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

WRECK or Tin: y;.,!' express. --
frenzied iliglit.
Many had ncillicr hats nor wrap^. but this was scarcely tliou;^Iit
of in the confusion ami excitement. Bitter lamentations for missing ones tempered
the jo\'of the survivors over tlieirown safetv. Twent\'-two of their number
had been snatched away. Names and residences could not be lixed at once,
nor was their identity positi\-ely established for ^\eeks. Elforts to obtain an
accurate list resulted in the foHo\\Tni; :
Upon the first
Mrs. Fanny Tarbell and three children, Cleveland, O.
Cyrus H Schick, Reading, I'a
Miss Eliza Stinson, Norristoun, Pa
John R. Day and daughter. Prcispect, Md.
Andrew Ewing, Snow Shoe, Pa.
Mrs Mary A. Swineford, aged lady, New Berlin, Pa.
Mrs. Edward Swineford, St. Louis, Mo,
Miss Jennie Paulson, Alleghen_\', Pa.
Miss Elizabeth M. Bryan, Philadelphia. Pa.
Mrs. J.
F. King and Miss Anne M. Bates, Racine, Wis.
Mrs. A. C. Christman, Beauregard, Miss.
Mrs. J. B. Rainey, Kalamazoo, Mich.
Christopher Meisel. Jersey City, N- J-
John Ross, cripple, Xewark, N. J,
Mrs. H. M. Smith and child, Osborn. O.
F Phillip*, colored porter sleeping-car.
warning of the death-dealing wave. Engineer tless tied the
whistle of his locomoti%e open, put on all steam and dashed towards East Conemauc^h.
The whistle screamed and howled as if a tortured fiend possessed it,
brin-^ing people to their doors in hot haste and enabling hundreds to flee to
high ground ere their houses were engulfed. The brave engineer jumped from
the iron steed barely in time to save his life b\' a hasty race beyond the invadino'
waters. Next instant the flood swept the engine from the track, whirling and
rolling it over and o\er. and embedded it in the dirt. J^\"ing bruised arid
pummelled and disabled, pitiful %\ as its helplessness compatLd with its strength
as it had stood upon the track in its burnished bravery of stcc 1 and brass, ready
at the lever's touch to pluck big handfuls of power and lling them in fleec}'
\-olumes to the skies. Silent was the whistle that had informed the passengers
and citizens of the coming destruction. During the height of the flood the sound
of locomotive whistles fr(^m the midst of the waters startled and surprised the
fugitives huddled on the liill. Two engineers, with the ner\e t}-pical of their
class, hatl stuck to their cabs. While awful wreck and dewistation environed
them, the brazen throats pealed a elefiant note at inter\'als, the last time
with exultant vigor as the waters were slowly recedimr. Locomoti\e 1309, a
fifty-ton ei^ht-wheeler, stood in its place, smoke curling from its stack, steam
issuing from tlie safet\'-valvc, and driftwovid heaped up to the top of the heatl
liuht, the glass in which, by a rjueer fantasy of the tlood. \^-as not cracked.
>iot far a\\a\' Locomotive 477, its tender tipped over and a mass of refuse