COMMERCIAL TRAVELER’S EXPERIENCE IN GALVESTON.
A graphic description of one man’s experience was given by a commercial traveler—William Van Eaton. He reached Galveston Saturday morning. His narrative is especially interesting, because it shows with what suddenness the storm assumed a dangerous character.
“There was high wind and rain,” said he, “but so little was thought of it, however, that myself and some acquaintances started down to the beach. The water came up so rapidly that we turned and hurried toward the Tremont Hotel. Before we reached it we had to wade in water waist deep.
“Within a few minutes,” he went on to say, “women and children began to flock to the hotel for refuge. All were panic-stricken. I saw two women, one with a child, trying to get to the hotel. They were drowned not 300 yards from us.”
Mr. Van Eaton was one of the first to cross from Galveston to the mainland after the storm subsided. He paid $15 to a boatman to make the crossing. When he reached the point he found an engine and a caboose chained together, with the water several feet deep around them. While he waited in the caboose for the water to go down the bodies of two men and a boy floated against it, and the trainmen tied them to one end of the car. Mr. Van Eaton counted fourteen bodies that had drifted in from the bay, all showing that they had been dashed against wreckage.
ONLY ONE OUT OF FIFTY PEOPLE SAVED.
Patrick Joyce, a railroad man, who passed through the storm at Galveston in 1872, suffered such hardships in that city Saturday morning that he was convinced that the storm at that time was only a “mild little blow” in comparison. He was one of the refugees picked up at Lamarque.
“It began raining in Galveston early Saturday morning,” he said. “About 9 o’clock work was discontinued by the company, and I left for home. I got there about 11 o’clock and found about three feet of water in the yard. It began to get worse and worse, the water getting higher and the wind stronger, until it was almost as bad as the gulf itself with its raging torrents. Finally the house was taken off its foundation and demolished.
“There were nine families in the house, which was a large two-story frame, and of the fifty people residing there myself and niece were the only ones who could get away. I managed to find a raft of driftwood or wreckage and got on it, going with the tide. I had not got far before I was struck with some wreckage and my niece knocked out of my arms. I could not save her, and had to see her drown.
“I was carried on and on with the tide, sometimes on a raft, and again I was thrown from it by coming in contact with some pieces of timber, parts of houses, logs, cisterns and other things which were floating around in the gulf and bay. Many and many a knock I got on my head and body, until I was black and blue all over. The wind was blowing at a terrific rate of speed and the waves were away up.