The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1876-12-21
THE BROOKLYN CATASTROPHE.
ASHES To'DUsT-BUnYING THE THEA.
IRE VICTIMS.
NEW YORK, Dec. 10, 1876.

IRE CTlMS.
NEW YORK, Dec. 10, 1876.
A hundred and one bodies in single
gravel One hundred and one charred,
mangled, unrecognizable bodies hidden
forever from sight in great trench on
the summit of Battle Hill /! :. A hundred
and one together in joyous life, together
| in terrible death, together in the dread
moment before the Great White Throne,
and still together under the winter sod of
Greenwood Cemetery
Seventy-nine cofins held all that was
left of the hundred and one victims of
the Brooklyn calamity, whom friends
could not recognize. Not one body was
in the shape or semblance of humanity.
Gnarled and knotted and smoke-blacE-
ened, dropping to pieces under the touch,
the lost hundred and one were tenderly
cofined and carefully numbered. No
effort was made to array them in the
habiliments of the grave, for, even as
they were, it was next to impossible to
raise them from the floor and put them
properly in the narrow boxes, stained
and polished and silver studded in which
they were to make the last journey to the
churchyard.
Even the practiced attendants at the
Morgue, who undertook the difficult task
of cofining the bodies, showed signs of
trepidation as they handled the crooked
forms. Then, when this was finished, q
line ofdeath was made in the improvised
Morgue, and fifty-four vehicles, seven
teen being hearses and the remainder
undertakers' wagons, drove one by one to
the doors and carried away their terrible
loads, taking them rapidly to the point
from which the procession was to start
IN THE COLD WINDS.
The right of the line of the great
funeral procession was formed at Scher-
merhorn street and Flatbush avenue, at
two o'clock yesterday afternoon. Thou
sands stood patiently, exposed to all the
fury of the icy gale that was blowing,
waiting patiently and sadly for the start.
Two detachments of military, with muf-
fed drums, marched up, and then at
few minutes after two, the mounted police
started of, and the mournful march was
begun. The police, on handsome horses,
headed the procession; then members of
committees, in carriages; the Forty
seventh Regiment, headed by its band;
detachment Of the Fourteenth Regi-
ment, without arms; a Gatling battery
without gun; another band heading
the Twenty-third Regiment; then the
terrible row of seventeen hearses, follow.
ed by fortv-fve undertakers' wagons,
bearing from one to four cofins each;
then carriages with relatives and friends,
carriages with clergylnen and officials,
and last of all the Thirteenth Regiment
and drum corps.
All along the broad Flatbush avenue,
up the steep hill that leads to the park of
the dead, the bands played their most
solemn dirges, and the muf1ed drums
beat their melancholy time. AS the
cofins passed the spectators upon the
sidewalks reverentially uncovered their
heads, and the women sobbed aloud.
The wind howled dismally; dust blinded
the eyes; the cold was almost unbeara-
BILE; altogether, it was page in her ais.
tory that Brooklyn will drape in folds of
black.
IN THE CEMETERY.
The head of the procession entered the
cemetery gate at quarter before .
o'clock, and the line went directly to
Battle Hill, very near the entrance.
This beautiful bluff is the highest point
in the cemetery. Here circular trench
had been dug, seven feet deep and thir-
teen feet wide, nearly surrounding q
round, sodded space, ten feet in diameter,
upon which monument is to stand.
| One at time the vehicles bearing the
bodies drove up the main avenue, stopped
long enough to discharge its ghastly load,
and then moved out of the way down
Battle avenue. Twelve cemetery en-
ployees received the cofins, six men car
rying each coffin up the steep mound to
the trench, and lowering it to eight men
who stood in the open grave, four on
each side, arranging the cofins in a
double row as fast as they were delivered,
the heads all pointing inwardly, on the
bottom of the trench.
The solemn work was necessarily slow,
but bravely the thousands withstood the
piercing wind and the terrible cold, wait
| ing for the last sad rites. The double
4 row of black cofins almost filled the
trench, aud to these two more were added
two which had arrived before, each
containing recognized victim of the dis
aster, which had been brought by rela-
tiyes and friends. Sixty German singers,
members of the Brooklyn Sangerbund,
South Brooklyn Quartette Club. Schut.
zenfest and Brooklyn Mannerchor stood
upon the central grass plat and sang
/ Abts "Repose." The Rev. John Parker
! read the Protestant Episcopal burial ser.
vice. The Rev. DR.. Putnam, instead OF
the extended funeral Grafton which he
! had prepared, announced that the ex-
treme cold would preclude the possibility
of its delivery, and merely said q few
words on the uncertainty of life and the
blessed hopes of Immortality. Then the,
benediction wss pronounced by the Rev.
Mr.. Odell, and the ceremony was conclu-
ded with the singing by the Germania
choir of Kuhlau's choral, "Above all
submits there is repose."
I AN ARMY OF GRAvE-DIGGERs.
! Forty-two grave-diggers stood at their
! posts, and, at the moment that the last
words of the beautiful choral died away,
began the melancholy rattling of the
frozen earth upon the unprotected cofins;
Many of the spectators, as they turned
away, dropped handsful of clay into the
great grave, and many fingered till the
last coffin had disappeared under the
cruel shower of earth. The mournful
work was soon done, and the deepening
shadows of the winters eve fell at last
upon the beautiful gift of the Germania
Theatre, floral crown and cross, that
alone stood between the new-made grave
and the lowering heavens.
The bodies of Murdoch and Burroughs,
the dead actors, were taken to Irving
Hall on Saturday afternoon. They had
been put in rosewood, silver-mounted
cofiins, which bore the inscriptions sew
orally: "Claude de Blenau Burroughs,
born August u, lS4S; died December 5,
1876" and "Eenry S. Hitchcock,