To rescue their perishing brothers
From death in that horrible tide.
For some of the noblest heroes
That ever calamity saw,
Repose uninterred in the valley
Where wanders the dread Conemaugh.
The incidents attending a field of relief—some pathetic and sorrowful, others laughable and ludicrous—so loom up in the memory when the subject is opened, as almost to encumber the pen as one writes. Referring to our landlady at Locust Street Hotel, Mrs. Henrie, one recalls her wonderful experience during the night of the flood. By some means, entirely alone, she floated down the stream, not only through Johnstown, but miles below in the darkness of the night, until some time next day perhaps she managed to stay herself in a tree-top, where she clung among the branches, her clothing torn from her in shreds during her struggle for life, until discovered and taken away.
The family of Mr. John Tittle, one of the oldest, most respected and beloved in the town, floated clinging to the top of their house, without knowing that they were moving, but thought others were moving as they passed them; until at length, fearing that Mrs. Tittle’s strength and courage would fail, her husband joined hands with her firmly over the ridge-pole, and thus they hung on opposite sides of the roof through the long night. The courage and strength did often fail, and her pleading went out to her husband: “Oh, let us let go and end it, John! We cannot escape! I cannot endure it longer!” to be answered by his words of hope and cheer and a tightened grasp on the aching wrists. At length, near morning, having reached the vicinity of Kernville, the house struck the bridge and remained stationary. One by one the inmates slid onto the bridge and gained the land on the Kernville side.
They had left within the house, unable to be gotten out, the old, decrepit black mammy of a lifetime, the great silky-haired setter, “Rob,” and the poll-parrot hanging in her cage. All had been transferred, as the water rose, to the topmost peak of the attic, where they were left to their fate. The great bread-wagons of Pittsburg, with their sturdy policemen, were already there; the dead and the living were being picked up together as they floated down. Some consciousness began to return to the dazed survivors, and at length it was thought safe to attempt an entrance to the Tittle mansion, still floating at the bridge.
On gaining the attic, this picture as described at the time, presented itself: the water had never quite reached it; Poor, old mammy sat in the highest corner, with hands clasped, her chin resting on her knees, and her lips muttering her woes and her prayers; long-eared, silky-haired “Rob,” no longer a “setter” at least, bounding and roaring a welcome that required physical strength to resist; and “poll,” her cage topsy-turvy, striding about the floor, with an air of offended dignity, hungry and cross, said “she had had a devil of a time.”