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

]VOOD]:iLK AXSIHIl.ATED. 89
purchase a revolver. Turning as if to go out, after leaving the counter he fired
four shots, one of them taking ellect in his right temple, causing instant death.
Tlie people in the store crowded around the prostr.Ue form, luit the spirit had
fled^and John Sn\'der v.as a corpse. The poor fellow had lost his wife and fi.iur
children by the deluge. He went to Ohio but could nut stay away from the
scene of his sorrow. Keturning a week befure the fatal act that ended his
career, he tried to work. The excitenicnt was too much for him to bear.
Thoughts of his lobt family dwelt with him night and day, and reason ga\e
way beneath the strain. He was thirty-five years old, an industrious workingman
and a member of the Conemaugh fire company. A world of traged\' is
comprised in his mournful experience.
Joseph Schry and wife, aged respectivel}- S6 and 76 years, were the oldest
couple in the borough. Dwelling happilv for six decades and meeting the
same fate, not se\ered even by death, aptly might they apipropriate the wellknown
words of Burns :
"John Aiuier^on, mvio.John
We cl.imb the hili Ihc.-iiher;
And moiiy a caiitv .l.iv. John,
We've had wi' ainthe. ;
Now we maun totter fh«vn, John,
But hand in hand we'll so.
And sleep thcgither at the foot,
John.\nder~on,myjo."
Mrs. Alice Smith's youngest child was a baby of six weeks. Dozens of
children in the above list ranged in age froni three months to twelve or four--
teen years. Youth and innocence, decrepitude and depravity, mingled in one
common tomb.
The bodies of E\an B. Evans, his wife and his daughter ha\e not been
found. Thomas Robinson, a brother-in-la-\v. who was in the E\ans house at
the time, was also drowned. His boily was recovered at the ^filhille hosehouse.
A boarder named Held got out of the house at the compau}' store in
Johnstown. The mother and daughter were alive at that point. He begged
Mrs. E\'ans to lea\e the house with him, Init she refu=.ed ami the daughter
sv'ould not go without her. Mr. Held got on a roof that was sweeping b\'.
A moment later the gas tanks heaved up and smashed the house. Held
went to tlie stone bridge and was rescued. Thomas T. Davis and wife, a sonin-law
and daughter, who lived a sh.ort distance above the Evans home on
Maple avenue, saved themsehes b\- running to the hill. .V tramp who had
been given bread at a house next door, helped Mrs. Dav is carry her three chil.
dren, Mr. Davis being away. The Davises went to Ebensl)urg, where their
bov of three years tlied. Mrs. Davis, with womanly forethought, locked tlie
door of lier house when ^he deserted it. She still has the key— all of the house
th.at is left.
R. G. Wickersham and a friend were riding their horses about town to
take a view of the liigh water. Ha\'ing reached Woodvale, the'," were about to