the Baltimore & Ohio road, after which time postal agents carried the pouches between Johns- town and Sang Hollow, and eastern mail was hauled to Ebens- burg to be from there forwarded over the Pennsylvania Rail- road.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.