The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1881-04-28
The Floods in Dakota-Terfible Suf.
-.~sss-~~-~a1erf1inxyvfthe Nettlerxs,aa .'s'

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A Sioux CITY Iowa special to the Chicago
Tribune of the 18th saysfv-
T. At little station, on what was once the
Dakota Southern, called Aecklin, ara l74 PED
plss men, women ana children. AT are quar-
tered in Taylor's Eldvatoe. living on the bare
rboards, without coveringSof any description,
and many of them destitute of the proper
clothing. Thirty of the number are seriously
sick-nearly all the women in fact-and their
condition is pitiable in the extreme. Yawls
from Yankton have carried them some food
but they need, or soon win, much more
Their homes ate deSQlated or utterly annihi-
lated. their cattle aud horses drowned, and
even ta8 very 1aHd, 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 rarcst 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
nave waned to the vanishing point They are
represented as huddled in touching misery,
~ss~AS'AAo
curse their inability to give speedy relief.
Even If they could be taken away there is
no place to take them. Their neghbors are
nearly as bad of, and lack the wherewith
to relieye their wants. Your correspondent
mas been asked over; and over again to try
and awaken practical sympathy for them
among the Eastern people, and of my
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 DIR. w. II. 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 dest nations. There need lie no fear
Of sending an over-supply. The sufferers are
absolutely destitute. With one or two men
who have come down he. 9 in yawls, / have had
interviews, and they say it Is completely be-
yond them to conceive why the loss of life
was not as entire. and appalling as the
destruction of property. That women and
children especially should escape from such
An aggregation of terrible forces is mex
plicable, aud possibly time may reveal
numerous casualties ut present unsupported.
Let me tell you Of one terrible voyage. About
eight miles above Vermilion stood before the
MOOD Two log houses, the property OF Hanson
and LARSON, brOthers-in-law. On the day of
the breakup Hanson got uneasy, but seems
TO have lost time trying to save his stock. 80
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 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 rice who shall speak. The reverberating
forced INTO the air, they fell again, grinding all
beneath them into powder, the almost ALSO
lutte certainty that In a few moments at best
the house would give way. and leave them
struggling in the thioes of the gorge, the
agOnizing fears the husband and father must
have felt as to the fate of those left behind,
cape, all made up a situation as terrible as
any Of Jules Verne's most narrowing imag-
nation. But the stanch logs fasten-
held FIRM, "nd seven miies below S' Term,o as
fifteen from the starting point, the ark of safe
ty found an Ararat, and rested, ii not on dry
ground at least on some motionless founda-
ton. Forcing open the back door, fancy Han
sons establishment at finding quietly chewing
her cud and standing securely on a huge block
of ice the favOrite family COW, who had shared
the perils Of the awful journey, and is to-day
alive and we'll in Vermilion, having climbed
the barricad, of ice like u chamois. Hanson
and his man. after perilous journey over the
way 10 Vermilion. carrying old Mrs. Larson
with them most of the way. Meanwhile, those
left behind in LarisOns 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 Vermiiion. volunteered to 20 to
Larison's in yawl, if possible, and lea n 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
driven nv fear into The house Had hnf helm
arrived when It did death must have soon en-
sued. These incidents and the particulars I
have given rest upon undoubtedly authentic
reports. l could multiply similar stories
I'D infnitIim.