1874 — May 16, Mill River Reservoir Dam Failure, 4 villages, esp. Williamsburg, MA–138-139

–138-139 Blanchard estimated range.*

— 200 Willsey and Lewis. “Massachusetts,” Harper’s Book of Facts. 1895, p. 492.
— 160 Semi-Weekly Wisconsin (Milwaukee). “A Record of…Events in 1874,” 1-1-1875, 4.
— 150 Childs. A History of the United States. 1886, p. 233.
— ~150 New York Times. “Former Floods Have Cost Many Lives,” June 5, 1921.
— 144 Northeast States Emergency Consortium (NESEC). Floods.
— 144 Simonds. The American Date Book. 1902, p. 89.
— 144 Willsey and Lewis. “Inundations,” Harper’s Book of Facts. 1895, p.381.
— 143 Ludlum. The American Weather Book. 1982, p. 92.
— 140 Saxena and Sharma. Dams: Incidents and Accidents. 2005, p. 18.
— 139 Assn. of State Dam Safety Officials. “Dam Failures, Dam Incidents (Near Failures).”
— 139 New England Historical Soc. “The Mill River Flood of 1874, A Preventable Tragedy.”
— 139 Sharpe, Elizabeth. In the Shadow of the Dam. 2007, pp. 237-238.
–57 Williamsburg p. 237
— 4 Skinnerville p. 237
–27 Haydenville p. 238
–51 Leeds Village pp. 238-239
— 138 Paul. History of the Mill River Disaster, in Hampshire County, Mass. 1874, pp. 17-18.
–57 Williamsburg p. 17
— 4 Skinnerville “
–26 Haydenville “
–51 Leeds p. 18
— 138 US DHS. Sector: Estimating Loss of Life for Dam Failure Scenarios. 2011, p. 63.

*We are inclined to accept as authoritative the death toll of 138-139 laid out by locality and by name presented by Paul in 1874 (138), and Sharpe (139) in 2007. Sharpe includes one more death in Haydenville than does Paul.

Narrative Information

Childs: “The Mill River Reservoir, covering a tract of one hundred acres at Williamsburg, Mass., gave way on the 16th of May, precipitating the vast mass of water it contained down a steep and narrow valley into the village of Williamsburg, and thence further down the valley through the villages of Haydenville, Leeds, and Florence into the Northampton meadows. Manufacturing establishments and dwellings representing over a million dollars worth of property were swept away, and about one hundred and fifty people were drowned.” (Childs 1886, p. 233.)

DHS: “Mill River Dam (also known as Williamsburg Dam) was located in western Massachusetts, north of Northampton. The dam was of earthfill construction with a masonry core wall. Mill River Dam failed at 7:20 am on Saturday, May 16, 1874. The 9-year-old dam failed as seepage carried away fill, causing embankment sliding and ultimately resulted in the collapse of the masonry core wall.

“The dam had a height of 43 feet, and at the time of failure, the water was 4 feet below the dam crest. The dam had a crest length of 600 feet. The reservoir volume at the time of failure was 307 acre-feet. The drainage area upstream from the dam was approximately 3 square miles.

“The gatekeeper (dam tender) rode 3 miles on horseback to warn the town of Williamsburg (the nearest town and the first settlement in the path of the flood) after observing the large slide. Another person living near the dam ran 2 miles in 15 minutes after seeing the top of the dam break away.

“The gatekeeper, who had not seen the large reservoir outflow, got to Williamsburg at about the time the dam failed. Many people received either no warning or only a few minutes of warning.

“A flood from 20 to 40 feet in height destroyed brass, silk, and button mills. Boarding houses, houses, and barns were also crushed or swept away. There were approximately 750 people left homeless and 138 fatalities….The dam was never rebuilt.” (U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security. Dams Sector: Estimating Loss of Life for Dam Failure Scenarios. September 2011, pp. 62-63.)

Harpers: “Bursting of a reservoir dam on Mill river, near Williamsburg, Hampshire co., nearly destroys Williamsburg, Leeds, Haydensville, and Skinnersville; 200 lives and $1,500,00 worth of property lost…16 May, 1875.” (Willsey. “Massachusetts,” Harper’s Book…. 1895, p. 492.)

Ludlum: May 16, 1874. “Mill Creek disaster west of Northampton, Mass.: dam slippage after rain caused flash flood with loss of 143 lives and $1 million property damage.” (Ludlum 1982, p. 192.)

NESEC: “The first recorded dam failure in the United States occurred on May 16, 1874, in Williamsburg, Massachusetts. A landslide shattered a 43-foot dam on the Mill Creek, a tributary of the Connecticut River, resulting in the death of 144 people and $1 million in damage.” (NESEC. Floods.)

