On the 31st of May, 1889, the dam suddenly gave way, sliding from its base, like an oiled piece of machinery, and the vast mass of water shot forward at the speed of more than two miles a minute. Seven minutes after the bursting of the dam, the head of the resistless flood was eighteen miles down the valley. A man on horseback had started, at a dead-run, some minutes before the catastrophe, shouting a warning to the inhabitants, some of whom, by instantly taking to flight up the mountain side, were able to save themselves, but the majority waited too long.
A FURIOUS TORRENT.
Imagination cannot picture the awful power of this prodigious torrent. Trees were uptorn or flattened to the earth, houses, locomotives, and massive machinery were tumbled over and over and bobbed about like so many corks, and the flood struck Johnstown with the fury of a cyclone, sweeping everything before it, as if it were so much chaff. Tearing through the city and carrying with it thousands of tons of wreckage of every description, it plunged down the valley till it reached the railroad bridge below Johnstown. There, for the first time, it encountered an obstruction which it could not overcome. The structure stood as immovable as a solid mountain, and the furious torrent piled up the debris for a mile in width and many feet in depth. In this mass were engines, houses, trees, furniture, household utensils, iron in all forms, while, winding in and out, were hundreds of miles of barbed wire, which knit the wreckage together. In many of the dwellings people were imprisoned, and before a step could be taken to relieve them fire broke out and scores were burned to death.
INDIAN MOTHER AND INFANT.
How many people lost their lives in the Johnstown flood will never be known. The remains of bodies were found for months and even years afterward. The official list, when made up, was 2,280, of which 741 bodies were unidentified; but there is little doubt that the loss was fully twice the number given. Nothing of the kind has ever before occurred in the history of our country, and it is to be hoped that such a disaster will never be repeated.
Again the calamity awoke an instant sympathetic response. Provisions, tents, and money were sent to the sufferers from all parts of the Union, and nothing that could relieve them was neglected. Johnstown was soon rebuilt, and to-day there are no signs of the fearful visitation it received, only a comparatively short time since. On November 14, 1892, at the payment of the annuity provided for the orphans of Johnstown, the sum of $20,325 was distributed.
We came very near to having a war with Chili in the latter part of 1891. On the 16th of October of that year, some forty men, attached to the American warship Baltimore, lying in the harbor of Valparaiso, obtained leave to go ashore. Sailors at such times are as frolicksome as so many boys let out for a vacation, and it cannot be claimed that these Jackies were models of order and quiet behavior. They were in uniform and without weapons.
They had been in the city only a short time, when one of them became involved in a wrangle with a Chilian. His companions went to his assistance whereupon a native mob quickly gathered and set upon them. The Chilians detest Americans, and, seeing a chance to vent their feelings, they did so with vindictive fury. They far outnumbered the sailors, and besides nearly every one of them was armed. The boatswain's mate of the Baltimore, Riggin by name, was killed and several seriously wounded, one of whom afterward died from his injuries. Thirty-five of the Americans were arrested and thrown into prison, but as they could not be held upon any criminal charge they were released.