Passing along Tremont street, out as far as Avenue P, climbing over the piles of lumber which had once been residences, four bodies were observed in one yard and seven in one room in another place, while as many as sixty corpses were seen lying singly and in groups in the space of one block. A majority of the drowned, however, were under the ruined houses. The body of Miss Sarah Summers was found near her home, corner of Tremont street and Avenue F, her lips smiling, but her features set in death, her hands grasping her diamonds tightly. The remains of her sister, Mrs. Claude Fordtran, were never found.
The report from St. Mary’s Infirmary showed that only eight persons escaped from that hospital. The number of patients and nurses was one hundred. Rosenberg Schoolhouse, chosen as a place of refuge by the people of that locality, collapsed. Few of those who had taken refuge there escaped—how many cannot be told, and will never be known.
Never before had the Sabbath sun risen upon such a sight, and as though unable to endure it, the god of the day soon veiled his face behind dull and leaden clouds, and refused to shine.
Surely it was enough to draw tears even from inanimate things.
At the Union Depot Baggagemaster Harding picked up the lifeless form of a baby girl within a few feet of the station. Its parents were among the lost. The station building was selected as a place of refuge by hundreds of people, and although all the windows and a portion of the south wall at the top were blown in, and the occupants expected every moment to be their last, escape was impossible, for about the building the water was fully twelve feet deep. A couple of small shanties were floating about, but there was no means of making a raft or getting a boat.
Every available building in the city was used as a hospital. As for the dead, they were being put away anywhere. In one large grocery store on Tremont street all the space that could be cleared was occupied by the wounded.
It was nothing strange to see the dead and crippled everywhere, and the living were so fascinated by the dead they could hardly be dragged away from the spots where the corpses were piled.
There were dead by the score, by the hundreds and by the thousands.
It was a city of the dead; a vast battlefield, the slain being victims of flood and gale.
The dead were at rest, but the living had to suffer, for no aid was at hand.