St. Landry democrat., 1890-06-07
Made Mad by Blunders.

A BIT OF IUMAN DRlFIWOOD tROM IHE
GREAT JOHNsTOWN FLOOD.
l was going up Broadway the other day
with a brave physician of Johnstown, Pa,
one of the heroes who, oblivious of the
fact that a majority of his relatives had
beer swept away to a horrid death, and
that a slower but nc less horrid death by
pestilence menaced all who remained in
that ten mile charnel house, did not de-
sert the stricken vale of death.
"Hello |" he said. ''Thele goes Abe
Murphy. I haven't seen him in many a
day"
He pointed to a poor, broken down, de-
jected figure of a man, who, with head
bent and muttering lips, was slowly shut
fling up the street.
"Johnstown man p I asked.
"Yes."
"Victim of the 1ood?'
ono victim of the undertakers-like
many another"
els he mad p
"Crazy as a bedbug"
"You see" he went On "when our great
harvest of death took place Johnstown
was simply paralyzed for means to house
ard identify it's dead before burying it.
At first there was no attempt, or only the
slightest, at Identification. Pittsburg sent
a raft of volunteer undertskers, and he
first and only thought vas to get he
bodies under ground and save the living
from pestllence. But in time the thing
was supposed to be organized, and men
were paid to properly handle and register
the corpses and care for their valuables as
fast as they were brought to light. The
way in which this work was done was
:nsSIo o~+ror,a Not pr1u ruoro
there wholesale robberies of valuables
known dead-but the records were mixed
up, in q manner to make the heart sick.
Men were buried for women and children
for men, and then the numbers, as 1t
seemed, were all put in a box and shook
up, so that it became a lottery to find your
loved ones, even after you had found a
description which was reasonably sure to
hit the case.
"Well, sir, poor Abe Murphy suffered.
Ali his family, q wife and six children,
went down in the flood, and he has only
been able to find one child living. and he a
big Ounce of a boy. He worked like a
good fellow at the time of the food, saved
several lives, and afterward turnedin with
a will 10 help to gather the harvest of
bodies and do other labor which called for
strong arms and a willing heart. Only
now and then he would knock off work
and 60 looking for his own among the
dead. He was a big. strong fellow, and
even the agony of his grief showed no
signs of turning his head. But there came
a time when he began to search among the
lists describing the dead and their sup
posed location, and after awhile he came
upon the description of his favorite daugh-
ter, which was so full and accurate that
there could be no mistake about it. 1t
bore q certain number in one of the GENE
teries. Procuring the necessary authority
and filled with hope, he went and had the
grave bearing this number opened, and
what do you think they found? The body
of a full grown man The cemetery Of
6cials sought long and earnestly to find
the child, and many graves were disturbed.
But there seemed a fate against it. Only
Gabriel's trump will make that child come
forth and answer 4 am here
"Later he had a similar experience with
another child, and then with his wife.
The latter, though, was merely a case OF
are less describing or of mistaken suppos-
ng on the part of Abe. But it was all the
same to him by this time. His tortured
mind had crossed the ragged edge of rea-
son, and everything in the way of disap-
pointment only added to his insanity, IN
til it became incurable. What he suf-
fered no man knows. He got to haunting
the cemeteries and the dead houses until
he became q nuisance, and finally the
medical staff, assisted by the Red Cross
| funds, took him away and put him into
mercifu1 confinement. He is now harm
less and shows no desire to go back te
YOUNGSTOWN, and, as he has q bit OF proper
ty, he is allowed his liberty. His son is
working on a farm in the West. Tn
father has no interest in him."-Aeu
York Herald