Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1874-05-19
Over Two Hundred Men, Women
and Children DrOWred-Mil-
lions Of Property De-
Str0yed-
Large Stone Factories Upturned,
and with Many Dwellings,,
Swept Away = Chaos
Come Again.
Particulars Of the Terrible Acct
dent-Wreck, Ruin and Death
The Work o. Relief
Etc, ETC., Etc


NEW HAVEN, CONF, May IA
twenty-fOuT inch pipe n the dam of the
great Ashfield reservoir, above Will
lianasburg, Massachusetts, had been leak
ing for weeks, and some people had
shaken their heads, and said the dam
must be attended to, or it might break.
1t did break yesterday morning. The
masonry around this outlet gave way,
and then, all in minute, ss If q piece
had been bitten out of the dam, great
wall of water seemed to spring up into
the air, and leap out into the sink be-
low. The standing Joke cf Mill river
valley,
fLooK OUT, THE DAN IS ERoKENw
has proved no joke at last. The tor
rent was upon Williamsburg in ten min
utes, and sent its spray above trees sixty
feet high. 1t crGnched one house ike
paper, and killed a woman and her two
children, then another and another,
swept the wooden mills, and rushed on
at the rate of twenty miles an hour. AS
it came down the valley it dug up houses
and swallowed them in an Instant, leav-
great stones came down with the flood.
The mountain of water, rearing like a
thunderstorm of hail, reach ed Skinner
vile, and lifted the silk mills upon its
shoulders before shred6ing them into
bits. At Haydenville il swept away the
factory in a moment; at Leeds it came
down wall of water, faced by an abst-
tbs of timber, trees and iron boilers,
which struck the village full in front.
There was
AN HOUR AND A HALF or FLOOD,
aud then ebb, and at noon those who
had escaped came back in crowds to see
the ruin, and it is an awful sight; houses
are twisted like crUmplec paper, and
trees stripped of their bark and limbs,
even where their roots have clung to the
soil. The beautiful valley is waste of
mud and muddy water, laden with dis
torted and strange shapes, and great
boilers have been carried hundreds of
yards and left crushed together and
buried. A man was picked up from q
tree, upon which he had ridden six
miles on the torrent, cheering and wav-
ing his coat. The poor fellows mind
was gone, and no less than
EIGHT CASES OF INSANITY FOLLOWED
and friends by this terrible calamity,
and three were committed to the asylum
in Northampton. Everything was
ground fine when the food was past.
Timbers were in.tooth picks, and scraps
of iron, bricks and great stones, nearly
became boulders, and here and there
corpse, or piece of a corpse. All the
windiugs of the valley were filed with
the debris-a terrible picture of waste
and death in the most beautiful valley
of Massachusetts. The gracious work Of
SAVING THE DEAD
from this burial began at nocn, at Skin
nerville. The first bodies were picked
Up, dug out from the mud, or taken
with difficulty from the overloaded
ruins all through the valley. The work
went on till night, and then men with
lanterns, seeking their GeaG, stood guard.
AT Haydenville forty bodies were gath
cred by night, and at Leeds, forty
five. There had been in the af-
ternoon gangs of pluncerers, who
were promptly turned to work
ers, by no stinted threats. The people
were ready to brain them with the first
stone. There we're fewer dead at Flor
enee and Northampton. one hundred
and forty in all, and many clore are GER
tsinly buried in the mud and rubbish
that ill the valley with black heaps
FROM WILLIAMSBURG TO NoRTHAMP-
TON.
A man OF horseback gave warning
through the upper half Of the valley,
but some would not hsa-, and some
turned to their houses and to the great
factories for protection. One man at the
Haydenville factory saved his life by
sticking to the house, but he was mar
velous exception. He ran into closet
that stood against the grsat chimney of
the factory, and when the factory was
crushed the chimney stood and his closet
stuck to it like lantern against wall,
with him waving his arm for help out
of breach he made IL its wall. But
man and girl ran outat the
ROAR OF THE WATERS,
but run back for q haven of safe
ty, and went down under the build
ing; at williamsburg facto-
ry and twenty-seven houses were
blotted out; at HaydenYille a fac
tory, gashouse, cotton-mill, bank
and one hundred dwellings; at Leeds
button factory and twenty-five build
ings; at Skinnerville every house is
gone except Mr.. Skinner's own. Such
houses as are here set down as gone are
utterly vanished and distributed in
shreds, not q piece over six feet long
over miles of country. The Licking
water (river, as they call it, has been a
sea, and is now a trickling stream lost
in miles Of mud. The lake, hemmed
in by defective masonry, up among
Goshen Hills, has
DONE ITS WORK TERRIBLY.
Just below Leeds, on what was pretty
lawn called Warmers fats, a vast
amount Of debris collected. A hundred
men and women, with ox-teams and
horses TO move the heavy dmbers, be-
gan work early in the morning. In the
first half hour five bodies were found,
and before noon thirty were unburied
from that spot. The operatives from
Williamsburg, whose lost cnes had not
been recovered, crowded the little car
penter-shOp, into which the bodies were
carried, and all were recognized, al
though some were disfgured almost past
recognition. In the string of vehicles,
every few rods, were wagons containing
one, two, and sometimes four coffined
bodies on the way to the cemetery, for
in the
UNIVERSAL BEREAVEMENT
interment followed swiftly after the re-
covery Of the bodies, and funeral SER
vices, excepting in sfevsinstances, were
dispensed with. At Eaydenville the
bodies were laid out in tbs CongreQa-
tional church. Lying side BY side were a
mother and her two children; near them
a mother, her married daughter and her
two infant children. The bodies of those
of whom the flood had left destitute
were buried at the expense of the town.
The dead of Williamsburg number fifty-
seven. The town hall was thick with
the uneofflned bodies, principally of
women and children. The churches
were closed, and the pastors and people
devoted their whole time to the care Of
the dead, which were removed to the
receiving vault of the cenetsTy ssrspid.