The Rugby gazette and east Tennessee news. (Rugby, Morgan Co., Tenn.) 1884-188?, 1886-05-22


eta, Lancaster and other Ohio points.
LATER FROM THE STORM.
XENIA, o., May l4.-To-day the work Of
clearing away the debris of the Wednesday
night flood has progressed with considerable
effect. Large gangs of men are at work in the
stream, cleaning out the lumber, household
goods, etc., with which it is filled, working
waist-deep in the muddy water. The remains
OF the destroyed houses are being carted back
to the lots from whence they came, and where
houses were not swept from their foundations,
but only flooded, the people have been busy
out the mud and sand that cover
the carpets foot deep. On East Water
street several dwellings containing fine fur
niture were flooded badly, the rich carpets
and costly household goods being utterly
ruined, siverware foated away, fine stoves
demolished and elegantly papered walls
ruined. Many of the residents of the
flooded part of the city are making
arrangements to move to higher parts
or the city as soon as possible. The
tives here, and who are principally cOlored
people, are being taken care of at the skat-
ing rink, where the committees are at work
distributing food and clothing, large quanti-
ties of which have been handed in by kindly
is growing worse all the time. Houses on
nearly all the roads leading to the town have
suffered severe damage, and many houses and
barns have been utterly destroyed. On the
Home, the houses are all damaged, the plank
walks thing of the past, and the timbers
block up the road badly and have damaged
the bridges. The office of the Xenia Manufac-
turing Company lies against the railroad
bridge on the road to the Home. as well as
great masses of timbers, planks. The bridges
all over the county, with few exceptions, are
gone, and great holes washed in the road
beds.
Houses, fences and trees, on the Cooley
farm Goes Station, occupied by John P.
LesOurd, late of the Cincinnati horse mar
kets, were swept entirely away. The family
escaped by being in the cellar. The orchard
on this place yielded an income of about 500
year. Near this place the mills OF the
Miami Powder Company are located, and
they are damaged badly, materials ruined
and houses fl0ated away. The loss will be
very heavy. The fences between Yellow
Springs and Clifton are about all gone,
and most of the orchards, barns and out.
buildings destroyed and houses unroofed.
At Beaverstown, several miles west Of
Xenia, the United Presbyterian Church was
destroyed, and the usual number of barns,
fences, etc, as well as number of valuable
horses killed, which was also the case in
many places east of town. The damage to
cornfields was such that they will all have to
be replanted.
Morris who with his wife and FIVE children
was drowned. was warned by a neighbOr in
time to have escaped with his family, but
laughed at the idea of danger. But few
moments afterwards they were all in watery
graves.
DAYTON, O., May 1.-The losses by the
storms and floods of Wednesday night in the
nine counties of Greene, Clarke, Madison,
Miami, Darke, Preble, Montgomery, Butler
ana Warren are estimated to foot up $40, 000,-
600.
Edw. Morehouse, Narrow-guage conduc-
tor, anxious about his mother, who lives
in Xenia, walked from here there to-day
and back again, because By rea' on of the
fallen timber, debris and wreckage, no one
can even ride horseback, and the
are gone. At Trebein station, while being
ferried across the Little Miami river, he and
the oarsman discovered living. boy child in
a drifted tree top, and rescued the child, who
had an arm and leg broken. He had drifted
four miles down Shawnee creek from Xenia
into the Little Miami. Hurredly they started
in buggy with the child, but it died before
they got to Xenia.
Many incidents of the disaster are relate
now. In the angle formed by the railroad
and Detroit street the house of the Stoker
family tottered dangerously, and lusty calls
drew the crowd around it. Planks would not
reach, but soon a ladder was brought from
the wrecked fire truck and the family rescued.
Scarcely had the last member landed safely
when the house turned over, and a
moment after went to pieces. The crowd
looked at it in astonishment and stampede
followed the crashing of portion of Brad
ley's flax mill which stood near by.
In Bars Bottom, a stretch of low land north
of the railroad, was scene of terrible de-
struction. OF the fifteen or twenty houses
that occupied the fat, only two or three
could be seen, the rest having gone with
the tide. Here a man dashed into the
water, reached a floating house just as it
turned over, but, nothing daunted, he
crept in and came out with babe. A
| sudden crash sent the house in pieces
and he struck for the shore with his
precious burden when he disappeared be-
| meath mass of debris. When he reappeared
he was hurting through the culvert and called
out, II have lost the baby; catch It; it is right
down there; can't reach it." A few rods be.
low he reached land, but the baby was not
found until next day. 1t was dead. Six
others went down IN this bottom, three in
the same house that the baby was taken
| from.
As terrible as the scene was along Detroit
and Water streets and Bars Bottom, the
| mad sweep of the waters was worse below.
| West Shawnee had caved out the railroad
bank, and the leaping waters Wed with East
Shawnee in the work of destruction. Nearly
two hundred houses were overturned and de
| moished west of the railroad, and the cur
rent quickly covered its track of devas
tation by ,,, sweeping every trace Gt
|
the foundations with sediment. Severa
hundred yards below much Of the debri.
was stopped by the Main-street bridge, and
an indication of the destruction is given by
the piled-up mass. At this bridge most OF
the lives we're lost. Those who we're able tc
l hang to a plank. or the house that remained
firm and supported its inmates to this point
went to pieces here, and they were eithel
dashed to pieces or relentlessly held under
to drown; or, If they were spared this terri
BILE fate by succumbing sooner, they were
buried under the debris
At this place lodged the house of Orril
Morris, wife and seven children. TIL,
house came for two squares will
terrible rapidity on to its fate, and jus
before the crash came, Morris appeared q
the window with light The crash IN
balanced him, and as the house turned 81
twisted and all life disappeared, and IT,,
house went TO pieces, the family of ! 7,
went down. Next day seven we're found lea,
and two appeared alive. One, lchild of {
had been washed ashore a few rods bele "
the other, n lad of Is, made gallant swim o
mile aud caught the abutment of the Ii s
bridge. He says he could not find piece o
timber 10 catch hold of so he smam for tt