LOCAL HISTORY: JOHNSON, Willis Fletcher. HISTORY OF THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD.  
Edgewood Publishing Co., 1889.

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Olsen.

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JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 198

Chapter XVII.

     One of the first to reach Johnstown from a distance was a New York World 
correspondent, who on Sunday wrote as follows: -

     "I walked late yesterday afternoon from New Florence to a place opposite 
Johnstown, a distance of four miles. I describe what I actually saw. All along 
the way bodies were seen lying on the river banks. In one place a woman was half 
buried in the mud, only a limb showing. In another was a mother with her babe 
clasped to her breast. Further along lay a husband and wife, their arms wound 
around each other's necks. Probably fifty bodies were seen on that one side of 
the river, and it must be remembered that here the current was the swiftest, and 
consequently fewer of the dead were landed among the bushes. On the opposite 
side bodies could also be seen, but they were all covered with mud. As I neared 
Johnstown the wreckage became grand in its massive 

JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 199 [Photo – The debris above the Pennsylvania Railroad 
Bridge.]

JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 200 [Blank]

JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 201

proportions. In order to show the force of the current I will say that three 
miles below Johnstown I saw a grand piano lying on the bank, and not a board or 
key was broken. It must have been lifted on the crest of the wave and laid 
gently on the bank. In another place were two large iron boilers. They had 
evidently been treated by the torrent much as the piano had been.

     "The scenes, as I neared Johnstown, were the most heart-rending that man 
was ever called to look upon. Probably three thousand people were scattered in 
groups along the Pennsylvania Railroad track and every one of them had a 
relative lying dead either in the wreckage above, in the river below, or in the 
still burning furnace. Not a house that was left standing was in plumb. Hundreds 
of them were turned on their sides, and in some cases three or four stood one on 
top of the other. Two miles from Johnstown, on the opposite side of the river 
from where I walked, stood one-half of the water-works of the Cambria Iron 
Company, a structure that had been built of massive stone. It was filled with 
planks from houses and a large abutment of wreckage was piled up fully fifty 
feet in front of it. A little above, on the same side, could be seen what was 
left of the Cambria Iron works, which was one of the finest plants in the world. 
Some of the walls are

JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 202

still standing, it is true, but not a vestige of the valuable machinery remains 
in sight. The two upper portions of the works were swept away almost entirely, 
and under the pieces of fallen iron and wood could be seen the bodies of more 
than forty workmen.

     "At this point there is a bend in the river and the fiery furnace blazing 
for a quarter of a mile square above the stone bridge came into view.

     "'My God!' screamed a woman who was hastening up the track, 'can it be that 
any are in there?'

     "' Yes; over a thousand,' replied a man who had just come from the 
neighborhood, and it is now learned that he estimated the number at one thousand 
too low.

     "The scenes of misery and suffering and agony and despair can hardly be 
chronicled. One man, a clerk named Woodruff, was reeling along intoxicated. 
Suddenly, with a frantic shout, he threw himself over the bank into the flood 
and would have been carried to his death had he not been caught by some persons 
below.

     "'Let me die,' he exclaimed, when they rescued him. 'My wife and children 
are gone; I have no use for my life.' An hour later I saw Woodruff lying on the 
ground entirely overcome by liquor. Persons who knew him said that he had never 
tasted liquor before. 
 
JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 203

     "Probably fifty barrels of whisky were washed ashore just below Johnstown, 
and those men who had lost everything in this world sought solace in the fiery 
liquid. So it was that as early as six o'clock last night the shrieks and cries 
of women were intermingled with drunkards' howls and curses. What was worse than 
anything, however, was the fact that incoming trains from Pittsburgh brought 
hundreds of toughs, who joined with the Slavs and Bohemians in rifling the 
bodies, stealing furniture, insulting women, and endeavoring to assume control 
of any rescuing parties that tried to seek the bodies under the bushes and in 
the limbs of trees. There was no one in authority, no one to take command of 
even a citizen's posse could it have been organized. A lawless mob seemed to 
control this narrow neck of land that was the only approach to the city of 
Johnstown. I saw persons take watches from dead men's jackets and brutally tear 
finger rings from the hands of women. The ruffians also climbed into the 
overturned houses and ransacked the rooms, taking whatever they thought 
valuable. No one dared check them in this work, and, consequently, the scene was 
not as riotous as it would have been if the toughs had not had sway. In fact, 
they became beastly drunk after a time and were seen lying around in a stupor. 
Unless the military is on hand
 
JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 204

early tomorrow there may be serious trouble, for each train pours loads of 
people of every description into the vicinity, and Slavs are flocking like birds 
of prey from the surrounding country.

     "Here I will give the latest conservative estimate of the dead - it is 
between seven and eight thousand drowned and two thousand burned. The committee 
at Johnstown in their last bulletin placed the number of lives lost at eight 
thousand. In doing so they are figuring the inhabitants of their own city and 
the towns immediately adjoining. But it must be remembered that the tidal wave 
swept ten miles through a populous district before it even reached the locality 
over which this committee has supervision. It devastated a tract the size and 
shape of Manhattan Island. Here are a few facts that will show the geographical 
outlines o f the terrible disaster: The Hotel Hurlbut of Johnstown, a massive 
three-story building of one hundred rooms, has vanished. There were in it 
seventy-five guests at the time of the flood. Two only are now known to be 
alive. The Merchants' Hotel is leveled. How many were inside it is not known, 
but as yet no one has been seen who came from there or heard of an inmate 
escaping. At the Conemaugh round-house forty-one locomotives were swept down the 
stream, and before they reached the stone bridge all the iron

JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 205

and steel work had been torn from their boilers. It is almost impossible in this 
great catastrophe to go more into details.

     "I stood on the stone bridge at six o'clock and looked into the seething 
mass of ruin below me. At one place the blackened body of a babe was seen; in 
another, fourteen skulls could be counted. Farther along the bones became 
thicker and thicker, until at last one place it seemed as if a concourse of 
people who had been at a ball or entertainment had been carried in a bunch and 
incinerated. At this time the smoke was still rising to the height of fifty 
feet, and it is expected that when it dies down the charred bodies will be seen 
dotting the entire mass.

     "A cable had been run last night from the end of the stone bridge to the 
nearest point across - a distance of three hundred feet. Over this cable was run 
a trolley, and a swing was fastened under it. A man went over, and he was the 
first one who visited Johnstown since the awful disaster. I followed him to-day.

     "I walked along the hillside and saw hundreds of persons lying on the wet 
grass, wrapped in blankets or quilts. It was growing cold and a misty rain had 
set in. Shelter was not to be had, and houses on the hillsides that had not been 
swept away were literally packed from top to bottom. The bare necessities of 
life were soon

JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 206

at a premium, and loaves of bread sold at fifty cents. Fortunately, however, the 
relief train from Pittsburgh arrived at seven o'clock. Otherwise the horrors of 
starvation would have been added. All provisions, however, had to be carried 
over a rough, rocky road a distance of four miles (as I knew, who had been 
compelled to walk it), and in many cases they were seized by the toughs, and the 
people who were in need of food did not get it.

     "Rich and poor were served alike by this terrible disaster. I saw a girl 
standing in her bare feet on the river's bank, clad in a loose petticoat and 
with a shawl over her head. At first I thought she was an Italian woman, but her 
face showed that I was mistaken. She was the belle of the town - the daughter of 
a wealthy Johnstown banker - and this single petticoat and shawl were not only 
all that was left her, but all that was saved from the magnificent residence of 
her father. She had escaped to the hills not an instant too soon.

     "The solicitor of Johnstown, Mr. George Martio, said to me to-day: -

     "'All my money went away in he flood. My house is gone. So are all my 
clothes, but, thank God, my family are safe.'"