How to go
What: "Time of Terror: Personal Stories from the Neighborhoods During the 1913 Flood"
When: Through May 15
Where: Butler County Historical Society, 327 S. Second St., Hamilton
For hours and info: Call 513-896-9930
When the Great Flood of 1913 struck the city of Hamilton, the population was about 35,000.
Everyone alive at the time most likely had a story to tell about the flood, their survival and the aftermath, but much of that is lost to history.
But some of those stories have been recounted in letters that have survived the past century, many of them personal and poignant, and are being re-told in “A Time of Terror,” an exhibition at the Butler County Historical Society Museum, one of several exhibitions now or soon on view in commemoration of the flood’s centennial.
Some of the letters have been in the society’s collection for a very long time, according to Executive Director Kathy Creighton. Others have been discovered very recently, including a detailed letter signed by “Charles” and addressed to “Mame.”
It was written on the back of a page of the Hamilton Republican News that had been framed and recently uncovered while making repairs.
The letter describes the water coming to within a foot of the house’s ceiling and the resulting damage: “Our porch gone, every window downstairs broken, floors warping, piano, book case, books pictures on the wall gone, china closet fell to pieces, mud a foot deep on floors… Aunt Carrie was all down through it and all her beautiful things on the first floor are gone down the river. Will we ever recover?…”
“Houses, horses and drift of all kinds struck us and passed on. Hauling it away now in great loads. The life loss is fearful, finding bodies all the time. A raging torrent…” the letter reads.
“Just think of it, Mame, a solid body of water from 3rd Street … to 10th Street, taking in all the residence section as well as manufacturing plants. Was three feet high on High St. and on down in the second ward, three feet of water in depot. It has been an awful strain on all of us. I collapsed Sat. night but am O.K. now and working hard. Have not been to the office and I don’t expect to for some time.”
One letter from a Hamilton High School Freshman J. Walter Wack describes watching the High-Main Bridge collapse and how he believes he is one of the blurred figures in the famous Jacobi & Berry photos of the event.
“I watched all this from the water’s edge on High Street until the police ordered us all back as the bridge buckled and the trolley wires began to break,” Wack wrote. “All I know is that everybody sure ran like H to escape the dropping trolley wires and I don’t know if I ran in front of the camera or not.”
One poignant letter was written by Dale Davis, who was a sixth grader living on N. 9th Street, who called it “a night of terror, not just for us but for the unfortunates on lower ground who, trapped in their attics, must have elected to die another way, to judge from the shrieks and frequent pistol shots.”
One exhibition panel describes the stories of all the animals that were lost or saved in the flood, including a prize-winning Black Orpington rooster that was recovered downstream and an unnamed Easter bunny that survived by nibbling on “book bindings, rugs and furniture.”
Creighton said that the exhibition includes several photos never seen before that the society has recently acquired from personal collections and some “flood mud” just excavated from a basement in a house on Second Street.
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