Bristol news. [volume] (Bristol, Va. & Tenn.) 1867-189?, 1874-05-26


a wide spread of green meadows to the
south or west; little feudaI hamIets,
whose peoples were almost owned by
one man, generally he. for whom each
| village was named; busy little places,
with plenty of factories, plenty Of bust
I ling life and hard work pretty; clus-
tered villages, clinging each around
| some tall chimney. III standing on
the broad flats, with hiIls of more and
more gentle slope, down and down the
valley, not hemming them in, but
making way for them from out the
| bold mOunia ms above. Such was the
valley before the storm CT water, loOsed
by the neglect of the great men of the
valley, fell upon it, and turned the
flats into deserts and the gentle hills
into the barriers of such deluge as
Massachusetts had never seen before.
At Williamsburg the torrent was as
deep as it was wide, but here it reach
| ed the plain and spread into a flood
| The flood went straight down the val
Hey. 1t attacked Skinperville,h not
with water merely, but with the benes
| of W Williamsburg, great tinIbers and
! tree-boleS, and the stones which it
| lifted and whirled along. 1t 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 narrowing in the old stream
bed just above the first dam. The
| flood, thus for moment contracted.
raised into a wall in its very front the
spOils of the bridges, houses, orchards, !,
it had swept away. 1t hurled befOr it.
a great boiler picked up at Skinner
vile, and descended headlong on this
third village. 1t made a 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 hOusetOp, drove two house
top, drove two houses into one, cut
one house into two, splintered others,
turned an island meadow into desert
of sand, smooth as billiard-table, eX-
cept where strewE with tree-trunkS
and stones, and carried sixty bodies
on towards Leeds, Leeds it struck on
tie northwestern corner and broke for
itself straight path through till it
landed thirty dead in twisted mass
of rubbish againSt-the hill below Mar
ner's flats. The loss of life was terri
bic, hut undoubtedly tar less than it
would have been but for milkman
Collins Graves who carried the news
of the flood just a breathing space
ahead of the flood from Williamsburg
through Skinnerville to HaYdeEsville
Is it any wonder that ali this ruin
ShOHld be mecca of Sight-seers day
after day? They We're mostly in
carriages yesterday, and as every
turL pike bridge III the valley was gone
and the roads were chaos, long process
sions-a wagon with coffinS at every
rOad-fOTmed on both sides the fordS
Yesterday there was bright sky and
a glorious sun, and the hills around
the lower valley were green and soft to
the eye. A beautiful day for pleasur-
ing; but the catastrophe was rot SO
old and so familiar in mems mouths
rs it is to-day. SO men had come qui-
city to look upon something great,
something worth seeing and worth
telling of for years. And they were in
the main a dccOrOus crowd City peO-
pie utilizing a holiday. country men
from five counties around. staid Sc
niors from Amherst who Ea.t ''cutn
the Sunday morning prayers of all
morning prayers i'll the week, and the
sunday morning sermon a sin of not
light weight, to be attoned for by
many crooked black marks. There
were few women. except those of the
valley, or friends who had come to
help lay out the dead, and 10 iIl-beha-
viOr, except among some stray Yam
KEGS who looked on whilethe gangs
were working to get out the dead from
some of the tangled, twisted stack ed
heaps of rubbish with which the plain
aboInded One of these gangs just
below SINNERS was led by the man
who expected to fad his wife in the
pile they were untwisting and hewing
through. kin you identify this,
JOhn?" "DO you know this red cloak
John ?" The man didn't talk. He
shook his head and worked on. Fl
nally when they were nearing the bot
tom of the heap, and bit OF mud
stained white cloth with tatting sewed
upon it had been fished out and dis
cussed and laid aside, up came a
strange man into the crowd and by a
few inquiries of bystanders put him
self in possession of the facts. Then
he walked up to "John: :" "Hain't
found yer wife yet, hev YEP" The
man shook him off as one shakes off
fly, but without a curse or a word, and
by and by the curious stranger went
his ways leaving the man who hadn't
found his wife tossing off timbers from
the heap, dreading the discovery he
ionged for because he would at least
give his wife's body funeral service
before burial. But to-day the crowd
was of rOugher east. Anybody aud
everybody was on hand. Trains came
up from Springfield with seventeen
and thirteen cars attached, and no
standing room in any of them. The
livery stables Of NOrthamtOn were
sacked before seven o'clock in the
morning, and crowd of idlers, men
and women, b;set all day the ruined
valley. Not pleasant visitors were
they all to the people of that valley,
who had worked with lanterns III!
night in the mud, and expected to
work all day again. Nor was it with
out suggestion of police that one
could see some of those regiments of
people scattering among the battered
houses. For all the houses not utter
ly wrecked are still dwelt i'm by their
families, and the water made sad work
with the ordinary defences against
thieves. Still for as much as proper
curiosity brought mary of the visitors,
their visit, if inOpportune, was par
doDable because of the grand and aw
ful sight there was to sea desert of
water, of things strange and unoouth,
wrought into shapes like nothing on
earth a pandemOnium wherein the
presiding chance worked out the most
bizarre effects of grouping. eye has
looked on outside the various land
scapes, surnamed of the devil, along
the Yellowstone. Over The green of
the meadows is laid two feet of sand
or of gigantic gravel, every stone of
which is boulder. The plough of
the torrent has scooped out strat e 4ly
winding gulches in the earth whose
edges are already eroded aud worn
smooth under the water which was at |
once plough and harrow. Groves |
of young trees are bent to the ground |
and left flattened with their limbs |
tangled in drift and debris. Stronger
trees. if they were in the full swing Of |
the current, were uprOOted Dr snapped |
off. II they were at one side the food |