Sharpe: “Early one May morning in 1874, in the hills above Williamsburg, Massachusetts, a reservoir dam suddenly burst, sending an avalanche of water down a narrow river valley lined with factories and farms. In just thirty minutes, the Mill River flood left 139 people dead and 740 homeless — and a nation wondering how this terrible calamity had happened….

“Elizabeth saw and heard the eastern half of the dam explode upward. She would later say that it ‘seemed to burst all at once, from the bottom, where the earth seemed to be lifted up,’ as though someone had inserted a giant shovel under the base and thrown the dirt skyward. As the ground heaved, a column of dirt and rock rose in the air, but instead of falling back to earth, it was pushed forward by the great surge of reservoir water… It ‘made an awful noise, like an earthquake,’ she said.

“A convulsive boom echoed through the Williamsburg hills, and was heard as far away as Goshen… ‘louder than the biggest clap of thunder’….

“…For twenty minutes, the water leaped down the valley in a muddy floodwave that pushed forward at a rate of 60,000 cubic feet per second. There were 600 million gallons to let out. It would take one hour for all the water to leave the reservoir….

“The torrent picked up…[a] boiler…and carried the several-ton object one hundred yards across the street before depositing it on the lawn of Lieutenant Governor Hayden’s home. It was five and a half feet in diameter and sixteen feet long…. Below the brass works, the wave widened sufficiently to envelop almost every building on both sides of the river, toppling the structures one by one, like a row of dominos set in motion. It demolished about fifty structures…. It crumbled all four iron bridges…. At the bottom of the village, the tobacco-mill dam held back the wave for a second or two… When the stalled flood moved again, it collapsed twenty feet of the tobacco-mill dam and pulled down the mill….” (Sharpe 2007, pp. 56-58, 74-76)

Paul: “….Four beautiful villages, reposing in supposed security, in one of those charming valleys with which New England abounds, blotted from existence in a moment, as with the besom of destruction, is a calamity beyond expression or conception. The loss of property, the accumulated savings of a life-time of many of the inhabitants, is appalling, — all gone at one fell swoop, — but when added to that is the indiscriminate destruction of life, the catastrophe is overwhelming…. The growth of a century is obliterated in a moment. So thorough has been the destruction that many of the boundaries of real estate are obliterated, and many of the survivors of the disaster are unable to locate the sites of their former habitations…. [p. 2.]

“About three miles north of Williamsburg village one reaches the ruins of the cause of all this devastation. The scene is an impressive one. All through the center nothing remains of the high wall of stone and earth which rose to a height of 40 feet in the bed of the stream, save the stone-work running at right angles with the dam at the bottom, which enclosed the gate-way. In the very bed of the stream nothing is left, and, even where the water now flows harmlessly along its ancient channel, not a stone remains from top to bottom. A small portion of the eastern part of the reservoir, and a larger section of the western, still remain,—in all, hardly a sixth of the original extent,—broken and jagged on the edges. Above, the eye sweeps over the bed of the reservoir, a tract of 111 acres, covering the northeasterly corner of the town of Williamsburg, near the Conway line. This land, nestled in among the hills, is for the greater part tolerably level, sloping, of course, more
or less on every side, and dotted over a large part of its surface with the stumps of trees that formerly occupied it. Below the reservoir the sight is most impressive. The vast mass of water suddenly let loose and dashing down the narrow valley, has wrought such devastation as one would not have believed possible without the sight. The very bed of the stream has been cut in many places below its original course, and for a long distance the valley is dotted—sometimes crammed—with huge rocks torn from the wall of the reservoir, while the trees that in many places lined its banks have quite vanished, and those that marked the outer edge of the torrent are all tattered and torn. Indeed, as one stands on the remaining wall of the reservoir and looks about, the scene is most desolate and impressive.

