David McCullough Library E-book Box Set
Page 240
Thornton, William,
Thoughts on Government (Adams),
Thucydides,
titles issue,
Tories (Loyalists),
disarming of,
in London,
peace negotiations and,
on Staten Island,
Toussaint L’Ouverture, Pierre Dominique,
trade:
of American colonies,
of British,
of Dutch,
of France,
of U.S.,
treason,
of Arnold,
Treasury Department, U.S.:
Hamilton as Secretary of,
Reynolds Affair and,
treaties,
U.S.-British, ; see also Jay Treaty; Paris, Treaty of
U.S.-Dutch,
U.S.-French,
U.S.-Prussian,
Treatise of Feudal Tenures (Gilbert),
Trenton, N.J.,
battle of (1776),
Tripoli,
Tristram Shandy (Sterne),
True Sentiments of America, The,
Trumbull, John,
Truxtun, Thomas,
Tucker, Samuel,
Tucker, Thomas,
Tudor, William,
Tufts, Cotton, Jr.,
Abigail’s correspondence with,
JA’s correspondence with,
Tunis,
Turgot, Anne-Robert-Jacques, Baron de l’Aulne,
Twining, Thomas,
Tyler, Royall,
United States:
Barbary States and,
boundaries of,
British recognition of,
British troops in,
debts of,
Dutch recognition of,
economy of,
empire predicted for,
English relations with, see England, English, U.S. relations with
French relations with, see France, in American Revolution; France, U.S. alliance with; Quasi-War
moral shift in,
in peace talks,
of 1789
territory acquired by,
threats to union in,
unity of,
in War of 1812
westward expansion in,
United States (U.S. frigate),
Utrecht,
Valley Forge, Pa.,
van den Santheuvel, Bartholomeus,
van der Capellen tot den Pol, Baron Joan Derk,
van der Kemp, Francis,
JA’s correspondence with,
van Lynden van Hemmen, Baron,
Vassall, Leonard,
Vassall-Borland place, JA’s purchase of,
Vergennes, Comte de (Charles Gravier),
Franklin’s relationship with,
JA’s initial courtesy call with,
JA’s parting conversations with,
and JA’s second visit to France,
Jefferson’s relationship with,
La Vauguyon’s correspondence with,
peace negotiations and,
Vermont,
Verrières, Claudine-Geneviève,
Verrières, Marie,
Versailles,
veto power,
vice president:
diminishment of importance of,
election of,
frustrations of,
Virgil,
Virginia, University of,
Virginia, Virginians,
boundaries of,
capitol of,
constitution of,
Continental Congress delegates from,
debt of,
Dunmore’s escape from,
plantation houses in,
in 1789
and site of capital,
slavery in,
Virginia General Assembly,
Virginia Plan,
virtue,
government and,
of JA,
Voltaire (François Marie Arouet),
Ward, Samuel,
War Department, U.S.,
War of War Office, U.S., see Continental Board of War and Ordnance
Warren, James,
JA’s correspondence with,
JA’s denial of federal job to,
Warren, Joseph, death of,
Warren, Mercy Otis:
Abigail’s correspondence with,
JA hurt and provoked by,
JA’s correspondence with,
Washington, D.C.,
burning of,
Capitol in,
JA’s first visit to,
John Quincy in,
President’s House in,
Washington, George,
Abigail’s views on,
as Army commander-in-chief,
in art,
cabinet appointed by,
as Continental Army head,
as Continental Congress delegate,
death of,
elected President,
Farewell Address of,
finances of,
French Revolution and,
health problems of,
Howe’s agreement with,
inaugurations of,
at JA’s inauguration,
JA compared with,
JA’s correspondence with,
JA’s damaged relationship with,
JA’s farewell visit with,
JA’s first meeting with,
JA’s regard for,
Jefferson’s correspondence with,
modesty and reserve of,
New England tour of,
as President,
retirement of,
as slave owner,
Washington, Martha,
Washington Federalist,
Waterhouse, Benjamin,
JA’s correspondence with,
John Quincy’s correspondence with,
Watson, Elkanah,
Wayles, John,
Webb, Nathan,
JA’s correspondence with,
Webster, Daniel,
Webster, Noah,
Welsh, Harriet,
West, Benjamin,
West Indies,
Westminster Abbey,
West Point,
Weymouth, Mass.,
whale oil,
Whately, Thomas,
Whiskey Rebellion (1794),
White, Alexander,
White, William,
Whitehall Evening Post,
White Plains, battle of (1776),
Whitney, Rev. George,
Whitney, Rev. Peter,
Wibird, Parson Anthony,
Wilhelmina, Princess,
Williamsburg, Va.,
convention in (1776),
William V, Prince of Orange,
Wilson, James,
independence opposed by,
Winthrop, John,
Wirt, William,
Witherspoon, Rev. John,
Woburn Farm,
Wolcott, Oliver, Jr.,
and election of 1800
JA’s correspondence with,
Wolcott, Oliver, Sr.,
Wollstonecraft, Mary,
women:
Abigail’s views on,
French,
Worcester, Mass., JA in,
writs of assistance,
Wythe, George,
X, Y, and Z Affair,
Yale University,
Yard, Mrs. Sarah,
yellow fever,
York, Pa., Continental Congress in,
Yorke, Sir Joseph,
Yorktown, battle of (1781),
Young, Edward,
ALSO BY DAVID MCCULLOUGH
The Great Bridge
The Path Between the Seats
Mornings on Horseback
Truman
Brave Companions
John Adams
Simon & Schuster
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Copyright © 1968 by David M
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the Touchstone edition as follows:
McCullough, David G.
