Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1868-04-21
Onion aud dispatch.
TUESDAY. APRIL FL, Is6s.
lnrresf CircnIniinn In Cifr aud Stnte-
THE PORT JARVIS DISASTER.
Thrilling Accounts of the Disaster
The Scene Of the Calamity.

this devils work, more fitting or apprO-
pirate spot could not have been chosen than
Carr's Rock. The road here runs along an
abrupt and shelving precipice. To the
right there is a wooded hight, at an atti-
tude Of one hundred feet, covered with
spare shrubbery. To the left the beautiful
Delaware, a quarter Of mile wide, chant
Jog musically over its rocky bed, which lies
equidistant between Pike county, PenDsyl-
vania, and Sullivan county, New York.
There stretches the gigantic shelf or gallery
overlooking a sheer precipice of one hun
dred feet ON the Delaware, and showing
along It's narrow edge enormous natural
abutments of scanned and riven rock, as
though they were placed TO support the
fearful pathway trayersed by the trains.
The passenger, in looking out of the car
windows, must naturally feel a sensation of
awe az he looks down in the stupendous
depths below. The view is sublime, but
terrific. Il was at this point that this ac-
cident happened this morning, which has
deprived twenty persons of their lives, and
has seriously injured sixty others. 1t was
3:25 o'clock. The night was dark-the
heat IN the train oppressive. In the three
sleeping cars a hundred persons were
slnmbering, few in the passenger cars
awake, or doing uneasily, and shifting
about, IA il common ia long railway Jour
ney. Many of those asleep in the berths
we're IN their night attire-yomg and
strong men, weak women and trusting chill
dren. In the smoking car a score OF men
putting at their cigars, or drawing consola-
tion from pipes. The steam engine tears
through 4he threatening space of the night,
its iron front all aglow, like the furnace of
hell, its braZen throat emitting a steady,
painting scream, and the silvery Delaware,
one hundred feet beneath signs the same
romance it did three hundred years ago to
the Lenni- ni-Lenspe, when locomotives were
not. The train was travelling hgtgfUe
miles an hour Suddenly death bursts in
with the speed of lightning upon those two
hundred men, women and children. The
engine and the five first cars have passed
safely over the culvert which crosses a
quiet little creek that empties from pla-
teau eight feet above the river into the
Delaware. The day car crosses a rotten
rail- which snaps asunder; and, loosening
from the five first cars and locomotive, is
precipitated over the embankment, fol-
lowed by the three sleeping cars, 10 the
plateau above the Delaware. The grim
terror, Death, is now busy Teaping his har
vest. The four cars tumble over each
other down the sloping, rocky wall among
the loose masses Of granite and quartz
bowlders. Every rocky bowlder takes a
life, The cars are smashing and jumping
from rock 10 rock, and heads and faces are
riven Of beauty aud life, smashed, battered,
crushed aud deiaced. Few are spared dis
hgurement or deformity, and thirteen lives
are beaten ont instantly. The air ia freight
ed with groans, sobs, and sighs OF the
quick and the dying and the smooth Della
ware flows quietly along, while il receives
as tributaries the oozing, trickling riyulets
Of blood and liquid hrains One poor fal-
low, Fcenchman, named Sau5s, has his
nosirils scraped out az il done by an oyster
Knife. A man named Pnrinton, as he
bounCes from rock to rock, has his eyes
beaten in, his upper forehead torn of, and
a hole Is dug out of his skull with as much
facility as If il were spring tnrnip. A
woman named Snow, with her husband
and seven young children, are jammed,
when they strike the plateau, under a
heavy car. Death is merciful in his care
and does not mutilate the features a smash
on the crown of her head, and the lamp is
put ont forever The husband and seven
children live to tell the pitiful tale, but all
are injured more or less. One man has
his jaw torn out, and it hangs limp by a
chin whisker dangling from the chin. His
fingers are twisted, torn, and burnt by the
embers in the rear car. His eyes are
CLASSY and have a reproachful look. There
Is a little lad Of ten years, unknown, with a
cultivated face, and rosy cheeks. Death
struck him gently, and he lays by the surg
ing Deaware's bank, with a placid smile
on his features, after humping his childish
head from rock 30 rock downward. There
lie together, grasped in their last embrace,
man and wife, Ephraim and Mary Hoytt,
torn and mutlated, their fOreheads riVen
and furrowed with the traces Of the Jagged
rockpoints. The quiet streets of Chenango,
one hundred miles away buried in the
shades Of lofty hills, shall never see them
again. Alone, stifiened, and fast getting
cold, with his calm, resolute face, is c. X
Loomis, of Buffalo, his hair dripping with
the washing, sedgy waters, and dark
streak under the eyes 10 tell how he was
swept into the illimitable space of night.
Nothing but a confused mass Of torn tim
Der, broken bones and bleeding bodies; and,
to add to the horrors of it, one Of the cars
takes FIRE from the scattered Goals Of ihe
stove and six persons jammed in the seats
-four women and two men-are slowly re-
duced 10 ashes and calcined bones. oh !
the pity of it One men named Oliver
residing at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in your
city, had both legs broken. He is iammed
under a car fat on his back, and while
thus undergoing unspeskable tortures, his
ewes are fastened ON a woman alongside Of
him, who is also fastened by a timber,
whose head is broken 20 fragments. The
brave old man hears her last expiring sob,
and his arms being free, he makes a vain
attempt to free himself For two long
hours this old man, who is weak and sickly,
lies on the cold, damp plateau of morasz,
before he can be extricsted. In the mean
time, the tiity or sixty persons who have
escaped IN the five foremost cars are ont,
and endeavoring TO assisi those buried IN
the ruin and wreck of matter. The engine
is reversed, and the people on the cars do
their best 10 clear away the broken aud
burning timbers. The gray mist OF the
morning breaks slowly on the river, snd
after 4 time, the wounded, the dying aud
the dead, with the exception OF those
burned to death, are put on the cars, which
reach Port jarvis al eight o'clock in the
morning. TIE entire town, men, women
and children, turn ont 10 assist the suffer
ing ones. The Delaware, Minnesota aud
American Hotels are converted into tempo
rary hospitals, tWenty-four rooms in the
first named house being made 70 serve as
hospital wards. kilograms pour in and
out Of the town, as the news spreads all
over The broad land, and every incoming
train brings the terrified friends and rela-
tives Of the wounded and dying.
Ii is beyond the power Of description TO
tell Of the many scenes and sights that
occur every few minutes, as fathers, moth
ers brothers. and sisters meet their msimed
and dishgured relatives. As soon as one
Of the sufferers expires, the body is taken
over 20 the railroad depot, washed and
dressed up neatly, put into a coffin and
boxed up, and a card attached, giving the
name and residence Of the deceased.
Eleven surgeons belonging 10 the town
as we'll as from neighborlng places, have
been kept busy all dsy. Mr.. ID II. Conk'
len, an attache Of the Erie Railroad Com
pany, takes the entire charge ofthe wound
"a and dead, until their friends can h'
| 4.,.4 A. . ,.,rt ,f bfs lnty he has had