C. W. Hoppenstall, of Lincoln avenue, East End, Pittsburg, distinguished himself by his bravery. He was a messenger on the mail train which had to turn back at Sang Hollow. As the train passed a point where the water was full of struggling persons, a woman and child floated in near shore. The train was stopped and Hoppenstall undressed, jumped into the water, and in two trips saved both mother and child.
The special train pulled in at Bolivar at 11.30 o’clock and trainmen were notified that further progress was impossible. The greatest excitement prevailed at this place, and parties of citizens were all the time endeavoring to save the poor unfortunates that were being hurled to eternity on the rushing torrent.
The tidal wave struck Bolivar just after dark and in five minutes the Conemaugh rose from six to forty feet and the waters spread out over the whole country. Soon houses began floating down, and clinging to the debris were men, women and children, shrieking for aid. A large number of citizens at once gathered on the county bridge and they were reinforced by a number from Garfield, a town on the opposite side of the river. They brought a number of ropes and these were thrown into the boiling waters as persons drifted by in efforts to save some poor beings. For half an hour all efforts were fruitless until at last, when the rescuers were about giving up all hope, a little boy astride a shingle roof managed to catch hold of one of the ropes. He caught it under his left arm and was thrown violently against an abutment, but managed to keep hold and was successfully pulled on to the bridge, amid the cheers of the onlookers. His name was Hessler and his rescuer was a train hand named Carney. The lad was taken to the town of Garfield and cared for in the home of J. P. Robinson. The boy was about 16 years old.
His story of the frightful calamity is as follows: “With my father, I was spending the day at my grandfather’s house in Cambria City. In the house at the time were Theodore, Edward and John Kintz, and John Kintz, Jr., Miss Mary Kintz, Mrs. Mary Kintz, wife of John Kintz, Jr., Miss Tracy Kintz, Miss Rachel Smith, John Hirsch, four children, my father and myself. Shortly after 5 o’clock there was a noise of roaring waters and screams of people. We looked out the door and saw persons running. My father told us not to mind, as the waters would not rise further. But soon we saw houses being swept away and then we ran to the floor above. The house was three stories, and we were at last forced to the top one. In my fright I jumped on the bed. It was an old-fashioned one with heavy posts. The water kept rising and my bed was soon afloat. Gradually it was lifted up. The air in the room grew close and the house was moving. Still the bed kept rising and pressed the ceiling. At last the post pushed the plaster. It yielded and a section of the roof gave way. Then suddenly I found myself on the roof and was being carried down stream. After a little this roof commenced to part and I was afraid I was going to be drowned, but just then another house with a single roof floated by and I managed to crawl on it and floated down until nearly dead with cold, when I was saved. After I was freed from the house I did not see my father. My grandfather was on a tree, but he must have been drowned, as the waters were rising fast. John Kintz, Jr., was also on a tree. Miss Mary Kintz and Mrs. Mary Kintz I saw drowned. Miss Smith was also drowned. John Hirsch was in a tree, but the four children were drowned. The scenes were terrible. Live bodies and corpses were floating down with me and away from me. I would hear persons shriek and then they would disappear. All along the line were people who were trying to save us, but they could do nothing and only a few were caught.”
The boy’s story is but one incident and shows what happened to one family. God only knows what has happened to the hundreds who were in the path of the rushing water. It is impossible to get anything in the way of news, save meagre details.
An eye-witness at Bolivar Block Station tells a story of unparalleled horror which occurred at the lower bridge which crosses the Conemaugh at this point. A young man and two women were seen coming down the river on a part of a floor. At the upper bridge a rope was thrown them. This they all failed to catch. Between the two bridges the man was noticed to point towards the elder woman, who, it is supposed, was his mother. He was then seen to instruct the women how to catch the rope which, was being lowered from the other bridge. Down came the raft with a rush. The brave man stood with his arms around the two women. As they swept under the bridge he reached up and seized the rope. He was jerked violently away from the two women, who failed to get a hold on the life line. Seeing that they would not be rescued he dropped the rope and fell back on the raft, which floated on down. The current washed the frail craft in towards the bank. The young man was enabled to seize hold of a branch of a tree. The young man aided the two women to get up into the tree. He held on with his hands and rested his feet on a pile of driftwood. A piece of floating debris struck the drift, sweeping it away. The man hung with his body immersed in the water. A pile of drift soon collected and he was enabled to get another secure footing. Up the river there was a sudden crash and a section of the bridge was swept away and floated down the stream, striking the tree and washing it away. All three were thrown into the water and were drowned before the eyes of the horrified spectators just opposite the town of Bolivar.
Early in the evening a woman with her two children were seen to pass under the bridge at Bolivar, clinging to the roof of a coalhouse. A rope was lowered to her, but she shook her head and refused to desert the children. It was rumored that all three were saved at Cokeville, a few miles below Bolivar. A later report from Lockport says that the residents succeeded in rescuing five people from the flood, two women and three men. One man succeeded in getting out of the water unaided. They were kindly taken care of by the people of the town.
A little girl passed under the bridge just before dark. She was kneeling on a part of a floor and had her hands clasped as if in prayer. Every effort was made to save her, but they all proved futile. A railroader who was standing by remarked that the piteous appearance of the little waif brought tears to his eyes. All night long the crowd stood about the ruins of the bridge, which had been swept away at Bolivar. The water rushed past with a roar, carrying with it parts of houses, furniture and trees. The flood had evidently spent its force up the valley. No more living persons were being carried past. Watchers with lanterns remained along the banks until day-break, when the first view of the awful devastation of the flood was witnessed.
CRAZED BY THEIR SUFFERINGS.
When the great waves of death swept through Johnstown, the people who had any chance of escape ran hither and thither in every direction. They did not have any definite idea where they were going, only that a crest of foaming waters as high as the housetops was roaring down upon them through the Conemaugh, and that they must get out of the way of that. Some in their terror dived into the cellars of their houses, though this was certain death. Others got up on the roofs of their houses and clambered over the adjoining roofs to places of safety. But the majority made for the hills, which girt the town like giants. Of the people who went to the hills the water caught some in its whirl. The others clung to trees and roots and pieces of debris which had temporarily lodged near the banks, and managed to save themselves. These people either stayed out on the hills wet and in many instances naked, all night, or they managed to find farmhouses which sheltered them. There was a fear of going back to the vicinity of the town. Even the people whose houses the water did not reach abandoned their homes and began to think of all of Johnstown as a city buried beneath the water.