The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1889-06-07
BUT MEAGER WORDS.

Death. DesoIation and Ruin" Fail to
Describe the Horrible Scenes at Johns
town.
JoHNsTowN, Pa, June 4. Death, ruin
and desolation are but meager words ap-
piled to Johnstown proper. Weeping
men, women and children are at all
places looking for their dead. From
Kerinsville to New Florence bodies are
being picked out every few moments.
The first tour that has been made
through the southeast end Of the town
was made during the morning. The
school house in the southeast part of the
town is now morgue, and in it are
NO LESS THAN $50 BODIES,
most of whom are unidentified. The
street at the foot of the hill is patrolled
by citizens with loaded muskets. With
out pass from Gen. Hastings it is i'm
possible to get to the morgue. About
500 men are working here clearing away
the debris in order to make a wagon
road for the bodies to be hauled away
from the morgue. In front of the school
house is posted list of the dead. On a
platform a preacher is standing reading
the names of those who are identified.
The horrors of this part of the town
are beyond pen picture or description.
What is just now goin on can be best
felt when it is told that
A STRING OF MEN TWO MILES LONG
are carrying collins to the school house
where the hundreds of dead are now
living. One after another the bodies are
identified and moment after moment
dead men, women and children are being
taken into the temporary morgue. Three
sisters who were saved from the flood
recognized the body of their mother.
AS if struck by an electric shock the
three fell to the ground when they saw
her remains. Before their names could
be learned they were carried away to a
house near by and a physician sum-
moned. Around this part of the city the
flood appears to have been the worst.
Trees fully five feet at the butt were ur-
rooted and are lying in the places where
the streets at one time were. Here more
bodies are being found than any place
else so far, but it is thought the
LOSS OF LIFE IN THE BURNING DEBRIS
must be terrible. At the upper end of
the jam, near the school house, a man
and three children were taken out, but
were burned beyond recognition. The
four bodies were placed in one coffin and
taken to the school house. Ten more
bodies were just now brought in, but no
one appears to know them.
Near the ruins of the Hubert house
the mangled remains of man named
Mckee were found. The body of a
woman was found beside the bridge
wall, half covered with water. The por-
ton above the water had been burned
away. When her body was drawn out
at her feet were found the remains of
her husband and three children.
The members of Battery b, who were
80 unceremoniously ordered home this
morning by Adjutant General Hastings,
while waiting for cars, went to work to
save bodies from the ruins in the drift
above the bridge. Inside of two hours
they had got out fifteen bodies. One of
these was supposed to be that of John
Dibert, the well known banker.
DRILLING RAIN
commenced at o'clock a. m, and is
now falling in steady stream, adding
an air of gloom to the horror of the
scene. Throughout the wrecked district,
along Iron street, where every building
has been completely swept away, the
cellars have been filled with rubbish and
earth to level with Market street, the
whole now making a level expanse.
There are numerous people buried in
these cellars and
1T WILL TAKE MONTHS
to get them cleaned out. and before that
is done it will be impossible to form any
estimate of the number of lives lost.
From the banks
MANY CHARRED REMAINS
of victims of flames and food are
plainly visible as the receding waters
reluctantly give up their dead. Beneath
almost every log or blackened beam a
glistening skull or the blanched REM
nants of ribs or limb mark all that re-
mains of life's hopes and dreams. Since
10 p. m. the fire engines have constantly
played on the burning ruins. At times
the fire seemed extinugished but con-
tinual
FLAMES SUDDENLY BROKE OUT AFREsH
in some new quarters. The sensation
of the morning has been the united re-
monstrance of the physicians against
the extinguishment of the burning
wreck. They maintain, with philosophy,
that hundreds, if not thousands, of life
less and decaying bodies lie beneath this
mass of burning ruins. at would bet
ter be-" they say, Ito permit natures
greatest scayenger-the fames-to DIR
sue his work unmolested than to further