Year: 1870

sudden Rise Ot n IeAHb RIVERA Fuullly Curs
ried Away by the swollen stream-A Most
HeartrendfDR story.


One of the most terrible calamities of its ma
ture that has happened lately is narrated by the
Austin (Texas) Journal. II reads almost like
romance as it seems impossible for q small
stream twenty feet below its banks to rise with
such rapidty as is stated. 1t is nevertheless
truth that is far stranger than fiction:-


1--WE published some time since brief and
necessarily imperfect account of this strange
and most painful calamity, which we now cor
rect, with fuller particulars, as we receive the
statement from the lips OF Breyet Colonel Mer-
riam, Major of the oath Infantry, who is now in
Austin. The Colonel, after four years of mill
tary service on the frontiers of Kansas, New
Mexico and West Texas, had received leave of
absence and was journeying with his wife and
child from Ell Paso to the Texan coast.


'They had reached the head of the Concho
river, and camped for the night on Sunday, the
oath of April.


1.-THE river is formed by the junction of the
rills of water from several large springs, which
have been damned into ponds by the wild
beaver and are well filled with large fish.


'The stream is SO small here that man can
step across it anywhere, The banks were
twenty feet above the bank of the water. Fa-
tigued with the long journey of siXty-eight
miles in the previous twenty-four hours, without
water, the party were pleasantly resting when
early in the evening Colonel Merriam was
aroused by the signs OF an approaching storm
The tent was fastened and made as secure as
possible, and about 9 o'clock hail storm burst
upon them, accompanied by some rain and a
strong wind.


'FThe fall of hail was unprecedented, lasting
until nearly eleven, the stones being of the size
of hen eggs, and striking the tent and prairie
with a noise like that of incessant musketry.


"The Colonel, who was not ignorant of the
sudden and extreme overflows to which the
mountain streams of Texas are liable, went out
into the darkness as soon as the storm had
ceased, to note what effect had been produced
on this riyulet. To his amazement he found in
bo oarly oil lpnp dry hnd n hn
sstless torrent, loaded and filled with hail,
rolling bank full, white as milk, and silent as a
river of OIL


"He at once saw the danger, and ran back to
the tent, shouting to the escort and servants to
turn out. He placed Mrs. Merriam, the child,
and nurse in the carriage, and with the aid of
three men, started to run with it to the higher
ground, distance of not sixty yards. Scarcely
a minute had elapsed from the time the alarm
had been given, but already the water had
surged over the bank in waves of such volume
and force as to sweep the party from their feet
before they had traversed thirty yards.


''The Colonel called for assistance on some
cavalry soldiers who had just escaped from the
United States mail station near by, but they
were too much terrified to heed or help.


Colonel Merriam then abandoned the hope
of saving his family in the carriage, and tried to
enter it in order TO swim out with them, but he
was swept down the ice cold torrent like bub-
BILE. Being an expert swimmer he succeeded
in reaching the bank about two hundred yards
w.
he received the terrible tidings that the mo-
ment after he was swept down. the carriage,
with all its precious freight, had turned over,
and gone sailing down the flood, his wife saying
as she disappeared My darling husband, good
bye The little rill of a few hours before,
which child might sten across; had become a
FACING river, covered with masses Of drift-weod
mile in width, and thirty to forty feet deep.


''The bereaved husband procured horse from
one of the cayalrymen, and rode far down the
Init pOul6 nothing in the darkness
and heard naught but the wild sounds of the
wave. So passed the long and weary night.


"Before day the strange and momentary flood
had passed by, and the small stream shrank tC
its usual siZe and ran in its wonted bed. The
sad search began. The drowned soldiers ant
servants, four in number were found and the
body of the wife taken from the water abou
three-fourths of mile below, and prepared TO
journey of ffty-three miles to the post of Con
cho for temporary burial Not till three day
after was the body of the child found, four mile
down the stream, long distance from its bed
Mrs. Merriam was lady of culture and attain
ments, valued and beloved by all who knew her
The little girl, not three years old, was remark
able for the maturity OF her mind and tn
sweetness of her disposition.


"The carriage was drifted by the curren
about mile, and lodged in the thicket Tn
storm and flood are represented as frighttul be
yond description. The Beaver ponds, troI
which the Concho takes its rise, were so file
with the icy hail that the catfish were killed b
the coDgelation, and were swept in wagon loads
together with the myriads of smaller animals {
the plain, such as rabbits and snakes, all over til
country by the sudden and rushing flood.


Three days after the storm, when th
party left the Concho, the hail lay in drift
TO the depth of more than six feet


calamity more sad, strange, and tragic it h'
seldom been our lof to narrate, and our deepe
sympathies go out to the father and husban
thus suddenly stricken to the heart by IL
CHASTITY loss of all that he held most dear"