Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1883-03-01
RUSHING WATERS.


/
shawneetown, III, Surrounded by Rushing
/ Waters-The River Six to Forty Miles
i wide, and Five Feet Higher Than Ever
/ KnOwn-One Hundred and Forty Houses
wrecked and Carried Away on the Tor
rent.
EVANSVILLE, IND, February Is.
The condition OF the people at Shawnee
town, Ill, is woful- in the extreme the situa-
ton being greatly aggravated by the fact that
/ they are isolated from the balance of the
/ world, and their distress has not heresofore
been known to che public. No railroad, no
telegraph line reaches the town, the only
means of ingresS or egress being an occa-
sionaI steamboat down and up the Ohio, and
almost the entire population are prisoners In
the upper stories of the houses, the river
there being six miles wide and the streets
having an average water depth of fifteen feet.
The actual condition is well set forth In the
following dispatch, which was to-day for
warded to Chicago:
AN URGENT APPEAL.
sHAwEEETowN, Ill, VIA EVANSVILLE, Feb
ruarv 24-To Marshall Field & Co.. Chicago: 4
Our people are overwhelmed with the most
appalling misfortune ever visited upon any
locality. The Ohio River here is hve feet
higher than ever known and still rising. Our
wealth has gone down with the angry waves.
Hundreds are destitute. penniless ana su Kal-
ing. We must have help. The river Is from
i've TO thirty miles wide, and carrying
utter destruction before it. The loss IN this
immediate vicinity will reach S250,0O0 at least.
We appeal to the charitable for assistance In
this time of need. We have been under water
for nearly three weeks, and it will take four
weeks for it to subside.
SwOFFORD Bros,
ALLEN & HARRINGTON,
NJ. NJ. Pool,
THOS. S. RIDGEWAY,
j. w. MILLSPAUGH, Mayor.
The situation. at Shawneetown is by no
Eheans exaggerated in the above dispatch.
afnSr,
selves by what they had on hand when the
deluge came, but this has been exhausted,
and scores of families are
GOING HUNGRY
from day TO day. One hundred and forty
houses have been wrecked or fioated off, and
only thirty of the residences are now tenable
even in their upper stories. People, white
and black, arc indiscriminately huddled in
the third stories of the Court house, POOLS
pork house, the Catholic Convent, the public
school house, Wisehart's warehouse and
numerous other buildings that have high
floors. A high wind has been blowing all
day, and there is great fear that some OF the
structures, many of which are weak, may give
way and fearful catastrophe occur.
Doctors BinckeIy and Fails, the leading ply
sicians, report that there has been serious
increase in the death rate, the undertaken
being called on to furnish about
THREE COFFINS A DAY
for the town and vicinity. The water is six
feet deep on the levees and fourteen feet on
the lower portion of Main and Church streets,
the principal business thoroIghfares, but at
the upper end of the town, where many
houses and the Ohio & Mississippi and Louis
vile & Nashville Railroad deDots are situated,
it is twenty five feet deep. Up to six o'clock
this morning the river was still slowly rising
Mt the rate of two inches a day, daily in
crease wh oh has been regularly maintained
arsxyn fa al
above, at Evansville. aud below at Cairo, It Is
yet on the rise at Shawneebown, a eircum
stance which is due to the mighty volume
which pOurs in just above from the Wabash,
and the fact that at Caseyville, just below, it
is only half mile from bank to bank where
immense Limestone cliffs loom mp on both
sides OF the river and form sort of narrow
funnel for the ocean of water to rush through.
The river from Evansville to Shawneetown
has an average width of five or more miles.
For -titeen miies, beeinn ne at the point
called Bald Peak, on the Indiana shore, to
Round Pond Hill, on the Illinois side, there Is
a width of ten miles, and opposite Union
and Wabash, there is an inland lake
FORTY MILES WIDE.
North OF ShawneetoWn land can be reached
within two miles, but TO the west and north
west there is an unbroken sheet of water for
nearly twenty miles. Two thirds of Gallatin
County, in which the town is situated, is un-
der water. Thus It will be seen that Shaw
neetOwn is surrounded by a moving el which
can not be emptied into the Mississippi for
weeks to come and that month will prOba-
bly, eiapse before even her streets are aga.n
visible.
Mayor Millspaugh' and Mr.. NJ. II. Pool, a
leading banker, said o-day that shawnee
town would be lucky if her streets were clear
of water in i've weeks. There Is not dollar
in the Town Treasury. Ex-State Treasurer
Ridgeway, of the FIRST National Bank here,
has TINS far-assum I'd all bills for groceries and
food furnished to the poor. The committee
now EN- route to Springfield will ask the Leg
stature to appropriate 500 600, one fourth of
which will go to buy food and clio. hing for the
needy andthe other ree-fourths to ebnild
and heighten the levees that formerly sur
rounded the town. Some aid, however, is al
ready on its way to the suffering inhabitants.
The Steamboat sabeI left here this evening
having on board four carloads of provisions
donated by the Indianapolis Board OF T.ade.
Mr.. George 7. Brauham, of that city, has
gone down in charge of thecargo, and he said
that indianapolis had plenty m IRE to send.