The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1874-05-27
THE WILLIAMSBURGH HORROR.
Thrilling Incidents Of To- CaIamity-Mei-
ancholy Story OF a Bereaved Mother.

ppIluknclu AhaSs.l iNop"pAN"h'I
Nothing could exceed the painful eI
citement of that search for the dead
unless it were the still horror of the ex
temporized morgues that were all alone
the road of the calamity. In North
ampton, the few that reached there were
taken to the town hall from the Flor
ence meadows they were taken to car
penter shop on the hill east Of the river,
Mt Leeds to the barn in the rear OF
Ross store, at Haydenville to the chap
ell of the church, at Williamsburgh to
the town-hall. To behold the scenes
presented in these temporary harbora-
ges of the victims made the stoutest
heart quail, and the faintest nerves
shudder and almost give way with sick
ening repulsion. They lay on the rude
boards, often without shred OF cloth
ing left, or, if clad, with every garment,
frayed to mere shreds, men and women
in horrible invariableness of agony !;
the only mature face noted as peaceful,
was that of Annie Cogan, who seemed
as if taking happy sleep when the
body was first brought ont of the sands.
There lay children-msny little children
their little beloved faces beaten and
bruised, and yet now and then one as
sweet and placid as when its last good
night kiss was given. Many veteran
soldier, who had been hardened to death
in battle, and cared little fer the sight
of dead men, found this spectacle OF
the innocent little ones more than he
could bear, and many strong man
found his eyes moistening with unwont-
ed tears. No one was ashamed of tears,
there and thus one would have been
less than human to hold them back.
Such Sunday surely never before
was seen in New England community.
At the afflicted villages of course there
could be 10 thought of regular worship,
for church goers and the worlds people
found religious field in seeking for the
dead, ministering TO the present wants
of the destitute and performing numer-
GUS kind and neighborly offices for those
stricken and bereft of friends and home.
Throughout the region and country,
the great disaster was either alluded to
or made the special topic of instruction
and contribution at the churches. At
Williamsburgh no service was held but
those made necessary by the burial of
a portion of the victims the various
workers in bands patiently toiled
through the Sabbath among the debris.
In all the country round most unwont-
cd scene was being enacted from all
the four quarters of heaven came the
curious, the sympathetic, and the plum
derers, for, difficult of credence as it
seems, more than one person was caught
concealing valuables about the hill
sides. Into Williamsburgh, the head
of the disaster, came steady throng
all day long, mostly of idle sight-seers,
though not few came with offers of as
sistance, while others were newspaper
men and those searching for friends and
acauaiutances. From Northampton to
Williamsburgh stretched a continuous
line of conveyances, while the roads
were lined with pedestrians. An I'M
known person would have argued cat
tle-show, college commencement, or
other country fete day, SO miscellaneous
and entirely un-Sunday-like was the
procession. They came even from Berk-
shire, North Adams sending delega-
ton, while every town in the county
and about in the Connecticut valley was
probably represented; New Haven sent
up an extra train of four loaded cars.
OF course, with the washed state of the
country, so great an influx caused the
most exasperating blockades in the road,
it being not Mt all uncommon for line to
be dead set" for half or three-quar-
tiers of an hour. A special train con-
stantly piled between Northampton and
the washed district and all down the
line of the freshet was the same morbid
ly curious throng.
The morning of the terrible event
was one of the gloomiest of the season,
full of heavy clouds, and now drizzllng,
now pouring, rain. So, though with
less and less of rain, the day contin-
ued and the night that followed was
black and cheerless, freighted with heav
mess, and in full accord with serious
thought and anguished lament. Moth
ing could have been more singularly
sympathetic, and sympathy is not a
common mood of nature, fortunately,
no doubt, for our healthiness of mind
After the calamity was all over, after
q restless, weary, tedious, anxious night,
filled with haunting dreams, and SEEM
ing as if it would never end, nothing
was stranger than to arise IN the cool,
sweet Sabbath dawn, with kindly west
wind, and a blue sky hecked with feecy
clouds, and see all nature SO happy, Sc
rene, and Joyous. The birds seemed
never so full of gay delight, never so
iubilant in their carols. To meet on the
roadside, that morning, an Irishwoman,
crying with the piteous keening" OF
her affectionate and impulsive race, over
her lost ones, and to hear above her
head the bobolink warbling his trium-
phant song, with the immortal freshness
of the sky and earth embodied in it,
this was jarring the finer chords most
closely and discordantly.
All along the course of the flood there
were narrow escapes and thrilling incl
dents. Mr.. H. H. Tilton, of Williams
burgh, was carrying his aged mother,
Widow Sarah III. Snow, to place of
safety, when the unrelenting waters
seized them she was carried away,
while he grasped a tree, about 10 feet
high. standing on bank, and was saved,
though the waters reached and swayed
him. Messrs. Hannum and Rhodes,
living in the same house, got across the
street into another dwelling, the lower
story of which was flooded, but some
appie-trees broke the force of the wave
and the house stood.