Storms, Freshets, And Earthquakes.

was destroyed and three houses carried away by the freshet. A double frame house, occupied by William Tombs and James Rigley and their families, floated down the stream, lodging against the factory, opposite a window in the picker-room. From the upper window of his house Rigley succeeded in passing his wife and child into the mill, and then rescued Tombs (who was ill at the time), his wife and two children from the garret of the house, to do which he was compelled to break a hole in the roof. How quickly he acted may be gathered from the fact that in six minutes from the time this house rested against the mill it was again whirling down the stream. Below the woolen-factory of Samuel Bancroft the water reached twenty feet above the usual level. A portion of the factory, fifty by thirty-six feet, was absolutely destroyed, a quantity of wool was washed away and lost, and four dwellings wrecked. The latter was a long stone building which had been altered into four houses. In one of the centre dwellings resided George Hargraves, his wife, five children, and his brother, William Hargraves, and in the adjoining one lived Thomas W. Brown, his wife and child. When the flood came they endeavored to secure the household goods in the basement; the water rose so rapidly that their escape was cut off, and they retreated to the second story. William Hargraves, finding the walls of the building yielding to the force of the flood, plunged into the water and was carried down the stream for more than half a mile until, catching in a standing tree, he succeeded in holding on until the flood subsided and he was saved. While there, his brother George and his four eldest children on a bed borne by the current, passed by, and a moment after William saw them hurled into the water and drowned. The bodies were found about nine miles farther down the stream, that of the youngest child firmly grasped in its father's arms. Jane Hargrave, the wife of George, when the water broke through the house, with her baby in her arms, was standing in a corner of the room, and strangely that part of the floor, only a few feet square, remained, and there the woman stood for five long hours until rescued by Thomas Holt. In the adjoining dwelling Thomas W. Brown, his wife, and child stood on a corresponding part of the floor where Mrs. Hargrave stood, only it was not more than half as large as that she occupied. All else of the two middle houses was carried away save that part of the wall which held up these broken pieces of the second-story flooring-boards.

On Vernon's Run, which empties into Ridley Creek, the dam of the flour-mill of Thomas Hutton was swept away. At Park Shee's paper-mill the breast of the dam and the buildings were much injured, and two small houses destroyed, Here the water rose to twenty feet. At Edward Taylor's lower factor, - now Bancroft's, - then owned by Charles Shermans, the dam was carried away, and the building used as a machine-shop and picker-house destroyed, together with the machinery therein. The basement story of the mill itself was submerged. The wooden county bridge on the road from Hinkson's to Sneath's Corner was swept away, and the abutments injured. Some damage was done to the rolling-mill of J. Gifford Johnson, while at the woolen- and flour-mills of Enos Sharpless, at Waterville, the water rose eighteen feet, flooding the basement story, doing considerable damage, and a counting-bouse, a bath-house, and a temporary bark-house floated off. The bridge was carried away, but lodged less than a mile down the creek, and was subsequently recovered. Three-fourths of the dam was destroyed. John M. Sharpless, at the same place, lost a cooper-shop and its contents, while at the stone bridge which spanned the creek on the Providence road the arches were swept away, and one of the abutments was almost entirely destroyed. At Pierce Crosby's mill - now Irvings - the water rose twenty-one feet above the usual level, the dam was carried away, one dwelling floated off, and the flour- and saw-mill much injured. The county bridge at Crosbyville was swept off its abutments and broken. Farther down the creek, at the Queen's Highway, the eastern abutment was washed out and the bridge whirled down the current, while the railroad bridge at the present Eddystone Station was greatly damaged and the tressel-work on the eastern side swept away.

On the east branch of Chester Creek the dam at the rolling and nail factory belonging to the estate of John Edwards, in Thornbury, was broken, and a like damage was done at the paper- and flour-mill of James M. Wilcox, where a protection wall at the end of his mill was torn away, The tilt-mill of Thomas Thatcher was absolutely destroyed, nothing remaining after the waters subsided but the tilt-hammer and grindstone. Grubb's bridge, on the State road, although not carried away, was badly injured. At Lenni the dam was destroyed and the county bridge rendered almost worthless, while about half a mile farther down the stream - at a large cotton factory belonging to the estate of Peter Hill, now Parkmount Mills, then unoccupied - the dam was broken and the mill injured.

It is necessary now to retrace our course up the east branch of Martin's or Rocky Run to David Green's cotton factory, located about half a mile south of Howellville. The dam here was washed away and the mill - the first story stone and the remainder frame - yielded to the torrents, and a large part of the stone work was removed, but sufficient remained to support the frame superstructure. The dam at the flour-mill of Humphrey Yearsly, in Middletown, about three-quarters of a mile south of the Edgmont line, gave way, as did also that at the saw-mill of Joseph Pennell, on Rocky Run, about three-quarters, of a mile before the latter stream entered into the eastern branch of Chester Creek.

Ascending the west branch of the same stream, the first dam on Chester Creek was at Caleb Brinton's grist-, saw-, and clover-mill, in Thornbury, just above