Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-06-02
FOUR THOUSAND LOST.
THAT is the Estimate Made by Parties at
Eew FIorence--SOme of the Dead
Ideutified-- Startling Deeds
of Heroism.

Ideutiied--S Startling Deeds
of Heroism.
.srFc1AL TELEGRAM TO THE DIsPArcH.i
NEW FLORENCE, June 1.-The estimate
of the disaster from the latest advices re-
ce,ved here is that 900 lives have been lost
and S11, 600, 600 worth of property destroyed.
Among. the identified dead are: James Nc
MILAN, Sperintendent Cambria Iron Company's
store, wife, four children and daughter-In-law;
John P. Linton, leading lawyer, wife and five
children; Mrs, Thomas Kirler and two children;
- Nolan and seven of family; Mrs. Wiss-
niger, Mrs. Sarah Palmer, DR.. George Wagner,
wife and three children; Frank P. Bowman,
wife and two children; Mrs. Richard Worth
lngton and seven children; VIM. Howells Mrs.
Ann Howells. Mrs. John Reese, Cora. Lizzie
and Alva Reese. Rachel Reese, mother Of John
Reese; Pearson Fisher, wife and six children:
Mrs. Eckstein.
The First Passenger Train.
Oh, the horror aud infinite pity of it all.
What journey has been that of the last
half hour. Swollen corpses lay here and
there on piles of crossties or on the river
bank among the tangled shrubbery. Itwas
about O'Clock when the first passenger
train since Friday came to the New Flor
ence depot with its load of eager passen-
gers. They were no idle travellers, but each
had q mission.
Here and there men were staring out the
windows with red eyes, and among them
were Hungarians and Italians, who had
lost friends near Nineveh, while women
were weeping on all sides.
Just before reaching Sang Hollow, the
end of the main line of the Pennsylvania
Railroad, is q signal tower, and the men in
it told stories of what they saw. Here are
some odds and ends of happenings they told
me of:
A beautiful girl came down on the roof of
a building, which was swung in near the
tower. She screamed to the operators to
save her, and one big, brawny brave fellow
walked as far into the river as be could, and
shouted to her to try to guide herself into
shore with bit of plank. She was
PlucIzy Girl,
full of nerve and energy, and stood upon
her frail support in evident obedience to
the command of the operator. She made
two or three bold strokes and actually
stopped the course of the raft for an instant.
Then it swerved and went out from under
her. She tried to swim ashore, but in few
seconds she was lost in the sw irling water.
Something hit her, for she lay quietly on
her back, with face pallid and expression
less. Men and women in dozens, In pairs
and singly, children, boys, big and little,
wee babies were there, In among the awful
confusion of water, drowning, gasping,
struggling and fighting desperately for life.
Two men on a tiny raft shot into the swift
est part of the current,
They crouched, stolidlv looking at the
eho hofru cc3d in
white and kneeling with her face turned
heavenward, was girl or years old. She
seHned stricken with paralysis until she
cafe opposite the tower and then she turned
her face to the operators She was close
they could see big tears on her cheeks and
herPallor was as death.
The Helpless Men on shore
shouted to her to keep up her courage,
and she resumed her devout attitude and
disappeared under the trees of projecting
point a short distance below.
1--WE could not see her come out again."
said the operator, and that was all of it,
''Do you see that fringe of trees?" said the
operator, pointing to the place where the
little girl had gone out of sight; ''weIl, we
saw scores of children swept In there. be-
lieve that when the time comes they will
find almost hundred bodies OF children in
there among those bushes.''
Just above New Florence is the little
town of Nineveh. 1t was here that found
the first eharnel house. One hundred and
nine dead were here, the larger proportion
of whom were women. Here it was that the
awful work of the freshet could be realized
What have been fertile farms look like
worn out brick yards. Great trees have
been twisted and torn like weeds, and the
broken household goods of hundreds of
houses line the shores for miles
Thieves of the Vilest Sort,
those who steal from the dead and. the un-
fortunate, have been busily at work robbing
the trunks, boxes, articles of furniture, and
there is nothing worth taking left except
lumber. Every now and then CHASTITY out
lines could be seen in the water being swept
down stream.
Two miles from the town is the 'fSX"
tower of the Pennsylvania Railroad Com
pany, and here 1t is that the greatest rail-
road in the world ends suddenly in the river.
For more than thousand feet the entire
track is wiped out, rails, ties and even
ballast. The north track is entirely washed
away.
This is the nearest telegraphic point to
Johnstown on this side, and the delay in
getting off news dispatches has been fairly
maddening.