“The ill-fated reservoir was one of a system of dams and reservoirs owned by a corporation called “The Mill River and Williamsburg Reservoir Company,” which included all the manufacturing establishments on the line of Mill river from Williamsburg to Northampton. It was situated on the “east branch” of Mill river, about three miles from the village of Williamsburg and in the northeastern corner of the latter town. The stream which supplied it has its rise only about three miles above the reservoir, and, after joining the “west branch” at the village of Williamsburg, forms Mill river proper, which flows through Haydenville and Florence, and empties into the Connecticut at Northampton. The reservoir was constructed in the summer and fall of 1865, though it was not filled and used till the following spring….A stone wall was first built, which was stipulated to rise from a width of -eight feet at the hard-pan to two feet at the top, which latter was 42 feet above the bed of the stream. This wall was contracted to be laid in the best-known cement, and, the projectors claimed, would be as strong as a single shaft of granite. Enveloping this stone wall on either side was a mass of earth, which sloped down on the water side at an angle of 30 degrees, and on the lower side at an angle of 45 degrees. A lateral section of this earthen support measured about 120 feet at the base; the greater mass of which was on the water side. At the center of the stream, enclosed in a stone wall running at right angles to the main wall of the reservoir, ran an iron tube of two feet diameter, for controlling the flow of water, extending of course a few feet beyond this earthen wall at both extremities of its base. This wall of earth, 120 feet wide at the bottom, was 16 feet across at the top, covering the crest of the stone wall a depth of two feet, in order to prevent danger from frost, and along its top furnished a good driveway. The water never rose quite to the crest of the dam, being kept about two feet below that line by means of a waste-way at the western side. The reservoir covered an area of 111 acres, and its average depth was 24 feet…. [p. 4]

“Of course, the onslaught of the water was terrible and grand beyond description; one can only give its results as best depicting its appalling accompaniments. To one the thick coming mass of water seemed like the heaviest ocean waves; to another the sound was like the tearing of shingles from many buildings, while a third heard it as the heavy sullen thunder which succeeds the summer storm. It was preceded and surrounded by a dense spray or fog, dark and thick as the heaviest smoke, while even as far away as the Hill there was an odor like that emitted by stagnant pools. The wave is generally described as 20 feet high, though in one spot its spray washed the branches of a tree 40 feet from the ground….

“The villages devastated of property and of lives were Williamsburg, Skinnerville and Haydenville, in the town of Williamsburg, and Leeds, in the town of Northampton, while the village of Florence, likewise in the latter town, suffered severe property damage, but no loss of life. All these are manufacturing villages…

“A large flouring-mill on the reservoir stream was the first object of its fury, and when the water reached the valley, instead of following the course of the stream at the base of the hill, it rushed madly forward across to the Main street, and followed that down, taking in its unrelenting course every house it struck, and destroying 25 in all before reaching the top of Skinnerville, a mile below. In thus rioting across the meadow, it cut a new, wide channel, diverting the river from its former bed, carrying the bulk of its current to the other side of the valley, leaving, thereby, H. L. James’s large mill without any water-power and quite useless, and covering the intervening flats with sand, rocks and rubbish, to their almost inevitable ruin. This last was the case also at Skinnerville, where the large and first-class silk factory of William Skinner, in which were employed 80 hands, was completely destroyed, his elegant house damaged, and twenty-one houses carried away….[p.6.]

“….The search for the bodies was earnestly prosecuted Sunday, and with good result, some dozen more being brought to the hall, making 30 recovered in all at Williamsburg…. [p. 8.]

“Two small houses alone preceded at Haydenville the greatest material conquest of the flood, the extensive, long-established and widely known brass works of Hayden, Gere & Co. When the hurrying messenger cried his warning, it was received, as at many places, incredulously, but scarcely a moment passed before the terrible, strange, tumultuous sound of groaning, creaking, crashing timbers, mingled with the wash and echo of mighty waves, told all that it was a serious matter. Coming over the dam, at an especially narrow part of the river, the flood here presented as marked an aspect as at any point in its course. Lifted between 15 and 20 feet above the ordinary level of the river but with no definite and estimable surface, a chaos of tossing miscellany, beams and rafters, whole roofs of houses, great bunches of hay, clapboards, blinds, fences, trees, an indescribable, struggling pile, on it drove, and seemed to those below who watched it the most wonderful and fearful sight they ever beheld. As it came over the dam, one of the houses just alluded to, used as a lever by the mass of waters, struck the old foundry, shoved it into nothingness, and, continuing, forced a breach in the side of the great building, and, in a moment, as if by magic, the center fell in, the ends folded in together, and the solid structure melted away as if it had been builded of snow. There was no such thing as the substantial before this tremendous force…. [p10]

