The story of Johnstown : its early settlement, rise ... - JohnstownCafe

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Ic-t arts" Wendell Pliillijis talked about. The stocks were tlaiiiaj;ed by water,
'.vheu not carried oil beulih'. Lol;s and trees and divisions (>f houses shc>t
through some ei| tlase stores like cannon lialls— in at the fiont and out at the
back without cereinon\ — takini: counters anti sliehes and L^ootis in their trail.
A linndred people spent last ni^lit on tlu' rtjof of J(.iiin ThDiiias's buildins.;,
which defied the incnrsions of the flood. The wreckage is t\\ent\ -fi\ e teet ihcp.
with a thickeiiiny; tendency, and a dead horse—overtaken in the street—can
he distinguished in the lump. How man\" human bc)dics we haxt- stepped on
and over cannot be guessed. The owners of some of tlu.-se stores have signed
their last check, renderei.1 their List bill and given in their last account. Ma_\'
we not h'.pc one and all had a generous credit in the books whose entries are
infallible ^
Pause right here a moment, takeoff your hat, and view this object. It is
part of a little frame house, doubtless the humble aljode of a pocir familv at
Woodvale, or Franklin, or k'l.ist Ci uitniaui;h, or Mineral Point. How it Luided
on the top of this pile is a nustery. T\\"o walls of the room, the ceilings and
tlie roof ha\ e been pulled otf. but twi.> sidi'S and the tloor remain. What more
A table and two chairs are prone, but just look at that bo.\ ! On it stands a
cloth elephant, erect and steady as though the liouse had not been jarred and
wrenched and humped in the swim for hours. There are other to\s on the
rag carpet and a clnld's \acant chair. The pet eif the household must ha\"e
been phuing with them when the Imilding started e-in its fatal voyage. The
mother— is she not buried in the drift, her darling pressed to her h(.)som The
bab\''s fingers are stitf and icy cold. They will clasp tlie toys no more, and we
drop a dear over a domestic re\ elation so full ai tender [lathos.
Soon we reach the corner of Main and Franklin. On a k>t from which
a building was remo\ed to make room for Dibert's new block the operaTioiise
is bimched in the jam. It sailed fr(jm \\ ashington street. b\\\hat route nobodv
can tell, and is touching the b\iilding used as the Bijou opera-house for years.
Queer, isn't it. that the two should cudiUe together at last' Pack of this lot
is the piost-oftice, the front absent, the bo.xes topsy-tur\ ey, the mails soaked to
paste, and Postmaster Baumer after the brick house on the corner of Main
and Adams for temporar\" quarters. The TriOnnr office, in the second story,
had a bit of side-wall hustled out, type pied and p>resses hurt. jnhn Dibert
& Co.'s bank, on the southwest corner, has an undesiralilc tleposit of mud and
refuse, which detached from the mass and spilled into the old brick building.
The senior partner was carried otf hx the flood with his house ami his daughter
Editor Schubert,, whose Frcii- Prrssr was pubiisl-iCtl above the bank, is
also a victim, but the paper will shorth' be on its legs again. The Park begins
at the northwest corner, and Frazier's drug store faces it on the northeast.
The building is considerably the worse of the tussle, a good piece of one wall
falling in the affra\'. A bo\-car hriKls the fort in the middle C'f the street, and