Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1877-11-29
GREAT FRESHETS.

vania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia
and North and South Carolina, since the re-
markable freshets of 1870 and 1872, have oc-
Cured in those States within the past week.
The loss of property and the injury to bust
ness in consequence of the interruption of
communication have been great, and it may
be several weeks before bridges can be re-
placed, the roads put in good running condi-
ton, and transportation of freight and travel
resume the usual course. Not only is tele-
graphic communication greatly Interrupted,
but the mails have been delayed beyond any
precedent we have ever known. There has
been no full mail delivered here since last
Friday, nor since that day, until Monday
morning and Tuesday evening, have any pa
pers, except those of Columbia and Charlotte,
been received. The confused condition of the
mails is of course attributable to the interrup.
ton of the roads, and cannot be helped. The
trains of the Chester and Lenoir road have
made their regular trips between Chester and
Gastonia and it is but proper to say that the
fault of the mail service is with the roads with
which this road connects. Some idea may be
formed of the extent of the floods from the
following, which we condense from kilograms
of the 26th:
At Harper's Ferry the Potomac and Shen-
andoah rivers were twenty-six feet above low
water mark, and three feet higher than in
1870. All property on Shenandoah street
was destroyed.
At Chambersburg, Pa, there was des.
tructive food, the Cunococheague creek ris-
ing fifteen feet above the ordinary level, and
doing damage to the extent of 100000. The
bridge over Potomac river, near Williams
port, Nd, was swept away.
The Petersburg and Weldon Railroad
bridge, at Weldon, N. c., is gone. Also,
three spans of the Seaboard and Roanoke
Railroad bridge at the same place.
Georgetown, D. c., reports the Potomac
river higher than since 1872, with an exten.
sive loss of property all along its course.
All the streams in the neghborhood of
Charlottesville, Va, we're greatly swollen,
and the adjacent farms seriously damaged.
Rivanna river was as high as in 1870. A
portion of the iron bridge is gone, and the re-
mainder badly damaged. The Chesapeake
and Ohio Railroad is badly washed and all
trains are stopped.
At Danville Va, the Dan river overflow
ed to nearly the highest mark ever known
there. The damage to property in and about
the town is more than 100000. Everything
bordering on Dan and Big and Little Sandy
rivers was swept away. The Virginia and
Midland Railroad at that point was sub
merged and much damaged. The iron bridge
over Staunton river, on the same road, was
swept away, and the road-bed washed in
many places. The gas-works in Danville
were submerged, and number of houses
we're swept away.
At midnight, Monday night, the excitement
at Richmond was most intense. The people
residing and merchants doing business below
the St. Charles Hotel, on Main street, the
point reached by the water during the great
flood in 1870, were moving goods from stores
and other places of business. The streets
were alive with vehicles of every kind and
people engaged in the work of removal. The
water from the region of Lynchburg showed
its effect on the river, which rose at the rate Of
eighteen inches to two feet per hour. In the
extreme lower portion of the city the water
reached 18th street, and was in few feet of
the market, on Main street.
A Lynchburg dispatch, dated 10 o'clock
on the same night, says the river at that
point was as hig gh as in 1870, and still rising
steadily. The bridges were all carried away,
and the damage to all kinds of property is
immense The James river and the Kanaw-
ha Canal, between Lynchburg and Richmond,
will probably sustain most serious damage by
the overflow of the river and conseq quent
breaking of its banks. The food of 1870
caused loss to the canal company of sever
al hundred thousand dollars and a suspension
of traffic for months, and the disaster is likely
to be repeated.