“Jesus, lover of my soul, Let me to thy bosom fly, While the raging waters roll, While the tempest still is high.”
A venerable man was seen upon his knees, with clasped hands, gazing steadfastly at the cross above St. John’s Roman Catholic church; while another, converted the previous winter, full of faith, and always rejoicing in hope, was last seen kneeling upon the roof of his house, riding with the torrent, and shouting, “Glory to God.”
The narratives of the survivors, whether from the upper, middle, or lower portions of the city, all alike serve to show that the suddenness of the doom could only be equalled by its awful horror.
The Hulbert House, built of brick, and one of the finest hotels in Johnstown, stood in the upper portion of the city. There were about sixty persons in it at the time of the catastrophe, and of these, the lives of forty-nine were lost. Many of these were in the office, when an unusual whistling of engines was heard. Imagining a fire had broken out in the midst of the flood, they all ran to the upper stories, except the proprietor, the clerk, and one guest. Two or three minutes later, the clerk walked to the window, and looked across the Conemaugh in the direction of Prospect Hill, and seeing what he mistook for a great cloud of dust, exclaimed, “My God, the hill is falling!” At that, the proprietor ran to the door, and looking up the street, realized at once the situation. Directing the other two to hasten upstairs and spread the alarm, he ran to the kitchen to warn the girls; then fleeing to the fourth floor, he reached it just as the building fell. One of the few survivors declares that the catastrophe overtook nearly all the guests no further advanced than to the foot of the stairway on the third floor, and as yet unapprized of the nature of their danger.