Richard Fox - The Johnstown Flood

There is not one chance in a million that the Conemaugh river would ever have been heard of in history had it not been for its action on Friday evening, May 31.

The Conemaugh river is, or rather was, a simple little stream that meandered through Northwestern Pennsylvania and made glad by its peaceful murmurings those who dwelt by its bankside, or bore tokens of affection in the way of pleasure-seeking picnickers, moonlight parties or across-stream excursionists upon its placid bosom. It was one of those inoffensive creeks, termed by courtesy a river, that the Hudson river of the East, the Mississippi of the Middle or the Red river of the West might call a stripling.

There are times when even the still, small voice arises in its might and asserts its supremacy, and the wee small river of Conemaugh did that self-same thing on Friday evening, May 31. All along the banks of the listless, yet ever flowing, little alleged river the farmers were preparing for their anticipated harvests; the fishermen of the section – amateur fishermen indeed, for they were only equal to the fish – small and incomplete as was the Conemaugh, such as you and I, reader, who took pleasure in flinging their worm-crowded hooks into the stomach of a log and then going home for more bait; bonny fairies, brisk young tillers of the soil, toilers, and seeming-tired miners, these and all other human concomitants that go to make up such a quiet, thriving bailiwick dwelt in the locality.

And so went on the listless life of the denizens of the Conemaugh Valley, nestling at the foot of the Allegheny range.

Snuggling in the cosiest nook, right where no prying reporter or trout-fishing President ever bent his way was Johnstown. The word “was” is used advisedly, Johnstown is no more. At four o’clock on the fateful day all was serene. At six o’clock all was desolation and destruction.

The “big dam” had broken and the little brooklet had burst its sides for very glee at being dubbed a creek, and was making itself known in history. The Brooklyn Theatre holocaust, with its dead three hundred, paled into insignificance. The Mud Run and Reading disasters had to take a back seat.

“Let me alone for horror,” murmured the Conemaugh, “and I’ll get there!”

It did get there.

Right above Johnstown on the self-same Conemaugh, or rather where the North Fork glides into that erstwhile inoffensive stream, was a reservoir.

The reservoir is on the site of the old lake, which was one of the feeders of the Pennsylvania Canal. It is the property of a number of wealthy gentlemen in Pittsburgh, who formed themselves into the corporation, the title of which is the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. This sheet of water was formerly known as Conemaugh Lake. It is from two hundred to three hundred feet above the level of Johnstown, being in the mountains. It is about three and one-half miles long and from a mile to one and one-fourth miles in width, and in some places it is 100 feet in depth. It holds more water than any other reservoir, natural or artificial, in the United States. The lake has been quadrupled in size by artificial means, and was held in check by a dam from 700 to 1,000 feet wide. It was 90 feet in thickness at the base, and the height was 110 feet. The top has a breadth of over twenty feet.

From what could be ascertained by the writer, the reservoir-banks had not been considered absolutely safe by the people of the big and growing town. The reservoir was an artificial rather than a natural lake. The art came in when the South Fork Club, a corporation of gentlemen, took charge of the reservoir and dammed it. The South Fork Club had the dam inspected once a month by the Pennsylvania Railroad engineers, and their investigation showed that nothing less than some convulsion of nature would tear the barrier away and loosen the weapon of death. The steady rains of the past forty-eight hours had increased the volume of water in all the small mountain streams, which had already been swelled by the lesser rains earlier in the week. At this time it was evident that something in the nature of a cloudburst must have occurred just before the waters broke through the embankment.

Then the water came.

It came with a rush that astonished the natives.

There was a low murmuring at first, and then a rushing, hissing noise; then crevices appeared in the dam side. Then the embankment gave away, and onward rushed the torrent. It meant death and destruction to the fairest country on God’s footstool. Johnstown became a City of the Dead, and the once pleasant valley was the Valley of Death.

Only those who were on the spot at the time can or could tell of the terrible scenes that ensued, and even they could not depict them in their real colors. It would take the pen of a mightier than human hand to indite the story, and a brush of a heaven-inspired artist to delineate the action. All was desolation, death and destruction.

Men, women and children, animals, houses, furniture, were swept on the hell-bent waters!

All through Cambria came the flood. Then on to Cooperdale. Frantic mothers, with children born and unborn were compelled to flee, and then had to succumb to the deluge. The cruel, on-rushing tide had nothing in its instincts humanitarian. The death-tide rolled onward and suckling babes were swept from their mother’s breasts even as if the King of Old had proclaimed.

So on to St. Florence in Fairfield – well-named. The people at Ninevah and the quiet, easy-going folk of the cruel-river towns counted their losses by hundreds.

“Ten thousand dead,” was the announcement that came over the wires.

The effect can never be told. Centuries may come and go, but no century can make its mark in the history of time like that of the Nineteenth, with its aide, the Conemaugh.

Hundreds upon hundreds of lives were lost. The number cannot even be approximated, for in such regions there are always innumerable people – what the careless world calls its floating population – who would not be missed or accounted for until the Judgment roll is called.

Even on Monday, three days after the horror, mothers meandered about frantically begging that their children might be returned to them, and men with hearts brushed tears from their eyes and endeavored to make them believe that their dear ones had been rescued. Children pleadingly prayed that they might be saved, but the cruel, ever onward-rushing flood gathered them in and swept them onward.

To add to the horror the Johnstown Bridge, as if to add terror to terror and to make confusion worse confounded, swept from its approaches and precipitated the horror-stricken multitude into the torrent. An overturned stove in a dwelling inaugurated a conflagration. Nearly a hundred people were literally burned to death, thus adding holocaust to the far more preferable death by drowning.

Scarcely had the news of the terrible disaster been sent abroad than the alert newspapers had their commissioners speedily on their way to the scene.

Only the most meagre accounts had been given to the public for the reason that every mode of communication via telegraph or train had been cut off.

When the newspaper representatives reached Johnstown the scene was a pitiable one. The former town was a swamp. Debris was piled here, there and everywhere, and the pestilential stench from the dead bodies was next to unbearable.

The scene beggars description.

Even the trained newspaper men turned their eyes aside and held their nostrils. Corpses everywhere. Dank corpses at that, with glazed, fishy eyes and sloppy wet hair, that made the onlooker feel aweary, and not over anxious to handle.