“There were 220 men at work in the brass works when the alarm came. All escaped save one, a French Canadian boy named Francis Brodeur, who, after reaching the road^ in spite of the warning of his comrades, turned back to get his boots, as he had come out in his slippers. He got them and was on his way out, when he was struck in the breast by a timber and knocked over so that when he recovered his feet he could not stem the flood and was soon swept away. On to the houses, slight wooden affairs, the burdened torrent rushed, gathering on the way down the iron bridges, as if they were chips. It tore away stores, tenements and boarding-houses, including these : On the west side of the river, near the dam, a two-tenement house owned by Michael Reynolds and occupied by Edwin Thayer’s and another family ; Mr. Reynolds’s own house, two dwellings, owned by Hayden, Gere & Co., two houses owned by Maj. Cyrus Miller, Sharpe & Ames’s stove store, house and grocery of Pierce Larkin, another house owned by Larkin, Chauncey Rice’s dwelling, the dwelling and shops of the Myron Ballon property, Robert Cartier’s blacksmith-shop. Miss Payson’s house. On the east side, five tenements, owned by Hayden, Gere & Co., John Kaplinger’s house, H. Hart’s barber shop, the Hayden block of wooden tenements, the houses of Deacon Elam Graves, Mrs. Deacon Ives, a large boarding-house, Mr. John Page’s house, Mrs. [end p.11] Phillips’s small house, and a fine barn, with hay and grain, belonging to the hotel kept by Luther Loomis & Son.

“Besides these buildings there was carried away from the western side of the river, below the village, the factory of the Hayden tobacco company. The company consists of Joel Hayden, president; A. R. Morse, treasurer; F. E. Bates, agent; F. S. Chapin, Superintendent; Samuel W. Hayden, clerk; and their loss was total, reaching about $75,000. The Hayden manufacturing company, another stock concern, running a cotton mill from this water power, one of the best on the stream, sustained no damage to that mill, but the gas works, from which they supplied the village as well as themselves, which were situated just south of their mill, were utterly destroyed, the brick wall being broken to fragments, and the gasometer crushed to a shapeless mass. Damaged, but not in any degree ruined, were the buildings of the Hayden foundry and machine company, in the village, where steam heaters, etc., are manufactured, W. II. Hayden being the lessee; the loss being perhaps $8000. An instant sufficed for the destruction of everything touched by the mountainous flood, which rolled on in its appalling force a briefer time than many a dream, speedily became exhausted, and in an hour the river had nearly subsided to its wonted bed, and the citizens walked their streets once more and begun the dread search for the dead. The river flats and all the banks were crammed with debris. Great drives of timber, trees, intermingled in the strangest, most shocking way with women’s clothing, less often men’s, with mattresses, quilts and sheets, with belting and machinery from the mills, with fragments of bills and letters, with soap and potatoes and stove wood, with rocks and stone steps, with fragments of chairs and tables, and now and then a piece of a piano or cabinet organ, with little children’s hats and tiny shoes, with household utensils and all the fragments of manufacture and domestic life—these, with now and then a poor horse, with agonized mouth and staring eyes, or a faithful ox or cow—and, most horrible and soul-harrowing, bruised and disfigured, sometimes maimed bodies which so short a time before had been in full flush of life—these were the ever recurring picture….” [p.12] (Weaver, Shipman & Company, Printers. History of the Mill River Disaster, in Hampshire County, Mass. Springfield, Mass.: Weaver, Shipman & Company, Printers, 1874. )

Sources

Association of State Dam Safety Officials. “Dam Failures, Dam Incidents (Near Failures). Accessed at: http://www.damsafety.org/media/Documents/PRESS/US_FailuresIncidents(1).pdf

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Ludlum, David M. The American Weather Book. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1982.

New England Historical Society. “The Mill River Flood of 1874, A Preventable Tragedy.” (Webpage). Accessed 5-19-2020 at: https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/mill-river-flood-1874-preventable-tragedy/

New York Times. “Former Floods Have Cost Many Lives.” 6-5-1921. Accessed 11-27-2017 at: http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9D06EEDA1739E133A25756C0A9609C946095D6CF

Northeast States Emergency Consortium. Floods. Accessed at: http://www.nesec.org/hazards/floods.cfm

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Saxena, K. R. and V. M. Sharma. Dams: Incidents and Accidents. London and New York: Taylor & Francis, 2005.

Semi-Weekly Wisconsin (Milwaukee). “A Record of…Events in 1874,” 1-1-1875, 4. Accessed at: http://www.newspaperarchive.com

Sharpe, Elizabeth M. In the Shadow of the Dam: The Aftermath of the Mill River Flood of 1874. Simon and Schuster, 2007, 304 pages. Partially digitized by Google and accessed at: http://books.google.com/books?id=qenDs6Cw2okC&dq=Williamsburg+Dam+1874&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0

Simonds, W. E. (Editor). The American Date Book. Kama Publishing Co., 1902, 211 pages. Google digital preview accessed 9-8-2017 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=JuiSjvd5owAC

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Willsey, Joseph H. (Compiler), Charlton T. Lewis (Editor). Harper’s Book of Facts: A Classified History of the World. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1895. Accessed 9-4-2017 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=UcwGAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false