Williamsport residents tell of flood

Interview conducted at Homewood, Williamsport, March 11, 2011. Interviewer - John Frye. Interviewees - Sue Hoch, Robert May, Jack Myers, Charles South, and Maurice Snyder.

John: We want to talk to you about the 36 flood …

Jack: I am Jack Meyers. I am 87 now, 13 when flood came to Williamsport

Sue: My name is Sue Bowers Hoch, I was born and raised in Williamsport. I was a Bowers and I was only 5 years old at the time of the flood, and I’m 80 now.

John A Williamsport Bowers

Charlie: I’m Charles South, 92 years old

Bob: I’m Bob May, 80 years old. Never lived in Williamsport – they wouldn’t allow me.

Charlie: Don’t you believe it. He’s a good friend.

John: - And the character here?

Jack: – Mr Williamsport

Maurice: I’m Maurice Snyder, I’m 97 years old, 22 years old when the flood was here. Saw quite a few things.

John: If we have a flood we have to have a reason. Let’s start out right there. I am assuming prior to the flood there e had a snowy winter. Was there snow on the ground here at Williamsport or did that run off come from the mountains?

Jack: As I recall we had a snowy winter but there was snow in the mountains But I think most of it came from the Cumberland area mountains where there was much more snow. That’s what I heard. I was 13, Then we had some rain too.

John: Yes, you had a lot of rain. Does anyone remember if was there snow on the ground here at Williamsport at that time of the flood? None of the pictures showed snow.

Maurice: There was snow in the mountains. I forget how many inches was up there. Cold and freezing up to that time. Couple of days prior to that a warm spell came in, some rain and it began to melt and the harder it started to melt up in Cumberland it started coming down the river and calls went out for low lands to get ready to move out.

And my recollection was that the river was rising up a foot an hour, a little over a foot per hour. I was at the Tannery at that time, working, there was three of us. But here was a family by the name of Turner, lived in the bottom part of Fenton avenue before you got to the canal. And the house in there, we got a call about 7’o clock in the evening that anyone living near the canal had better move out, and they came and they asked us at the tannery, we were working on payroll, if they could borrow the company truck to move out. By the time they got calls out of Cumberland that the water was coming up fast they got the last piece of furniture out and the water was coming into their house there and starting up Fenton Avenue. At that time all those ponds were in existence down there in the canal and the overflow was starting to come up and as it was it continued coming up everyone of Fenton Avenue was thinking of moving out. It just became water, water, water, and that’s what we saw for the next few days.

My recollection of it was the start of its was the night of the 17th the water started rising and it kept coming up

John: When you are saying Fenton Avenue you are saying the end towards the river?

Maurice: Fenton Avenue comes from 68 clear down to the canal.
That house was at the foot of the hill almost at the Canal. Bodie Turner’s. I think there was a canal boat set between the house and the canal

John: The high water peaked on the 18th but as most of you know it was called the St Patrick’s day flood because that’s when it flooded Cumberland so badly.

John to Sue: You were so young, do you remember it?

Sue: I was born and raised in Williamsport and the homeplace was 119 West Potomac which up the street from the Miller lumber company on the other side and my Dad had boats, he built scows, down there, and he had a boat that was tied up at Cushwa basin above Cushwa’s Basin at the end of the end of Potomac Street, across from Miller’s Lumber. . .

John: Did the boat stay tied up? Did he lose the boat?

Sue: No he didn’t. And also at the back of our house we had the Conococheague creek running at the back of the house, and that came half way up the hill where our house was. I don’t remember, this is what I have been told.

Maurice: About Sue, Sue’s father, I guess he made more flat-bottom, we called skiff boats, than any one man in Williamsport.

Sue: He was busy all summer.

Maurice: He always liked to make them out of redwood boards, because red wood boards absorbed the water.

Sue: They swelled up

Maurice: He didn’t want to make them out of plywood or anything. He said, you get me the redwood, I’ll build you a boat.

Charlie: That must have been a big skiff to bring that piano out from Harv Brant’s house down there. It must have been a big skiff to hold the piano. They say it was just about to tip into the water...

John: Both the creek and the river flooded about the same, didn’t they or did it back up in the creek?

Maurice: No, No, as the water comes down the Potomac River it backs up the creek, and as it backs up the creek it covers the whole area where they were at the Cushwa basin the whole way round, through Conomac Park and all around to Joe Grove’s barbers shop there. We considered it as an island. All of the Western Maryland station, the substation for the tannery farm, the tannery itself, the Potomac Edison plant, everything in there, the pictures will show you, the water in there, we stood at the tannery as an island. And we were there for three days, we did not come out of area for three days because we had motors up and we were trying to save

John: That was in the Tannery?

Maurice: That was in the Tannery And the tannery and the brick yard and the whole are that went up towards Clear Spring, part of the way up that hill and coming up to Williamsport. There was a red building down there and across from there was a fellow who cut hair called Joe Grove.

John: The 68 bridge was clear under. Correct? You could not tell the bridge was there?

Maurice: When you went half up that hill you were under too.

