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Newspaper
Bloomfield Democrat
Location
Bloomfield, Indiana, United States of America
Date
Jun 07, 1889
Page
9
A dramatic account of the 1889 Johnstown flood detailing the Conemaugh reservoir break, fifteen thousand deaths, and mass destruction across towns from South Fork to Cambria City. Describes dam weakness, river paths, coffins, relief efforts, and the scale of casualties, with notes on industry and emergency response.
Early reports on the Johnstown flood estimate death tolls from 8 000 to 10 000 with trains swept away and the Conemaugh river roaring through the valley. Witnesses describe devastation across South Fork Mineral Point Woodvale Conemaugh and the surrounding region as rescuers struggle to recover bodies amid a landscape of debris and burning wreckage.
The Johnstown Pennsylvania relief effort reports ongoing burial work since Sunday with rapid identification and cremation or interment plans. Morgue operations at the Fourth Ward School handle washing and awaiting identification as crowds watch and soldiers guard the process.
Ninevah, described as a city of the dead, is turned into a somber scene with over 220 corpses recovered. More than 100 bodies are piled at the depot and boxed, coffin boxes line the streets, and a makeshift morgue operates at Ninemecher’s planing mill. Most victims are women and children. men are rare.
The president of the South Fork fishing club asserts the catastrophe stemmed from dam weakness, not weather. Pittshor millionaires' lake project, cottages, and clubhouses lie on the brink of a vast cavity. three years to build the dam that burst Friday left seventy five men employed, with losses from the reservoir's use by the old Pennsylvania Canal and later the railroad.
News reports from Johnstown Pennsylvania detail the dam as dirt with a light rubble facing and its waste gates closed to save fish. The disaster’s death toll is being estimated by a registration bureau across 28 agencies with 60 men, as survivors and families register. estimates vary from 8,000 to over 10,000 dead with about 15,000 believed alive in the flood’s path.
News notes describe public health orders in Pennsylvania about drinking water after the Johnstown flood, military relief efforts with the Fourteenth regiment, a strong charity response in Pittsburgh for food and clothing, pneumonia outbreaks among flood refugees, and ongoing wreckage and fatalities along the Ohio and Kanawha rivers with floating bodies and widespread destitution.
The article recalls Nichols & Shepard of Battle Creek Michigan innovating with the Vibrator threshing machine, a new design that displaced the Endless Apron type and spurred rivals to imitate it. It notes the firm’s continued work, introducing a further advanced threshing machine for grain and seeds seen as superior to earlier models.
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