The Johnstown flood.
(A Touchstone book)
Bibliography: p.
1. Floods—Pennsylvania—Johnstown. 2. Johnstown (Pa.)—History. I. Title.
[F159.J7M16 1987] 974.877 86-26056
eISBN-13: 978-1-4516-5825-5
ISBN 10: 1-4165-6122-6
For Rosalee
Acknowledgments
The material for this book was gathered from the files of newspapers, from unpublished reminiscences, from letters and diaries, from Johnstown Flood “histories” that were best sellers in their day and from books and pamphlets that were privately printed, from court records, engineering reports, local histories, and rare old maps, from old photographs, and from hours of taped conversations with survivors of the Johnstown Flood.
A bibliography is included at the back of the book, but I want to acknowledge my indebtedness to four works in particular: J. J. McLaurin’s The Story of Johnstown, which for all its Victorian embellishments and inaccuracies is the finest by far of the books “gotten up” by journalists in 1889; The Reverend David J. Beale’s Through the Johnstown Flood, in many ways the best book on the flood and unquestionably the best-written and most reliable of accounts by survivors; A History of Johnstown and the Great Flood of 1889: A Study of Disaster and Rehabilitation, which is a doctoral thesis written by the late Nathan D. Shappee and the only scholarly study of the disaster; and a recently discovered transcription of testimony taken by the Pennsylvania Railroad during the summer of 1889, which has been invaluable. (Most of the dialogue in Chapters 3 and 4, for example, has been taken directly from this transcription, which, in all, runs to nearly 500 typewritten pages, and no part of which has been previously published.)
I very gratefully acknowledge my debt to the following flood survivors who kindly gave me so much of their time to talk about their experiences, some of whom have since passed on: Mrs. Kate Miltenberger, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Hesselbein, and David Fetterman, all of Johnstown; U. Ed Schwartzentruver of South Fork; Mrs. Gertrude Quinn Slattery of Wilkes-Barre, who also read the manuscript; and Dr. Victor Heiser of New York, who, in addition to vivid descriptions of his own experiences, supplied wonderful insights into the Johnstown of the 1880’s, and who read the manuscript.
I am grateful also to the two Johnstown ladies, both survivors, who shared memories of their illustrious family, but who asked that I not mention their names.
I wish to thank too the many others in Johnstown who were helpful, and especially the following: Irving London, who led me to the Pennsylvania Railroad testimony and who made available his extraordinary collection of flood photographs; Harold Strayer; Gustaf Hultman of the National Park Service; Elit Felix; Walter Krebs, president of the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat, who made available the paper’s reference library and files; Don Matthews, Jr., also of the Tribune-Democrat, who made numerous helpful suggestions; Frank Dell and Ron Stephenson of Station WJAC; the City Clerk’s office; and the staff of the Cambria Public Library.
In addition, I am much indebted to Edna Lehman, who made available important documentary material at the Cambria County Historical Society at Ebensburg; to the late Robert Heppenstall of Pittsburgh, for information on his father’s heroic action; to Mrs. John E. Hannon, Sr., of Detroit, who wrote to me at length about her grandfather, W. Horace Rose; to Mrs. Bernard McGuire of Cresson, who let me borrow a diary kept by her grandfather, Isador Lilly of Ebensburg; to Dr. Philip Bishop, Dr. John White, and Donald Berkebile of the Smithsonian Institution; to Mr. and Mrs. Fred Livengood, Sr., of Somerset; to the late Mrs. O. C. Gaub of Pittsburgh; to Evan Stineman of South Fork; and to Al Danel of St. Michael, Pennsylvania.
Also I wish to express my gratitude for the facilities offered by the staff of the Pennsylvania Room at the Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh; the Allegheny County Court of Claims, Pittsburgh; the Local History and Genealogy Room at the New York Public Library; the New York Historical Society; the Library of Congress; the University of Pennsylvania; the University of Pittsburgh; the Yale University Library; the White Plains Public Library; and the Boston Public Library.
