Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1874-06-06
A PICTURE OF THE FLOOD.
A Thrilling Picture of the mIn River
Valley after the Disaster.

writing from the Mill River Valley in
Massachusetts,, says: The dam gave
way at the bottom, while Cheney, the
gate tender, had gone to breakfast after
an examination of it. The stream, "as
big as mans arm," had become 8
stream as big as a mans waist, and was
tearing rents at the base of the dam,
and, as Cheney ran for his horse, had
swept through in a semi-circle, and
then it was really too late to do any
thing but ride away like the wind and
try and save a few lives. Now there is
left OF this dam an embankment of
earth and walls swept and snapped of
short on either side, and broken tower
of stone near the middle.
Well, the dam broke away, and the
water behind it. A dead weight of mil
lions of tons became in an instant q
hammer stroke of millions of tons.
Hurry now, Cheney Ignorance and
neglect and greed have begun work
which all the knowledge and care in
the world cannot stop till it is thor
oughly done to the end. Yours be it
to save the lives which ignorance and
neglect and greed have put into so ter
rible danger. Ten minutes hard
gallop, good horse, over the mountain
road. Ten minutes-but where will the
water be in ten minutes ? Where is it
when Cheney on his weary horse is
shouting to the families of Williams
burg to arise and get them to the hills
for their lives? Behind him All,
yes, it was-one second ago. Now it is
abreast of him and has passed him, and
is playing a terrible game among the
little white cottages that looked so
clean and pure in the soft rain when
he came within sight of them by the
graveyard at the turn in the road. The
wall of mud-blackened water is upon
them. Will anything, anybody escape
that fearful flood which has brought
down from its hills great fragments
split from the gneiss rocks, and is hurl.
ing along ten ton weights of stone as
boys kick on foot ball. There is house
now standing unharmed, on every
side of which are the shaven cellars of
bouses whose fragments are seven miles
away. Here there lived q livery stable
man, who was sitting at breakfast with
his wife when the roar of the flood
reached him. Up they went to the roof
hand in hand, not hoping to escape, yet
just hoping. Crash went whirl of
boulders through the house above.
Then there was a sharp cracking to the
east, and their barn was in kindling
| wood T6o Il,
them. Had it but touched the ehouse with
its edge only, they had been shaken
off into its grasp. They waited for it,
and kept waiting in agony. An eddy
swept round below them and took off a
house with family in it. They were
between flood above and food below,
and still waiting. "Bell," says I, I
think the water is goin' down leetle
on that house above" She didn't say
anythin', but jest gripped me, an
then-I s'pose it was about ten min
utes-an' I was sure it was goin' down,
an by George it did go down an didn't
touch our house, an there we was, safe.
Only we see our neighbors that was an
their houses carried off down the
stream. Pspose we were on the roof
half an hour" Half an hour. No vii
lage of the four that lay in the track of
the flood was exposed for more than
half an hour to the tremendous thrust
of the burdened waves. I tell you, u
continued the livery stable man. I've
been through freshets before and floods
before, but nothin' like this. Years
ago, down at Winstead, I was caught in
the water, and rode on q tree over
two dams, one thirty feet deep an the
other fifteen, an I tell you I was Just
mad. But this time, I don't deny it, ]
was scairt."
In an hour and half from the be.
ginning the last house had been upset
or torn into bits. Quick and terrible
work. Williamsburg, Skinnerville,
Haydenville, Leeds, pleasant little
towns, with white cottages arranged in
straight rows and rectangles, and with
q wide spread of green meadows to the
south or west little feudal hamlets
busy little places, with plenty of fac
tories, plenty of bustling life and hare
work; pretty, clustered villages, cling
ing each around some tall chimney, al
standing on the broad flats, with hills
of more and more gentle slope, dowr
and down the valley, not hemmine
hem in, but making way for them from
out the bold mountains above. Sucl
was the valley before the storm O.
water, loosed by neglect, fell upon it
and turned the flats into deserts ant
the gentle hills into the barriers o
such deluge as Massachusetts, hai
never seen before. At williamsburg
the torrent was as deep as it was vide
but here it reached the plain and spread
into food. The flood went straigh
down the valley. 1t attacked Skinner
vile, not with water merely, but with
the bones of williamsburg, great tim
bers and tree-boles, and the stones
which it lifted and whirled along. I
attacked Haydenville with weapons
caught up from both villages above
and was here torrent thick with dead
bodies. Here there is sudden bend
eastward and q narrowing in the ole
stream-bed just above the first dam
The food, thus for a moment contract
ed, raised into wall in it's very front
the spoils of the bridges, houses
orchards, it had swept away. 1t hurled
before it great boiler picked dupat Skin,
nerville, and descended headlong or
this third village. 1t made sieve Of
the brick factory, tore out another
boiler, laid hold of two great iron safes.
and added these to its weapons; piled
house upon house-top, drove two houses
nto one, cut one house into two,
splintered others, turned an island
meadow into desert of sand, smooth
as a billiard table, except where strewn
with tree-trunks and stones, and carried
sixty bodies on towards Leeds. Leeds
it struck on the northwestern corner