ed down the stream. All
around me were people struggling and drowning, while bodies floated like
corks on the water. Some were crying for help, others were praying aloud
for mercy and a few were singing as if to keep up their courage.

A large raft which went by bore a whole family, and they were singing,
'Nearer my God to Thee.' In the midst of their song the raft struck a
large tree and went to splinters. There were one or two wild cries and
then silence. The horror of that time is with me day and night. It would
have driven a weak-minded person crazy.

"The true condition of things that night can never be adequately
described in words. The water came down through a narrow gorge, which in
places was hardly two hundred feet wide. The broken dam was at an
elevation of about five hundred feet above Johnstown. The railroad
bridge across the Conemaugh River is at the lower side of Johnstown, and
the river is joined there by another mountain stream from the northeast.
It was here that the debris collected and caught fire, and I doubt if it
will ever be known how many perished there. The water came down with the
speed of a locomotive. The people there are absolutely paralyzed--so
much so that they speak of their losses in a most indifferent way. I
heard two men in conversation. One said: 'Well, I lost a wife and three
children.' 'That's nothing,' said the other; 'I lost a wife and six
children.'"

The Sudden Break.

A man named Maguire was met on his way from South Fork to Johnstown. He
said he was standing on the edge of the lake when the walls burst. The
waters were rising all day and were on a level with a pile of dirt which
he said was above the walls of the dam. All of a sudden it burst with a
report like a cannon and the water started down the mountain side,
sweeping before it the trees as if they were chips. Bowlders were rolled
down as if they were marbles. The roar was deafening. The lake was
emptied in an hour.

At the time there were about forty men at work up there, building a new
draining system at the lake for Messrs. Parke and Van Buren. They did
all they could to try and avert the disaster by digging a sluiceway on
one side to ease the pressure on the dam, but their efforts were
fruitless.

"It was about half-past two o'clock when the water reached the top of
the dam. At first it was just a narrow white stream trickling down the
face of the dam, soon its proportions began to grow with alarming
rapid