The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1900-09-26
WAS At GALVESTON
Mr.. Bowman Talks of a Thrill
ling Experience.
When He Left Galveston the Smoke Was Rising
From Heaps of Dead Bodies in All
Parts Of the CITY.

~AS " wv StJs
Mr.. H. w. Bowman. of Mechanicsburg.
Pa. is registered at the Marlborough. He
is travelling man, and was in Galveston
on September Sth, when the city was
wrecked by storm. He is now on his way
horce
st was the most terrible experience
I'VE ever been through, and l hope never
to see anything like it again." he said
last night.
Describe it? That can't be done. The
awfulness of it all can't even be imagined
I was at the fremont Hotel, the highest
point of the city, and even in that the
water was five feet deep.
'The storm began on Friday night l
was awakened by the blind to my window
being blown open. The storm even then
seemed to me something terrific, and
dressed and went down into the office.
Several others were already there, but no
body seemed to be much concerned. All
Saturday the rain came down in a drizzle
and the wind howled along the streets
About noon the storm increased in vio-
lence. BY o'clock it was driving the
water up into the city. BY 4 O'Clock peo
pie were seeking places of safety. They
crowded into the fremont Hotel, some
700 Of them.
Nobody could sleep, of course. In fact
there was no place to sleep. The sky
light was broken, the windows were
blown in and the whole house drenched.
The streets were Ike rivers.
Morning broke over a scene of CHASTITY
desolation. The chief of police came
early with a paper which he asked people
to sign as volunteers. a young doctor in
the hotel, Dr. Delinger, signed it and
started out. 1 went with him to see what
had happened. We wore bathing suits and
the first person we saw was travelling
man who was terribly wounded, but not
dead We took him to the hotel and 1
helped administer chloroform and set his
bones Then the doctor persuaded me to
sign as a volunteer and we started out
on the work of rescue. That day. which
was Sunday, we administered chloroform
in 81 cases.
Fer four days I assisted in this work,
and on Thursday I was able to get out of
the city. Eight hundred others came
away or the train that I did.
You can get some idea of the force Of
the storm when l tell you we passed a
big tramp steamer that had been driven
/ 2miles out of the channel and stuck
in the mud and further on, out in the
| prairie, two miles from water, huge pile
driver
1.-THE weather man explained to me
that had it not been for a peculiar split
| in the storm before it reached Galveston,
everything would have been swept off the
island He said that the hurricane ac-
| cornpanying the storm left it on the Gulf,
| whipped around and came UP UP the other
side of Galveston from the bay. The
storm and the hurricane met right over
| Galveston, otherwise the island would
have been swept clear
Br. Bowman said nobody in Galveston
was able to get anything to eat or drink
for forty-eight hours after the storm.
When the water subsidized some supplies
were fshed out
Eat the hotel we were given just one
slice of ham, a piece of bread and a cup
! offs coffee. No threats. bribery or per-
[ suasion could get more"
Speaking of the destruction of life, he
said:
THE dead bodies were everywhere. At
first they were brought up for identifi-
cation. BY Sunday night 2,700 had been
brought in. The two undertaking estab-
lishments and an immense warehouse
was full, but still the dead were every
where upon the streets. Then it was
seen that this work was useless, so next
morning the dead were piled on barges
and taken out to sea. All Tuesday this
harvest of death continued. On Wednes-
day the stencil became something awful
and the bodies were floating back from
the sea. Then it was that they began to
burn them, and when l left Thursday
there was smoke rising from many heaps
of bodies that were being consumed by
fire"
''Was the looting of dead bodies as bad
as reported by the papers?"
Eyes, / don't know but that it was
worse. One negro who was shot was &C
tua1ly gnawing off a lady's finger to get
a diamond ring. He had no knife and
SO he was using his teeth. One morning
l heard four shots and FASTENED to the
spot with corporal of the guard to find
that soldier had just killed four negro
ghouls."
Mr.. Bowman's descriptions of his ex-
perience in the stricken city are most
interesting. He has a broken bit of the
fremont Hotels skylight that he is pre-
serving as souvenir of the storm.