Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1874-05-22

from one million to a million and a half of
dollars, although, of course, it is impossible
to accurately estimate the damage.
NEW HAVEN, Conn, May II.
There was an hour and a half Of food and
then ebb, and at noon those who bad escaped
came back in crowds to see the ruin. 1t was
an awful sight. Houses were crumpled like
twisted paper, trees stripped of their bark and
limbs, even when their roots clung to the
soil.
The beautiful valley is a waste Of mud and
muddy water laden with distorted and strange
shapes. Great boilers have been carried hun
dreds of yards and left crushed together and
buried.
A man was picked up from a tree upon
which he had ridden six miles on the tor
rent, cheering and waving his coat. The
poor fellows mind was gone. No less
than eight cases of insanity followed among
those who have lost relatives and friends by
the terrible calamity, and three were COM
mitted to an asylum in Northampton.
Everything was ground fine, and when the
flood was past the timbers were in toothpicks;
scraps of iron, brick and great stones had be-
come powders, and here and there was found
a corpse or a piece of a corpse.
All the windings of the valley were filled
with the debris, making terrible picture of
of Massachusetts,.
The gracious work of saving the dead for
burial began at noon at Skinnerville. The
first bodies were picked up, dug out from
mud, or taken with difficulty from overloaded
ruins. All through the valley the work went
on till night, and then men with lanterns,
seeking their dead, stood guard. At Hayden
vile forty bodies were gathered by night; at
Leeds forty-fve. There had been, in the
oft oranuc of r,lt1ndprorc xxho uoro
promptly turned to workers by no stinted
threats; the people were ready to brain them
with the first stone There were fewer dead
at Florence and Northampton. There have
been found 40 in all, and many more are GER
tainly buried in the mud and rubbish that fill
the valley with black heaps from Williams
burg to Northampton.
A man on horseback gave warning through
the upper half of the valley, but some would
not hear, and some turned to their houses and
to the great factories for safety. One man at
Haydenville factory saved his life by sticking
to the house, but he was marvellous excep-
ton. He ran into closet that stood against
the great chimney of the factory, and, when
the factory was crushed, the chimney stood,
and his closet stuck to it like lantern against
a wall, with him moving his arms for help out
of breach he made in its brickwork; but
man and girl, who ran out at the roar of the
waters, to run back for a haven of safety,
went down under the building.
At Williamsburg factory and twenty
houses were blotted out; at Haydenville, a
factory, a gas-house, cOttOn-mill, bank,
and 100 dwellings; at Leeds button factory
and 25 buildings; 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
a piece over six feet long, over miles of coun-
try. The Licking Water River" as they
call it, has been sea, and is now trickling
stream lost in miles of mud. The lake,
hemmed up by defective masonry among the
Goshen hills, has done its work terribly.
SPRINGFIELD, Mass, May 16.
To those who saw the terrible volume ap-
preaching it looked in the distance as if ter
rible fire was sweeping across the country.
The spray or foam had the appearance of
heavy black smoke, and the deception was SO
complete that in the village of Haydenville
the fire-bells were ringing for few minutes
before the devastating flood struck the town.
The loss to the industrial enterprise In the
vicinity may be safely reckoned at not less
than a million and a half of dollars, and
many of the manufactures destroyed will
probably never be replaced; in fact, all of
the villages inundated may be said TO be liter
ally destroyed. All the large factories and
very many small ones are completely wiped
out of existence
Large brick and stone mills crumbled like
so many piles of sand, and small wooden
dwellings were no more to the surging current
than so many tov steamboats, would be in the
surging waters of Niagara River The scene
was most horrible and frightful, and made
even the strongest men 60 frantic with fear
Women tainted in the streets and were borne
away by the relentless current. So sudden
was the inundation that many lost their
presence of mind and rushed wildly from
points of safety into very death itself. Others
who remained to save loved and dear ones
were themselves lost.
One painful case was that of DIR. E. N.
johnson, of Williamsburg, who seized his two
children and, in company with his wife,
started for high prominence just outside the
village. He became exhausted and stopped
for a moment to rest; the flood came before
he could get away, and all were lost, his wife
preferring to share his death rather than
are numerous cases where whole families were
swept away.
When the reporter left the scene of terrible
disaster tonight there were hundreds of
weeping men, women and children going
up and down in the wake of the
flood, seeking for missing relatives and friends.
The water had greatly receded, and by to-
morrow it will nearly disappear altogether. In
fact, it was only about twenty minutes from
the first inundation before there was per-
ceptible and rapid fall, which has continued
ever since.
The latest figures of the loss of life make a
total of IA, divided as follows between the
three places: Williamsburg, 90; Leeds, 40;
35. These figures only represent
persons whose loss is positively known,
though the 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, so that it seems perfectly safe to
say that the total loss of life will exceed $50, if
indeed it does not more nearly approach 200.
INCIDENTS.
NORTHAMPTON, Mass, May is.
The sweeping away of four generations in
one family was among the uncommon incl
dents Of the flood at Leeds, as follows: Mrs.
Dunlea, woman nearly eighty years of age