Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1883-03-09
THE OHIO AN OCEAN,


watersEThe River Six to Forty, Miles
wide. and Five Feet Higher Than Ever
Erovn-One Hundred and Forty Houses
Wrecked and Carried Away ON the Tor
rent. .u . ~.
EVANSVILLE, md, February 25.
The condition of the people ut shawnee
town. Ill. is wofyli 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 heretofore
been known to the public. No railroad, no
teie yraph line reaches the town, the only
means of ingress or egress being an occa-
sonal steamboat down and up the Ohio, ana
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: 1o"
AN URGENT APPEAL.
SHAwNEETowN, ILL.,, VIA EvANsyILLE. Feb
ruarv 24.-To Marshall Field Il CO., Chicago:
Our people are overwhelmed with the most
appalling misfortune ever visited upon any
locality. The Ohio River here Is five feet
higher than ever known and still rising. Our
wealth has gone down with the angry waves
Hundreds are destitute, pennies and suffer
ing. We must have help. The river Is from,
i've to thirty:five miles wide; and carrying
immediate vicinity Will reach S250,00O ~ least.
/ we appeal to the charitable for ASSISTANCE IN
for nearly three weeks, and it will take four
weeks for it to s,Ibside. q IS, .h
SwoFFoRD Bros, Or
s-tf ALLEN 4 HARRINGTON,
......st NJ. NJ. Pool,
THOS. 8. RtDGEwAY,
4f 4,..f., p. j. W. MtLLsPAuGH Mayor.
The situation at Shawpeetown is by no
means exaggerated in the above dispatch.
The inhabitants have thus far sustained them
selves by what they had on hand when the
deluge came, but this has been exhausted,
and scores of families are h,
I f' GOING HUNGRT ''
from day to day. One hundred and forty
houses have been wrecked or floated off, and
only thirty of the residences are now tcnable
even in their upper stories. People, white
and black, are inaiscriminately huddled i'll
the third stories of the Courthouse POOLS
pork house, the Catholic Convent, the public
school-house, Wisehara's warehouse and
numerous other buildings that have high
floors. high wind has been blowing ali
day, and there is great fear that some of the
structures, many of which are weak, may give
way and fearful catastrophe occur.
doctors Binckely and Fails. the leading ply
slelans, report that there has been a serious
increase in the death rate, the undertaken
being called onto furnish about "T"
rs'fs THREE CoFFINs ADAY-
for the town and vicinity. The water Is SIX
II ct deep on the levees and fourteen feet or
the hover portion of Main and Cllurc II streets
/ the principal business ,thoroughfares, but ut
the upper end of the town, where many
houses and the Ohio 4 Mississippi and Lonis.
Vile * Nashville Railroad deuots are situated
1t Is twenty-five feet deep. Up to six o'clock
tins morning the river wa, stu slowly rising
at the rate OF two inches II day, daily in
crease which has been regularly maintained
for the past week. While the river is falling
above, ut Evansville. aud below al Cairo, it i.
yet on the rise at Shawneetown, cirCum-
stance which is due to the mighty volume
which pours in just above hon the waba IN,
and the fact that at Caseyville, Just below, it
is only half a mile from bank to bank, whera
immense lifne.tone cliffs loom mp on both
sides OF the river and form sort OF narrow
fun Ell for the ocean of water to rush throu oh.
The river from Evansville to Shawneetowp
! has an average width of i've or more miles
For nitren mics, benin ng ut the point
called Bad Peak, on the Indiana shore, &c
width OF ten miles and opposite Union.
town, KY, near the confluence of the Ohio
J and Wabash, there is au 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-tilirds of Gallatin
County, in which the town is situated. is un.
der water. Thus it will be seen that shaw
neetown is surrounded by n moving sea which
can not be emptied into the Mississippi for
weeks to come, and that a month viii 'proba-
! bly, eiapse before even her streets are again
visible
Mayor MillspauGh and Mr. NJ. NJ. Pool. a
lead ng banker, said to-day that shawnee
town would be lucky if her streets were clear
Of water in i've weeks. There il not Il dollar
in the Town Treasury. EX-State Treasurer
Rdgewav, of the FIRST National Bunk here
has thus far assumed all bills for groceries and
| food furnished Co the poor. The committee
now en- route t. Springfield will ask the Leg
i>lature to appropriate 500 900, one fourth OF
which will go to buy food and clot hing for the
needy and the other three -four tbs to rebuild
aud lie glten the levees that formerly sur
rounded the town. som aid, however, is al.
ready on Its way to the suffering inhabitants
The steaml olt sabel left here this evening
having on board four ar-loads OF provisions
Donated by the indianapolis Board of Trade.
MIR. George Il. Branhan, of that city, has
gone down in charge of the cargo. and he said
that indianapolis had plenty m IRE to send
a Rio River MT Cairn