The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1870-06-16
A Heartrending Story.
Sudden Rise of Teyan Rivera Family Swept
AWAY in the Flood.

| One of the most terrible calamities of
it's nature that las happened lately is
narrated by the Austin (Texas) Journal.
| 1t reads almost like romance, as it
seems impossible for a small stream
twenty feet below its banks to rise with
such rapidity as is stated 1t is, never
theless, a truth that is far stranger than
| fiction
We published, some time since, a
brief and necessarily imperfect account
OF this strange and most painful calamity
which we now correct, with fuller particu-
lars, as we receive the statement from
the lips of Brevet Colonel Merriam
Major Of the Twenty fourth Infantry
who is now in Austin The Colonel
after tour years of military service on
the frontiers of Kansas. New Mexico and
West Texas, had received leave of alb
sence, and was journing with his wife
and child from El Paso to the Texan
coast.
"They had reached the head-of the
Concho river, and camped for the night
on Sunday, the Gath of April
The river is formed by the junction
of the rills OF water from several large
Fsprings, which have been damned into
ponds by the wild beaver, and are well
filled with large fish.
"The stream is SO small here that a
man can step across it anywhere. The
banks were twenty feet above the bed OF
the water. Fatigued with the long
Tourney OF sixty-eight miles in the pre- vi
GUS twenty four hours, without water, the
party were pleasantly resting, When
early in the evening Colonel Merriam
was aroused by the signs of an approach
ing storm. The tent was fastened and
made as secure as possible, and about 8
o'clock hail storm burst upon them.
accompanied by some rain and a strong
wind.
THE fall of hail was unprecedented,
lasting until nearly II the stones being
of the size of hens eggs, and striking
the tent and prairie with q noise like
that OF incessant musketry.
| The Colonel, who was not ignorant
/, of the sudden and extreme overflows To
(which the mountain streams of Texas are
| liaR}e, went out into the darkness as
{ss 4 S the storm had ceased, to no,c
what effect had been produced on this
rivulet To his amezement he found in
t he formerly almost dry bed of the creek
a resisiless torrent, loaded and filled with
hail, rolling bank-full, white as milk
and silent as river of OIL He at once
saw the danger, and ran back to the tent
shouting to the escort and servants to
turn out. He pla ced Mrs. Merriam, the
child and nurse in the carriage, and, with
the aid of three men, started to run with
it to the higher ground, distance of not
sixty yards Scarcely a minute had
elapsed from the time the alarm had been
given, but already the water had surged
over the bank in waves of such volume
and force as to sweep the party from
their feet before they had traversed
thirty yards. eH
| THE Colonel called for assistance on
some cavalry soldiers who had just
escaped from the United States mail sta.
ton near by, but they were too terrorized
! TO heed or help. u
| ''Colonel Merriam then abandoned the
hope OF saving his family in the carriage
and tried to enter it in order to swim out
with them, but he was swept down the
| ice-cold torrent like bubble. Being an
expert swimmer, he succeeded in reach
| ing the bank about two hundred wards
| below, and ran back to renew the effort
when he received the terrible tidings
| that, the carriage with all its precious
| freight, had turned over, and gone roll
| ing down the flood, his wife saying, as
she disa peared My darling husband,
good bye The little rill of few hours
before, which child might step across,
had become raving river, covered with
masses of drift wood q mile in width.
and from thirty 0 forty feet deep.
"The bereaved husband procured a
horse from one Of the cavalry, and rode
far down the torrent, but could see moth
| ing in the darkness, and heard naught
but the wild sounds of the waves. So
passed the long and We airy night 4s
9 Before day the strange and mo-
mentary food had passed by, and the
small stream shrank to its usual size, and
ran in its wonted bed. The sad search
began The drowned soldiers and ser
wants, four in number, were found, and
the BODY of the wife taken from the
water about three fourths of mile below,
and prepared for q journey of fifty three
mites TO the post Of Concho for einporary
burial. Not till three days after was the
body of the child found, four miles down
the stream, long distance from its bed.
Mrs. Merriman was a lady of culture and
attachments, valued and beloved by all
who knew her The little girl not three
years old, was remarkable for the maturi
lty of Ler mind and the sweetness of her
disposition.
aThe carriage was drifted by the cur,
rent about a mile, and lodged in a thick
ct. The storm and the flood are repre-.
sented as frightful beyond description.
The Beaver ponds, from which the Con-
cho takes its rise, were so filled with the,
icy hail that the catfish were killed by