Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1874-05-27
AWFUL DISASTER.
Four Massachusetts Villages Inundated
by the Bursting of a Reservoir.
Two Hundred Persons Perish
Great Destruction Of Property. /


pletely sweeping away the three manu-
featuring villages of Leeds, Hayden
vile and Williamsburg. Scarcely a
building is left standing. a sfas sass
+5E.t WHERE TT TOOK EFFECT. #5
The villages affected by the disaster
are Williamsburg, Haydenville, Leeds
and Floreuce, located on Mill River, a
tributary to the Connecticut, running
into the latter at Northampton.
The mills on the streams have all
been carried away, and included brass
works, button-hole factories, silk and
cotton mills, brush factories, agricul,
t1lral implements and basket factories,
etc.. besides, saw and grist mills.
.- s7 THE GREAT RESERVOIR. 7a.s. se
The great reservoir covered $50 acres
of ground and had an average depth Of
thirty feet. It was drawn upon in dry
time to supply the mills at Williams
burg, Haydenville and Florence.
ESTIMATES OF CAPITAL.
The manufacturing capital invested
along the river, affe cted by this disaster,
placing it at the lowest estimate, must
be $5,OOO,OO0 and the immediate pop
ulation suffering about 5000. The pop
ulation is almost wholly a manufactllr,
ing one, which has grown up around
the dams.
At Skinnerville, the store of Hayden,
Moore & Co.. and Haydenville savings
bank building, with the safe, were
swept away. The safe contained $780,
900 in money. E. M. Graves store, E.
Ames' store and several houses, LOOMS
Hotel, Hayden & Co.'S tobacco factory
and two iron bridges were also swept
away. -.
The total pecuniary loss by the dis
aster is estimated at nearly $4,000, 900.
The following is a general estimate
of losses by places !: In Williamsburg
w. 81. Avoness, Touring mill swept
away, $40, 900; II. l.. James, mill dam
aged and.1eft without water-power, $780,
900; houses, barns, etc., gone, $40, 900.
At Skinnerville-Wm. SINNERS silk
factory and twelve tenement houses,
destroyed, $4,000. Other houses and
barns, $4,000. .,r..g. .... ..s II
At Observation-Disclosures, Geer &
Co. S brass-works, savings bank build
ings, and tenements swept away, $3.50,
900. The Hayden Tobacco Company's
mill carried off, $1,000. The Hayden
foundry and machine works, damaged,
$1,000. Other houses and stores, $50, ;
900. Gasworks, $4,000.
At Leeds-Nantuck Silk Company,
dam broken and several buildings and
houses carried away, $4,000. George
P. Warmers button factory destroyed
and three tenements, 100000 Other
houses, barns, etc., $4,000.
At Northampton-Emery Wheel Com
pany, damage, $1,000. .r.---..
At Florence the Florence Manufac-
turing Company's brush factory and
damage to stock, $4,000; Wontuck Silk
Company's mill partially torn away and
stock damaged s., 900. -
The latest figures of the loss of life by
the calamity make the total LA, divid-
ed as follows among the three places
Williamsburg 70; Leeds 40; Hayden
vile IS. These figures only represent
persons whose loss is positively known,
though the bodies of all are not vet
recovered.
Bodies are constantly being fonnd,
and in some cases those of persons who
were not supposed to be lost, so that it
seems perfectly safe to say that the
total loss of life will exceed 12O, if in
deed it does not more nearly approach
200.
The gatekeeper of the reservoir says
he has lived in constant expectation of
a break, and has often called the atten-
ton of his superiors to it's unsafe con-
dition. The accident has caused great
apprehension among the residents along
the west branch of Mill River, of which
the Goshen Reservoir is the head, and
which joins the east branch at Williams
burg. It is in all respects similar to
the Williamsburg Reservoir The most
intense excitement prevails in the vi
cinity of the disaster.
FINDING THE DEAD.
At Skinnerville the first bodies were
picked up, dug out from the mud; OF
taken with difficulty from the overload
ed ruins. All through the afternoon
the work went on, till night, and then
men with lanterns, seeking their dead,
stood guard. At Haydenville forty
bodies were gathered by night. Al
Leeds five. There had been, in the af
ternoon, gangs of plunderers promptly
turned to workers by no stinted threats
The people were ready to brain them
with stones. There were fewer dead al
Florence and Northampton; 140 in all
and many more are certainly buried il
the mud and rubbish that fill the valley
with black heaps from Williamsburg te
Northampton.
Just below the village of Leeds OF
what was pretty lawn, called Warner's
Flats, vast amount of debris was col
lected. A hundred men with OK teams
and horses to move the timbers began
work early in the forenoon. In the frs
half hour five bodies we're found, an(
before noon twenty were unburied from
that spot.
PAINFUL RECOGNITIONs.
The operatives from Williamsburg
whose lost ones had not been recovered
crowded the little carpenter shop int
which the bodies we're carried and al
were recognized, although some wer