Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1873-01-24

slumbcr which knew no awakening. Some
times the horses gave out, and the unhappy
driver, benumbed and chilled, his movements
impeded by his heavy clothing, had to aban-
don his team and take to the drifts. The
means and shrieks of the horses that found
| Themselves thus deserted by their masters are
said by some few who survived such scenes
to have been agonizing to hear. And at their
homes things were no better. There was
perhaps scanty supply of fuel in the corner
and but days food in the larder. Night
trod closely on the heels of noon. Perhaps
| the mother was alone with her sucking child
her husband ten miles away in one direction,
her children two miles away in another.
| These hapless parents suffered countless
deaths. The wooden buildings creaked and
rocked in the swing of the storm like ships at
sea. The timbers cracked with the frost like
rifles. Beads of frost stood on every piece of
woodwork, the small panes Of glass were so
| thick with ice that there was no chance that
| the lamp set in the easement could send its
feeble light to the belatod strugglers without.
| 1t was impossible TO open the doors, so high
had the drifts become. The fire grew low
though it was rcplenished with the scanty fur
niture. Day succeeded to darkness, but the
day was as the night. Only the chimney of
| the house appeared above the drifts. The
/
hand in hand. on the prairie, and that her
husbands corpse was somewhere entombed in
giant drift. The little baby's blue lips were
laid against her empty breast; the soul had
| sped from between them in little cloud of
| frozen vapor. She lay down and died, and
the reeuting winds waited through the aper-
tnres of the room a decent drift of diamond
snow for her winding sheet. These pictures,
terrible as they may appear to the readers of
the Herald who sit by warm fires and find the
music OF the snow as it tinkles against the
glass, q musical and cheerful sound, are less
than the reality. The advance of death was
like that of toTturer, who comes with all his
horrid engines to the victim bound at the
stake. Only they were TO be enyied who met
a swifter fate in the raging storm without, and
were spared the sight Of their children dying
before their eyes Of hunger as well as of cold.
On the railroads there was not absolute
suffering. OF course trains were showed in
for days in drifts that lowered TO the tele-
graph wires, and passengers had to shiver
and be scantily fed But this was only a
trife.
When Friday, the 10th, came, the sun rose
upon land OF snow and silence. Drifts ma
ny feet deep and many square miles in ex-
tent were there. Here and there the CHM
nev of house stood up like a tombstone in a
vast cemetry. The land lay like a corpse
under winding sheet that had moulded itself
into occasional wrinkles over the dead limbs
or set features. Now came the giant labor OF
clearing away the giant drifts and setting
free the imprisoned trains, and the sadder
task of tracing through the praries the steps
of the dead. Everywhere they were found
lying still and statuelike in the icy embrace
of death. Sometimes the searchers would
find man and horses together, the former ly-
ing dead wrapped in his robes with the whip
in his hand, in the sleigh, one horse down, the
other standing in the spot where he was fas-
tened by his partners fall till he shared his
partners fate. Sometimes the sleigh was
found overturned, with the traces cut. Then
TO right or left would be discovered the dri
yer who had wandered round in despairing
circle to die. Occasionally the beasts showed
In their dlated nostrls, widely spread lip:
and staring eyes the signs Of mortal terror
And the men 100, were sometimes Lacoons OF
ice.statues oNwrihing despair. But as a
rule, death came quietly, as it generally does
in these cases, first robbing the victim Of the
consciousness of approaching death, which
hegets an agonzed struggle for life, and still
ling him with stupor said to be AS delicious
as it is deadly The death roll cannot yet be
made mp with any degree of certainty. We
are only now getting detailed reports from
the nearer settlements, and it will be fully q
week ere these are so complete as to be trust
worthy. Many of the missing will not be
found till Spring; but it is Safe to set down
all the missing as dead. After carefully col
lectng the various reports received thus far,
and making all allowance for the remaining
parts Of the State, am led TO conclude that
the loss of life in Minnesota will range from
two hundred and fifty to three hundred. Il
is Just possible, though not probable, that the
higher figure may be reached. Almost all Of
these are men and very large proportion Of
them fathers of families in strained circum
stances. The surviving widows and children
will thus be left without means of support o.
any description. The charitable of the Eas
will here find an object for their sympathies