Storms, Freshets, And Earthquakes.

The wind came from the southeast, and tore up a large quantity of heavy timber (said to be about two hundred cords) all in a narrow strip, not more than two hundred yards in width. A valley of woodland, bounded by pretty high hills, had nearly all of its timber blown down, and, what is very remarkable, the trees are not generally laid lengthwise of the valley but across it, with their tops towards the northeast, while on the adjacent hills but few trees were uprooted; one very large white-oak, however, which was deply and strongly rooted in a clay soil, was blown down."¹

Farther down the stream the paper-mill of Palmer & Masker was badly damaged, thirty feet of the building was undermined and fell, a paper-machine ruined, while the race and dam were broken. Just below stood the paper-mill of Obern Levis, and there the water leveled the drying-house to its foundations, and, bursting through the doors and windows of the basement of the mill itself on one side, swept out at the other, doing great damage to the machinery and stock. A small cotton-factory at or near the site of the present Union Mills, above the Delaware County turnpike in Upper Darby, then occupied by John and Thomas Kent, was carried away by the flood, together with the machinery and stock, and an unoccupied dwelling was absolutely obliterated, nothing after the passage of the water remaining to mark the place whereon it stood. Three stone dwellings were partly carried away, and several private bridges were borne off by the current. At Kellyville the stone picker-house was washed away, together with the contents, and the basement story of the mill flooded. The next mill below, then owned by Asher Lobb's estate, on the Delaware County turnpike, and occupied by D. and C. Kelly, was flooded and the dam broken. It was here that a frame dwelling, near the bridge, occupied by Michael Nolan, his wife, five children, and a young woman, Susan Dowlan, was washed away. As the water swelled Nolan and his eldest son left the house to make arrangements to remove the family to a place of less danger, and not five minutes thereafter the wing wall of the bridge gave way, the loosened flood poured onward surrounding the house, and in half an hour bore the building from its foundation. The wife and four children were drowned. Susan Dowlan, when cast into the water, clutched as she was swept onward a branch of a tree, and thereby obtained a foothold on a knot which projected from its trunk in such a way that the trunk was interposed between her and the direction in which the floor was moving. Thus for nearly four hours she remained immersed to her waist in the water. When the freshet had subsided in a measure, Charles McClure, John Cunningham, and John Heller made an effort to rescue her. At great personal danger they ventured into the flood and obtained a position where the water was shoaling, but an angry torrent still rushed between them and the tree to which the woman clung. McClure, taking the end of a rope, swam to her, and fastening it around her she was drawn to a place of safety. When rescued she was so exhausted that she could not have held her footing much longer. The bodies of Mrs. Nolan and her four children were recovered the following day. The dam at Matthews' paper-mill, below Lobb's Run, was washed away to its foundation, and the water rushed violently through the floor of the mill, while farther on, at Bonsall's grist-mill, the dam and race were injured. The dam at Thomas Steel's mill, the last one on the creek at that time, was torn away completely, his cotton-house and stable removed by the flood, while the water, rising seventeen and a half feet at that point, inun-