Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1874-05-21
TERRIBLE CALAMITY,
Three Reservoirs BMrst and DclMKc tho
Adjacent Country.
Four Massachusetts Villages Inundated.
rwo HUNDRED LIVES Losr!1
GREAT DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY.

I06A4 O6S 0OS4lON Ox 1NO1601xs
Boston, May 1G.-Throo great water
reservoirs, situated in Hampshire Co.,
Western Massachusetts,, along the line
of the New Haven and Northampton
Railroad, burst this morning, COM
pletely sweeping away the three manu-
featuring villages of Leeds, Haydens-
vile and Williamsburg. Scarcely a
building is left standing.
WHERE IT TOOK EFFECT.
The villages effected by the disaste,
are Williamsburg, Haydenville, Leeds
and Florence, located on Mill River, q
tributary to the Connecticut, running
into tho latter at Northampton.
The mills on the stream have all been
carried away, and included brassworks,
button-hole factories, silk and cotton
mills, brush factories, agricultural i'm
plements and basket factories, etc.
besides, saw and grist mills.
THE GREAT RESERVOIR.
The great reservoir covered $50 acres
of ground and had an average depth o1
thirty feet. It was drawn upon in dry
time to supply the mills at Williams
burg. Haydensville and Florence.
ESTIMATES OF CAPITAL.
The manufacturing capital invested
along the river, affected by this disas'
ter, placing it at the lowest estimate,
must be IS, 600, 900, and the immediate
population suffering about 5000. The
population is almost wholly manufac-
turing one, which has grown up along
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,
600 in money. E. NJ. Graves store,
Loomis Hotel, Hayden & Co. g 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.
H. Avoness, fouring-mill swept away,
$40, 900; H. L. James, mill damaged
and left without water-power, $50, 900
houses, barns, etc., gone, $40, 900.
At Skinnerville- SINNERS silk.
factory and twelve tenement houses,
destroyed, $4,000. Other houses and
barns, $13, 900.
Observation-Disclosures, Geer l. Co. I
brass-works, savings bank bulldogs
and tenements swept away, $3.50, 900
The Hayden Tobacco Company's mil
carried of, $1,000. The Hayden foun
dry and machine works, damaged, S..
600. Other houses and stores, $50, 600
Gasworks, $4,000.
At Leeds-Nanatuck Silk Company
dam broken and several buildings and
houses carried away, $4,000. George
P. Warmers button factory destroyed
and three tenements, 100000. Othe,
houses, barns, etc., $4,000.
At Northampton-Emery Wheel
Company, damage, $4,000
At Florence the Florence Mauufac-
turing Company's brush factory and
damage to stock So, 600: Wontuck Silk
Uompany's mill partially torn away
andstock damaged $1,000.
The latest figures of the loss OF life
by this calamity make the total IA,
divided as follows between the three
places: Williamsburg, 70; Leeds, 49
Haydenville, 85. These figures only
represent persons whose loss is posi-
lively known, though bodies of all are
not yet recovered.
Bodies are constantly being found,
and in some cases those of persons
who were not supposed to be lost, SC
that it seems perfectly safe to say that
the total loss of life will exceed 15O, ii
indeed it does not more nearly ap'
proach 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. Themost
intense excitement prevails in thevicin-
ity of the disaster.
FINDING THE DEAD.
At Skinnerville the first bodies were
picked up, dug out from the mud, or
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. At
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 ut
Florence and Northampton, 140 in all,
and many more are certainly buried in
the mud and rubbish that fills the val
ley with black heaps from Williamsburg
to Northampton.
just below the village of Leeds on
what was pretty lawn, called Warner 8
Flats, q 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 first
half hour five bodies were found, and
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 into
which the bodies were carried and all
were recognized, although some were
dis6gured almost beyond recognition
In the string of vehicles every few rods
were wagons containing one, two and
sometimes four cof1ined bodies en- route
for the cemetery, for in the universal
bereavement interment followed swiftly
on the recovery Of bodies, and funeral
services, excepting in few instances,
we're dispensed with.
At Haydenville the bodies were laid
out in the Congregational Church.
Lying side by side were a mother and
her two children, near them mother,
her married daughter and two infant
children. The dead of those whom the
flood had left destitute were buried at
the expense of the town.
At Williamsburg the town hall was
thick with the uncofined bodies, prin.
cipally of women and children
Churches were closed, and pastors and
people devoted the whole time to the
care of the dead, which were removed
to the receiving vault of the cemetery