The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1881-04-29

The Recent Floods In Dakota.
AS1oux CIrY NowN special to the Chicago
Tribune of the 18th says:
At little station, ON what was once tho
Dakota Southern. called Mecklin, are ia peO-
tered in Taylor's Elevator, living ON the bare
boards, without covering of any description
and many Of them destitute OF the proper
clothing. Thirty ofthe number are seriously
sick-nearly all the women in fact-and their
condition IL pitiable In the extreme. Yawls
from Yankton have carried them some food
but they need. or soon will, much more.
Their homes are desolated or utterly annihi-
lated, their cattle and horses drowned, and
even the very land. once theirs, so changed in
appearance and covered with ice and sand
that, the water gone, they can
scarcely tell where their several
boundaries are, or their localities fixed even.
They can no more hope to raise crops this year
than they can to resurrect their dead stock.
Isolated from any but the rarest visits from
their fellows, the weaker among them gradu-
ally succumbing to want, cold and despair.
the long days and longer nights bringing
naught Of hope or comfort, who can wonder
that even frontier hardness and hopefulness
have waned to the vanishing point. They arc
represented as huddled in touching misery,
causing stout men to gDOw moist-eyed and
curse their inability to give speedy relief.
Even II they could be taken away there 10
no place to take them. Their nelghbors are
nearly as bad on, and lack the wherewith
to relieve their wants. Your correspondents
has been asked over and over again to try
and awaken q practical sympathy for them
fbn and M mn
own knowledge can say that clothing, food.
medicine or money sent here would be faith
fully distributed and accounted for. Should
any donations be made would advise that
they be sent here care of DR.. w. X. Smith,
Mayor of Sioux City, or to Yankton, via this
place, care of Captain d. d. Wheeler, United
States Army. As soon as boats can run up
the river the supplies could be carried to their
several destinations. There need be no fear
of sending an oversupply. The sufferers are
absolutely destitute. With one or two men
who have come down here in yawls have had
interviews, and they say it Is completely be-
yond them to conceive why the loss of life
was hot as entire and appalling as the
destruction of property. That women and
children especially should escape from such
an aggregation of terrible forces Is inex-
plicable, and possibly time may reveal
numerous casualties at present unsupported.
Let me tell you Of one terrible voyage. About
eight miles above Vermilion stood before the
flood two log houses, the property of Hanson
and Larson, brothers-in-law. On the day Of
the breakup Henson got uneasy, but seems
to have lost time trying to save his stock, so
that he and his hired man had to take a boat,
ana therein carried his wife and children to
LarisOn's house, which stood on q little higher
ground The men then returned for old Mrs.
Larson. who is so feeble as to require assist
ance. Scarcely had they entered the house
ere they felt it moving under them. Terror
stricken, they ran to the window to find them
selves in the center Of a moving, crashing
mass of ice and flood, steadily
going down the river. OF the terrOrs of that
dark rioe who shall speak. The revcrberating
detonatiOns of the huge blocks OF Ice, as.
forced into the air, they fell again, grinding all
beneath them into powder, the almost abso-
lutte certainty that In few moments at best
the house would give way and leave them
struggling in the throes of the gorge, the
agonizing fears the husband and father must
have felt as to the fate of those left behind,
whom he had no reason to suppose would es-
cape, all made up situation as terrible as
any of Jules Verne's most narrowing imagi-
nation. But the stanch logs fasten-
ed together by large wooden pins
held firm, and seven miles below Vermiiion,
fifteen from the starting point, the ark of safe
ty found an Ararat, and rested, If not on dry
ground, at least on some motionless founda-
ton. Forcing open the back door, fancy Han
sons astonishment at finding quietly chewing
her cud and standing securely on huge block
of ice the favorite family COW, who had shared
the perils of the awful journey, and is to day
alive and well in Vermilion, having climbed
the barbados of ice like chamois. Hanson
and his man, after q perilous journey over the
newly-formed ice, succeeded in making their
way to VermiliOn, carrying old Mrs. Larson
with them most of the way. Meanwhile, those
left behind in Larison's house had really suf-
fered more, though not in apparently so much
danger, for the house stood firm. A couple Of
brothers named Weeks. who live about four |
miles north of Vermiion. volunteered to go to
Larison's in q yawl, if possible, and learn the |
fate Of those left there. After much danger
and difficulty they reached the spot, finding all
alive, though sadly distressed Mrs. Hanson's
feet were frozen solid. All had lived for two |
days on raw chickens, the fowls having been
driven by fear into the house. Had hot help |
arrived when it did death must have soon en- |
sued. These incidents and the particulars 1 |
have given rest upon undoubtedly authentic |
reports. I could multiply similar stories |
nd infnitum.