Year: 1874

THE TORRENT DESCRIBED By AN EYE WIT
NESS.


EARLY on Saturday morning went out
from the house of a friend | had been
staying with to meet another near the
dam. About halfway mp to it met a
man running rapidly toward the village
and shouting and waving his hands like
lunatic. thought he was one and ran
toward him, when he called to me to
keep to the hills, as the dam was giving
way. / asked which way to go, and he
said there might be time to alarm the
people down at Spellman's so that they
could get away before the flood should
come. Then started in that direction,
but keeping out of the track of the river.
knew what an enormous body of water
there was in the reservoir, and that if
really the wall were giving away and
should presently hurst nothing could
save the people below, but / still half
doubted the mans sanity. Still, lives
might be saved, even if what he said was
true, for / thought the wall strong enough
to withstand for a little while the pressure
of the water behind it, I was so excited
that hardly knew what | thought, but
surely kept out of the direct road of the
torrent.





get better view of affairs / heard a
heavy rumbling roar behind, such as 1
can liken to nothing, for I never heard
anything at all resembling it-a booming
zizz, long continued, or something of the
sort-a sound of awful power, intending
destruction to everything, and then
looked up toward the dam and saw a
great, black mass of water moving on, a
solid wall, and the spray all above it like
hair bristling. | was so terrified that
almost fell, and had to catch at tree to
save myself. But was near the village,
and could see Spellman's factory and the
men standing about the door. The water
swept down below and past me with a
rush, not whirling, as one might think
it would, but going as straight in its
course as an arrow. The noise was
deafening. You would see-I saw it
all in second-a tree or a house stand
ing, and then the half sight of its bending
or topping over, and then it would dis
appear, whirling in and out of the flood.
Spellman's factory seemed, though, to be
lifted right off it's foundations, and
sailed down on the top of the swollen
river that now looked like long, black,
slippery serpent wriggling down the val
ley with frightful velocity. l followed
along as swiftly as possible, and 1t seemed
as though the whole village ran away
from me. But it was engulfed and swept
away. I saw tall chimney standing
alone and a man hanging head down
ward from big hole in it, and | saw
other bodies that had been pushed flat
against things too strong to give way and
remained there crushed all of heap, and
dead, of course.


1t may seem improbable, but could
swear heard the shouts and screams of
men and women above the roar of the
torrent, but it made all sorts Of noises and
sounds and there was wind with it
thought created by it-for before tree
would be struck its branches would move
away from the waters as if with wind
or from presentiment of what was COM
ing. Afterward I heard some people say
that there had seemed something the mat
ter with the morning before the dreadful
disaster, as if it had been foreshadowed
in their feelings or in the air itself But
it is impossible to tell accurately of what
] heard and saw, for what saw was as if
in flash of lightning, where everything
was Dicture il. II. LARKINS.