DESPERATE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE, JOHNSTOWN.
had passed without a wink of sleep or a morsel of food, while their wounds and bruises were such as for a time to render doubtful their recovery.
Mr. Calliver, a machinist, had his dwelling in one of the upper wards of the city. His wife, an invalid, had not walked for seven years. He was watching the flood, and telling his neighbors that the worst was already past, when, looking up the river, he saw houses bounding from their places and skurrying towards him. He shouted to his family at once to flee to the attic, but, before they could reach it they were knee-deep in water. The house was floated, and borne swiftly away, but fortunately did not turn over. It drifted out of the main current, struck upon something, and was held fast, while other buildings were drifted onward. Union street school house was near, and to this place, late in the afternoon, by clambering over the accumulated drift, it became possible to escape. Here they found themselves in the company of nearly two hundred others rescued in various ways. Some were crippled, some were shivering with cold, and all had lost their nearest and dearest friends. Many were in awful suspense concerning the fate of loved ones. A sleepless, endless night dragged its slow hours along, and when at last Mr. Calliver, watching anxiously from the roof, saw the first gleam in the east, he cried out in an ecstasy, “It is morning! it is morning!” After deliverance came, being curious to know what it was that had so opportunely arrested his floating house, he made examination, and found that, of several open cars that had drifted into the neighborhood, one had dropped endwise into a cellar, and his house driven upon the end that was elevated had been penetrated with the shaft of the brake-wheel, and securely held in that place.
Rev. David J. Beale, D.D., pastor of the Presbyterian church, to whose authentic and thrillingly interesting book “Through the Johnstown Flood,” we are principally indebted for our statement of facts, and to which the reader is referred for a fuller account, records an experience, which, like those already narrated, serves to show that the visitation was as sudden as it was awful. His first intimation of the coming ruin was a roar, increasing like that of an approaching train, and a moment later the torrent had struck his residence. Urging in advance of him his family and two neighbors who were present, he rushed up stairs, and reaching the second floor found himself already waist-deep in water. At that instant, a man was shot by the force of the current through the window, and to the sudden interrogatories, “Who are you? Where did you come from?” breathless and strangling, he could only answer, “Woodvale.” He had been carried on a floating roof a mile and a quarter, and as it violently struck the parsonage, he was pitched from his hold and dashed through the window. In another minute the whole company were in the third story, witnesses, blanched and mute, of the awful scene of destruction and death.
They recognized many acquaintances and friends riding on to death. They saw two little children, almost nude, clinging to one roof; four young ladies, in agonized embrace, clinging to another; houses for squares north and west torn from their places, and the whole drawn onward, to be crushed and jammed in the gorge below. Meanwhile, Capt. A. N. Hart, his wife and two children, were seen struggling in the wreckage which had drifted near the parsonage, and Mr. Beale, descending into the water in the second story, assisted them to enter through the window. Their arrival in the garret increased to fifteen the number of persons there collected.
The parsonage now began to show evident signs of giving way, and it was decided to abandon it. After an unsuccessful attempt to gain the roof, the whole party were safely passed by means of a rope from the highest window to a floating roof below. They had hoped to reach the church, which still stood secure, a short distance away; but, on making the attempt, they found themselves confronted with fifty feet of water which could not be crossed. They now began a perilous journey over wreckage to Alma Hall, half a square away. This was a four-story building, the largest and strongest in the city. Their way lay over logs and roofs and houses, fixed or moving box cars, and various debris which often concealed them from one another. One of the young ladies, crossing open water on a scantling, fell and disappeared, all but her floating hair, by which she was caught and recovered. About dark they gained the hall, and found no less than two hundred and sixty fortunate unfortunates like themselves, rescued in wondrous ways from ghastly death.