Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1889-06-07
various Note. Of In,erest.

The roll Of the dead includes some Of the
most prominent citizens Of Johnstown and
of the state. Two bankers, newspaper
editor, and the wife and children of the
chief of police, are in the list
The force Of the flood can be estimated
by the fact that it carried three cars a mile
and a-half and the tender of an engine
weighing - tons was carried IA miles down
the river
Mrs Ogle, the manager Of the Western
Union Office at Johnstown who died at her
post, will 90 down in history as a heroine Of
the highest order Notwithstanding the re
peated notification which she received to
get out of the reach Of danger, she stood by
the instrument with unhinching loyalty and
courage sending the warning 10 those in
the valley below When every station IN
the path of the coming torrent had been
warned she wired her companion at South
Fork "This is my last message and
such it was, as at that moment the torrent
engulfed her.
The most awful destruction in single
house occurred at the Hurlbut hotel There
were b people in the house when the tor
rent came, and of these only 10 are living
Just one month ago the work Of taking
"a census of the city for new directory
was completed and showed exactly %, 400
people claiming residence in Johnstown.
The book is now IN the printers hands at
Altoona An effort will be made TO secure
a copy of the directory, make a new can
vass of the city, and in this manner ascer-
tain TO a reasonable degree of certainty the
number that met death in the disaster
To give some idea of the destructive
power with which the volume of water
from the lake struck East Conemaugh 1t il
only necessary 10 state that it took the
round house with p engines in 1t, 200
freight cars and about 20 passenger cars.
including four Pullman cars. One train of
passenger cars on the track was full Of pas
sengers The conductor and engineer ran
along the train warning the passengers 70
flee for their lives. Some started and a por-
ton remained and went down How many
persisted is not known The track, depot,
freight house and coal sheds are entirely
washed away.
On Monday corn patch of about al
acre at Ninevah, below Johnstown, was
dug over by a volunteer force and l3s
corpses were discovered The CHASTITY find
was made purely by accident. A man walk
ing over the field kicked at a clump OF
earth, overturned it and uncovered a won
in 70 assist with the results above stated
This increases the list of dead in Ninevah
to $50. The dead we're found under about
four feet Of alluvial deposit.
grave danger threatens Pittsburg and
other cities on the Allegheny and Ohio riv-
ers, which take their water supply from
these rivers. The water supply already
shows contamination from the great mum.
Der of dead and decaying human bodies
which the rivers contain, and physicians
fear an epidemic unless some other source of
supply is secured until the rivers purify
themselves.
In answer 10 an enquiry from the comp
troller Of the currency, the postmaster at
Johnstown has telegraphed TO Washington
that the First National bank of Johnstown
is flooded, but its funds are probably safe.
The cashier of the bank is dead aud the
president is among the missing.
There is nothing about the survivors of
the disaster, says one correspondent, that
strikes one so forcibly as their evident ina
bility 10 comprehend their misfortune and
the absence Of sympathetic expressions
among them 1t is not because they are
naturally stOld, but the whole thing is so
vast and bears upon them so heavily they
cannot grasp 1t. People in California know
more about the disaster than any resident
of JohnstOwn knows more information
can he gotten from townspeople 40 miles
away than from those who saw IT,
While it is said on the one hand that the
reservoir dam was built of masonry in the
most substantial way, it is as positively as
serted ON the other that it was largely built
of shale and clay, and that urgent protests
were made against the work by the resi-
dents Of the valley
A long line of women stood for hours in
the rain on Tuesday without any protec-