The Great Galveston Disaster / Containing a Full and Thrilling Account of the Most Appalling Calamity of Modern Times Including Vivid Descriptions of the Hurricane and Terrible Rush of Waters; Immense Destruction of Dwellings, Business Houses, Churches, and Loss of Thousands of Human Lives; Thrilling Tales of Heroic Deeds; Panic-Stricken Multitudes and Heart-Rending Scenes of Agony; Frantic Efforts to Escape a Horrible Fate; Separation of Loved Ones, etc., etc.; Narrow Escapes from the Jaws of Death; Terrible Sufferings of the Survivors; Vandals Plundering Bodies of the Dead; Wonderful Exhibitions of Popular Sympathy; Millions of Dollars Sent for the Relief of the Stricken Sufferers

by Paul Lester

SUBSISTED ON RAW MEAT.

For two days they remained at the home of the hospitable farmer, and then set out afoot to find a hamlet or make their way over the desert-like peninsula to Bolivar Point. In the heat of the burning sun they plodded on along the water front, subsisting upon a steer which they killed and devoured raw, until finally they came upon an abandoned and overturned sailboat high on the beach.

With a united effort they succeeded in launching the boat, and with improvised distress signals displayed, managed to sail to Galveston. There, because of red tape, they were unable to secure clothing, although they were given a little food and transportation to Houston. Clad in an old pair of trousers, a tattered shirt and torn shoes, with his family in even worse plight, the circuit rider of the Patton Beach, Johnston’s Bethel, Bolivar Point and High Island Methodist Churches rode into Houston, dirty, weak and half-starved. Here the family were sent to a hospital and cared for.

Bolivar reported that up to date 220 bodies had been found and buried, and many were still lying on the sands. Assistance was needed at once. It is a fact generally commented upon, and merely emphasized by the clergyman’s experience, that while succor is being rushed to Galveston, other sufferers are neglected. The relief trains en route from Houston to Galveston traverse a storm-swept section, where famishing and nearly naked survivors sit on the wrecks of their homes and hungrily watch tons of provisions whirling past them, while there is little prospect of aid reaching them.

Winifred Black, a lady journalist, furnishes the following vivid account of her experiences in reaching Galveston: “I begged, cajoled and cried my way through the line of soldiers with drawn swords, who guard the wharf at Texas City, and sailed across the bay on a little boat, which is making irregular trips to meet the relief trains from Houston.

“The engineer who brought our train down from Houston spent the night before groping around in the wrecks on the beach looking for his wife and three children. He found them, dug a rude grave in the sand, and set up a little board marked with his name.