New Tales of Horror

Map of Johnstown Flood

The accounts contained in the foregoing chapters bring this appalling story of death down to June 4th. We continue the narrative as given from day to day by eye-witnesses, as this is the only method by which a full and accurate description of Johnstown’s unspeakable horror can be obtained. On the morning of June 5th one of the leading journals contained the following announcements, printed in large type, and preceding its vivid account of the terrible situation at Johnstown. Death, ruin, plague! Threatened outbreak of disease in the fate stricken valley. Awful effluvia from corpses! Swift and decisive means must … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Evan Henry Hopkins

Hopkins, Evan Henry; lawyer; born, Johnstown, Pa., Nov. 4, 1864; son of David J. and Mary Jeffreys Hopkins; A. B., Adelbert College, 1889; LL. B., Harvard, 1892; married, Frances P. M. Shain, of Cleveland, Dec. 27, 1892; admitted to bar, 1891; in practice at Cleveland since 1892; member law firm of Herrick & Hopkins; member faculty and registrar, 1892-1895, dean law dept., 1895-1910, Western Reserve University; member and sec’y Cleveland Public Library Board, 1892-1898; member Board Park Commissioners, Cleveland, 1900-1901; Presbyterian; Republican; contributor to legal publications; member University Club.

Digging for the Dead

Map of the Conemaugh Valley

A party started in early exploring the huge mass of débris banked against the Pennsylvania Railroad bridge. This collection, consisting of trees, sides of houses, timber and innumerable articles, varies in thickness from three or four feet to twenty feet. It is about four hundred yards long, and as wide as the river. There are thousands of tons in this vast pile. How many bodies are buried there it is impossible to say, but conservative estimates place it at one thousand at least. The corps of workmen who were searching the ruins near the Methodist Church late this evening were … Read more

Biographical Sketch of William Rowland Hopkins

Hopkins, William Rowland; lawyer; born, Johnstown, Pa., July 26, 1869; son of David J. and Mary Jeffreys Hopkins; educated, Western Reserve Academy, 1892, Adelbert College, Western Reserve University, 1896, A. B.; Law School, Western Reserve University, 1897, LL. B.; married Cleveland, June 11, 1903, Ellen Louise Cozad; member City Council, 1897-1899; active in promotion and construction of the Cleveland Short Line B. R., working out a system of rapid transit for Cleveland; director The Cleveland Short Line R. R. Co.; vice pres. and treas. the Belt & Terminal Realty Co.; pres. The Cleveland Underground B. R. Co., the Subway Realty … Read more

One Week After the Great Disaster

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By slow degrees and painful labor the barren place where Johnstown stood begins again to look a little like the habitations of a civilized community. Daily a little is added to the cleared space once filled with the concrete rubbish of this town, daily the number of willing workers who are helping the town to rise again increases. To-day the great yellow plain which was filled with the best business blocks and residences before the flood is covered with tents for soldiers and laborers and gangs of men at work. The wrecks are being removed or burned up. Those houses … Read more

Johnstown and Its Industries

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At this point of our narrative a sketch of Johnstown, where the most frightful havoc of the flood occurred, will interest the reader. The following description and history of the Cambria Iron Company’s Works, at Johnstown, is taken from a report prepared by the State Bureau of Industrial Statistics: The great works operated by the Cambria Iron Company originated in a few widely separated charcoal furnaces, which were built by pioneer iron workers in the early years of this century. It was chartered under the general law authorizing the incorporation of iron manufacturing companies, in the year 1852. The purpose … Read more

Hairbreadth Escapes

Rescues at the signal tower

So vast is the field of destruction that to get an adequate idea from any point level with the town is simply impossible. It must be viewed from a height. From the top of Kernville Mountain just at the east of the town the whole strange panorama can be seen. Looking down from that height many strange things about the flood that appear inexplicable from below are perfectly plain. How so many houses happened to be so queerly twisted, for instance, as if the water had a whirling instead of a straight motion, was made perfectly clear. The town was … Read more

Multiplication of Terrors

The Johnstown Flood

The handsome brick High School Building is damaged to such an extent that it will have to be rebuilt. The water attained the height of the window sills of the second floor. Its upper stories formed a refuge for many persons. All Saturday afternoon two little girls could be seen at the windows frantically calling for aid. They had spent all night and the day in the building, cut off from all aid. Without food and drinking water their condition was lamentable. Late in the evening the children were removed to higher ground and properly cared for. A number of … Read more

Pathetic Scenes

Child found thumping on a wrecked piano

Some of the really pathetic scenes of the flood are just coming to the public ear. John Henderson, his wife, his three children, and the mother of Mrs. Henderson remained in their house until they were carried out by the flood, when they succeeded in getting upon some drift. Mr. Henderson took the babe from his wife, but the little thing soon succumbed to the cold and the child died in its father’s arms. He clung to it until it grew cold and stiff and then, kissing it, let it drop into the water. His mother-in-law, an aged lady, was … Read more

