Mill River Flood: Next Day
The first bodies borne by water, and taken from this Earth, were buried, on this Sunday afternoon, May 17, 1874
and John Belcher keeps ringing the church bell of warning in his dreams, the sound now one of loss and the mourners, singing
Reference: The Mill River Flood of May 1874, in Williamsburg, Leeds Massachusetts https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/407b6288771447afb2961988ef321fd4
Mill River Flood: 9:00 am
In New York City, the messaged wire to the owner of the woolen mill from bookkeeper Gaius Wood read like a flash fiction tragedy:
‘it gave way … washed away … half the village … don’t sail …”
And so the telegraph followed the river, sending news of the unimaginable into the world
Reference: The Mill River Flood of May 1874, in Williamsburg, Leeds Massachusetts https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/407b6288771447afb2961988ef321fd4
Mill River Flood: 7:30 am
Later, it was known: Lewis Bodman probably knew, that they all knew the leaks in the dam, grew, but too few of those in power cared to invest enough to stop the disaster until that fateful day in May 1874 when panic flew, but never fast enough to outrun water and wave barreling through
Reference: The Mill River Flood of May 1874, in Williamsburg, Leeds Massachusetts https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/407b6288771447afb2961988ef321fd4
Mill River Flood: 7:30 am
No time even to saddle his horse, George Cheney fled the mountain, quick, galloping on a mission, and still Onslow Spelman wouldn't listen, still, he stood at the door of his factory of buttons, arguing the reality - the dam was breaking and disaster was coming, far faster than George Cheney ever could ride
(this poem is part of series of poems I aim to write as my village commemorates the 150th anniversary of The Mill River Flood of 1874. I am using the project's StoryMap – https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/407b6288771447afb2961988ef321fd4 — each pin of timed event will one small poem).