And for their suggestions and encouragement I wish finally to thank Walter McQuade, Walter Lord, Roger Butterfield, David Plowden, Heywood Broun, Jr., David Allison, Frank Fogarty, James Morrison, Royall O’Brien, Charles T. Siebert, Jr.; Audre Proctor, who typed the manuscript; my mother and father; and my wife, Rosalee.
D. McC.
Contents
I: The sky was red
II: Sailboats on the mountain
III: “There’s a man came from the lake.”
IV: Rush of the torrent
Photo Insert
V: “Run for your lives!”
VI: message from Mr. Pitcairn
VII: In the valley of death
VIII: “No pen can describe…”
IX: “Our misery is the work of man.”
List of Victims
Bibliography
Index
List of Illustrations
Map of Johnstown at time of Civil War
View of South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club Moorhead house
John G. Parke, Jr.
Remains of South Fork dam
Andrew Carnegie
Henry Clay Frick
Philander C. Knox
Robert Pitcairn
Daniel J. Morrell
John Fulton Tom L. Johnson
Captain Bill Jones
Two views of Johnstown-before and after the flood
Wreckage near the Methodist church
Schultz house Debris and “corpse”
Devastation in lower Johnstown
Pennsylvania Railroad bridge
View of the Point
Gertrude Quinn
Victor Heiser
Richard Harding Davis
Clara Barton
Survivors of the flood
Relief rations
Adams Street schoolhouse-temporary morgue The broken dam
Relief commissary
Searching among the dead
Happy reunions
Lynch law
Grandview Cemetery
THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD
“We are creatures of the moment; we live from one little space to another; and only one interest at a time fills these.”
—William Dean Howells
in A Hazard of New Fortunes, 1889.
I
The sky was red
–1–
Again that morning there had been a bright frost in the hollow below the dam, and the sun was not up long before storm clouds rolled in from the southeast.
By late afternoon a sharp, gusty wind was blowing down from the mountains, flattening the long grass along the lakeshore and kicking up tiny whitecaps out in the center of the lake. The big oaks and giant hemlocks, the hickories and black birch and sugar maples that crowded the hillside behind the summer colony began tossing back and forth, creaking and groaning. Broken branches and young leaves whipped through the air, and at the immense frame clubhouse that stood at the water’s edge, halfway among the cottages, blue wood smoke trailed from great brick chimneys and vanished in fast swirls, almost as though the whole building, like a splendid yellow ark, were under steam, heading into the wind.
The colony was known as the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. It was a private summer resort located on the western shore of a mountain lake in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, about halfway between the crest of the Allegheny range and the city of Johnstown. On the afternoon of Thursday, May 30, Memorial Day, 1889, the club was not quite ten years old, but with its gaily painted buildings, its neat lawns and well-tended flower beds, i
t looked spanking new and, in the gray, stormy half-light, slightly out of season.
In three weeks, when the summer season was to start, something like 200 guests were expected. Now the place looked practically deserted. The only people about were a few employees who lived at the clubhouse and some half dozen members who had come up from Pittsburgh for the holiday. D. W. C. Bidwell was there; so were the young Clarke brothers, J. J. Lawrence, and several of the Sheas and Irwins. Every now and then a cottage door slammed, voices called back and forth from the boathouses. Then there would be silence again, except for the sound of the wind.
Sometime not long after dark, it may have been about eight thirty, a young man stepped out onto the long front porch at the clubhouse and walked to the railing to take a look at the weather. His name was John G. Parke, Jr. He was clean-shaven, slight of build, and rather aristocratic-looking. He was the nephew and namesake of General John G. Parke, then superintendent of West Point. But young Parke was a rare item in his own right for that part of the country; he was a college man, having finished three years of civil engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. For the present he was employed by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club as the so-called “resident engineer.” He had been on the job just short of three months, seeing to general repairs, looking after the dam, and supervising a crew of some twenty Italian laborers who had been hired to install a new indoor plumbing system, and who were now camped out of sight, back in the woods.
In the pitch dark he could hardly see a thing, so he stepped down the porch stairs and went a short distance along the boardwalk that led through the trees to the cottages. The walk, he noticed, was slightly damp. Apparently, a fine rain had fallen sometime while he was inside having his supper. He also noticed that though the wind was still up, the sky overhead was not so dark as before; indeed, it seemed to be clearing off some. This was not what he had expected. Windstorms on the mountain nearly always meant a heavy downpour almost immediately after—“thunder-gusts” the local men called them. Parke had been through several already in the time he had been at the lake and knew what to expect.