Millions of Money for Johnstown

Contributing to the Relief Fund in Philadelphia

Never before in our country has there been such a magnificent exhibition of public sympathy and practical charity. As the occasion was the most urgent ever known, so the response has been the greatest. All classes have come to the rescue with a generosity, a thoughtfulness and heartfelt pity sufficient to convince the most stubborn misanthrope that religion is not dead and charity has not, like the fabled gods of Greece, forsaken the earth. The following lines, cut from one of our popular journals, aptly represents the public feeling, and the warm sympathy that moved every heart: I stood with … Read more

Death and Desolation

The awful rush of waters

The terrible situation on the second day after the great disaster only intensifies the horror. As information becomes more full and accurate, it does not abate one tittle of the awful havoc. Rather it adds to it, and gives a thousand-fold terror to the dreadful calamity. Not only do the scenes which are described appear all the more dreadful, as is natural, the nearer they are brought to the imagination, but it seems only too probable that the final reckoning in loss of life and material wealth will prove far more stupendous than has even yet been supposed. The very … Read more

Biographical Sketch of James Arthur Loughry

Loughry, James Arthur; dentist; born, Johnstown, Pa., Nov. 30, 1881; son of Clark Hawkins and Emma Louise Cooper Loughry; educated, Elyria, O., public school, and graduate of High School, 1899; Ohio State University dental education; received degree of D. D. S., 1904; married, Marion, Ind., Dec. 25, 1906, Edith Johnson; one son, James Richard Loughry; member National Dental Ass’n, Ohio State Dental Society, Northern Ohio Dental Ass’n, and Cleveland Dental Society; member Psi Omega Dental Fraternity, and Euclid Club.

A Walk Through the Valley of Death

Selling damaged goods

In the following graphic narrative one of the eye-witnesses of the fearful ruin and slaughter represents himself as a guide, and if the reader will consider himself as the party whom the guide is conducting, a vivid impression of the scene of the great destruction may be obtained. “Hello, where on earth did you come from? And what are you doing here, anyhow? Oh! you just dropped in to see the sights, eh? Well, there are plenty of them and you won’t see the like of them again if you live a century. What’s that? You have been wandering around … Read more

Thrilling Experiences

An engineer's terrific race in the valley of death

JOHNSTOWN, Pa., June 3, 1889.–Innumerable tales of thrilling individual experiences, each one more horrible than the others, are told. Frank McDonald, a conductor on the Somerset branch of the Baltimore and Ohio, was at the Pennsylvania Railroad depot in this place when the flood came. He says that when he first saw the flood it was thirty feet high and gradually rose to at least forty feet. “There is no doubt that the South Fork Dam was the cause of the disaster,” said Mr. McDonald. “Fifteen minutes before the flood came Decker, the Pennsylvania Railroad agent read me a telegram … Read more

Burial of the Victims

Distributing supplies from the relief train

Hundreds have been laid away in shallow trenches without forms, ceremonies or mourners. All day long the work of burial has been going on. There was no time for religious ceremonies or mourning and many a mangled form was coffined with no sign of mourning save the honest sympathy of the brave men who handled them. As fast as the wagons that are gathering up the corpses along the stream arrive with their ghastly loads they are emptied and return again to the banks of the merciless Conemaugh to find other victims among the driftwood in the underbrush, or half … Read more

Terrible Pictures of Woe

Johnstown after the Flood

The proportion of the living registered since the flood as against the previous number of inhabitants is even less than was reported yesterday. It was ascertained to-day that many of the names on the list were entered more than once and that the total number of persons registered is not more than 13,000 out of a former population of between 40,000 and 50,000. A new and more exact method of determining the number of the lost was inaugurated this morning. Men are sent out by the Relief Committee, who will go to every abode and obtain the names of the … Read more

Biography of James Philip Murray

James Philip Murray. The largest institution of its kind in Kansas City, Kansas, is the Murray Baking Company. As a business it is one of the considerable assets of the community. Its product is known and appreciated by thousands of customers. The business affords employment, and on other grounds could hardly be left out of any list of leading enterprises. The business also had a human interest, since the plant is the outgrowth and product of the technical ability and the energy of one man, James P. Murray. Mr. Murray came to America some thirty-five years ago, poor in worldly … Read more

The Horror Increases

Nineveh Station, where two hundred bodies were found

During the night thirty-three bodies were brought to one house. As yet the relief force is not perfectly organized and bodies are lying around on boards and doors. Within twenty feet of where this was written the dead body of a colored woman lies. Provision has been made by the Relief Committee for the sufferers to send despatches to all parts of the country. The railroad company has a track through to the bridge. The first train arrived about half-past nine o’clock this morning. A man in a frail craft got caught in the rapids at the railroad bridge, and … Read more

Biography of Gideon Penrod Marner, M. D.

Gideon Penrod Marner, M. D. This is a name known throughout the length and breadth of Marion County because of Doctor Marner’s long and active career as a physician and surgeon. Doctor. Marner had practiced at Marion for a quarter of a century and most of his experience and work in the profession had been in Kansas. He was born January 4, 1856, at Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a locality famous as the scene of one of the greatest calamities in history, the Johnstown flood of 1889. However, the Marner family had moved from Western Pennsylvania many years before. His parents, Jonathan … Read more