John: Jack where were you at the time of the flood? Do you remember it at all?

Jack: Oh yes. I remember it all. I lived on Fenton Street. Our house was right at the edge of Cushwa’s brick yard. I remember it well. The flood came up. It flooded the brickyard, it flooded the tannery. Like Maurice said we were almost surrounded by water. I can still hear the , you know the brickyard had what we called kilns where they burnt their bricks and they burnt the clay to make bricks. Well, the flood came up and hit that fire, it was hot, the kilns were hot, and it is hard to describe what that sounded like, you know. The steam came up and there was a kind of muffled sound – it was amazing. I can still remember that.

And my father and I, well, he had a motor boat and he had the presence of mind to keep moving the boat up with the water as it came up. And it came up to our door sill. It was in the cellar and it came up to our door sill and we started to move the furniture to the second floor and then it went back down. So at that point my dad said “Come on Jack, let’s go over to Williamsport” We got into the boat and that was amazing Like I said, the only way we knowed where to go, we followed the tops of the telephone poles, because the bridge was completely covered over. And when we docked over there in Williamsport it was at Joe Grove’s barbers shop, half way up what we called town hill.

But you know, going over there, the creek was backed up and the river being swift and that’s what made it so deep, and I thought going over there, I hope this boat doesn’t sink. I could see how deep that water was. I could swim but… I was glad to get over there safe, you know. But it was awesome. And you know, over there on Clear Spring road it was up on the second floor of those houses.

Maurice: Coming from 68 going down the hill and upwards Clear Spring, you know where the Western Maryland railroad was, and the station down there, the station was covered, and the water coming up Hospital Hill and Joe Grove Hill trying to equalize itself out there, as I say, we were an island, the whole place was an island and the houses at the creek bridge at the far end , all of those houses up to, lot of people remember Kaplan’s store, places like that in there. But water was in all of the houses to the second floor. Some of them had the third floor starting to flood. As you went up the hill it started to diminish a little bit. But the height of it was in the center that it was Walter Hoffman’s house up on the left and the farm there in the house up to the second floor, wasn’t it, Jack, where Johnie Hoffman and them all lived

John: There where Kaplan’s store was located, did it get into the building?

Maurice: Oh yes.

John: And you gentlemen, where were you and how did it affect you at the height of the flood?

Charlie: I didn’t live in town, so I wasn’t affected, but I do remember Harv Brant moving his boat out. He lived in the lock house. He moved his piano out on a skiff. If that thing had moved one way or the other it would have sunk. You had canal boats sitting there between the lockhouse and the cemetery and it took those away.

John: Yes, there were some canal boats in the basin even though the canal had gone out of business. It took most of those or all of those.

Charlie: The two of them.

Maurice: We went up to the cemetery at Doubleday Hill and looking at the height of it, and the time the height of it at the Cushwa building was if I recall 49 ½ feet of water in the river coming down. The height of the flood was 49 ½ feet of water. From Doubleday Hill looking at the river we saw straw stacks coming down the river and chickens on top of straw stacks. The question we always tried to find out – what happened to the chickens?
Did they jump off on the bridge, go on down the other side? We don’t know.
But the scene from Doubleday Hill, looking upriver, the river was just loaded with trash. And over where Ms Mary Mish lived, which is the river bridge going across water was on the other side, it went over the bridge.

John: Did it go over the bridge?

Maurice: Oh yes

John: I knew it got right up to it. How about you sir? Where were you?

Bob: I didn't live in Williamsport at the time, but Dad brought us over. I remember seeing several buildings going down the river. And they seemed to be basically upright, with the peak of the roof up, with chickens on the top. To me, as a kid, the water ferocity was scary. And that amount of water, the height that it gained on the buildings round here, it's something I never forgot.

John: The interesting thing about the flooding at that time was that it was all over the east coast.

Maurice: It was like the heat of spring came in so fast it melted the snow and everything

John: Other rivers to the west of us, and even to the east of us flooded. Well, you had a big clean up after it went down and you lost a lot of the waterfront, a lot of the buildings I suppose with the flood?

Jack: The cleanup was tremendous. There was mud all over the floor, all over everything. Just think about that, mud up on the second floor, everywhere. That all had to be shoveled out and washed down. You had to re-wallpaper, and repaint. And you know what water does to wood. There would be lots of swelling and repairs to be made. I remember working on the houses to clean them up, to try to get them cleaned up.

Maurice: The major thing that after the water went down, the scare came in. A public health audit. Dr. Cameron, I think that was his name, they were afraid of a typhoid epidemic or something. He was closing the factories, he closed the tannery and gave everyone a shot for typhoid, at that time. He tried to protect the health end of it. He started over there, I think Cushwa’s got it, the tannery got it, anybody on the streets if they could get them. They were giving them the shots to protect the health in them. Dr Cameron …[?].

John: Talking about reporting, WJEJ radio actually brought people over here and broadcast live about the flood.

Maurice: Bill Paulsgrove

John: Yes, Bill Paulsgrove, right.

Jack to Sue: You remember Bill?

John: Everybody who remembers radio remembers Bill Paulsgrove.