The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1889-06-16
The Pennsylvania Adjutant General
Gives Johnstown and Vicinity
Severe Shaking Up.
Five Hundred Pounds of Dynamite
Used at One Charge to Remove
the Debris.
Glass Broken, Buildings Collapse and Gen
eraI Havoc Wrought, but a Chan
mel il Made for the Water.

JoHSsTowS, June 15.-Maior Phillips
dynamiters have had Johnstown in a state
of nervous terror all day and this evening,
General Manager Fulton, OF the Cambria
Iron Works, dictated forcible protest to
Gov. Beaver, stating that the mills and Of
fees of the company were being ruined by
the blasts; that Adjutant General Hastings
had paid no attention to two requests for
its discontinuance and that the state would
be held responsible for any further dam
age done. Before the message was sent
however, Adjutant- General Hastings had
issued an order TO Major Phillips
TO discontinue blasting. Major Phillips
has been engaged since Wednes-
day in blowing out the wreckage in the
channel OF the Conemaugh, above the Penn
sylvania railroad stone bridge. He was
anxious TO have a passage for the water by
this evening, and to that end put in 800
pound blast of dynamite at noon. The
blast was placed under two buildings. one
of which was lying upon the other, and
both of them were covered with logs. The
explosion was terrific. The report was
awful, and the strongest houses in the city
trembled like leaves. All the glass was
blown out of the windows of Odd Fellows
hall. In the same neighborhood the rear
wall of the wrecked Catholic church fell
upon the Baltimore & Ohio tracks, blocking
them. Chimneys ratified down all about,
and dishes were broken in houses in Kin
about The matter, Major Phillips
said, ''We have used only two
thousand pounds of dynamite to-day. The
charge will not be s" heavy hereafter.
So far as l knew no persons were in
jured -
Adiutant-GeneraI Hastings to-day re-
ceived a letter from Vice-President Morton
saying that on his return to his country
home he found that his little girls, from 4
10 IL years of age, had been hard at work
since the terrible disaster at JOhnstown in
making articles of clothing for poor and
homeless children who have survived the
floods; that he forwards to-day 127 articles
of wearing apparel made by their own
hands, or purchased with their own money,
some of their dresses, and that his children
will feel greatly obliged if you will cause
the clothing ~ oe distributed among the
little sufferers by the recent calamity, for
whom they feel the deepest sympathy.
The opening OF the wedged line of drift
above the stone bridge to day was an en-
gineering feat For ten days several hun
dred men have been at work upon the het-
erogeneous mass. but only about sixty feet
of the channel had been cleared, when on
Wednesday, William Phillips, of Lewis
ton, and force of dynamlters were put at
work. Six acres of solidly packed wreck
age, wedged between the river ba ks by a
estimated, have in three days
melted away. A large frame
house, hundreds of logs and monster trees
were tangled up and bound together with
wire and iron bars brought down with the
flood. The scene this afternoon, when the
great mass moved down the river, was a
remarkable one. The crowds that lined
the shores and the now famous stone
bridge raised a shout that was heard the
length and breadth of the valley. The
west bank of the Conemaugh is again a
furnace of fire. Tonight the wreckage
torn up by the dynamite to-day was piled
up and the torch applied, and the whole
valley is Illuminated.
The measles are very prevalent among
children. The Bedford street hospital has
two cases of pneumonia. and bronchitis
and diarrhma are very general among the
workpen. There is no sickness of conse-
querce among the militia
From the most authentic records obtain
able. the number of bodies recovered so far
is 1,533. Fourteen bodies were taken out
to-day.
DIR. Free, OF the state board of health. in
spected the river towns as far down as
sang Hollow to-day. The worst discovery
made was a large number of dead persons
and cows floating in the river. The dyna-
mite explosions have brought the carcasses
10 the surface. They are in a bad state of
decomposition.
Eight carloads of lumber arrived TO day.
Rough sheds are already being erected in
the heart of the city 10 be used as stores