. Life and reminiscences from birth to manhood of Wm. G. Johnston . ded on Front Street,below Ferry, and my earliest recollections go back to aperiod midway between these dates. Certain events ofthe early part of 1832, when I was but three and a halfyears old, have been ever fresh in my memory. One ofthese was the famous flood on February 10th of thatyear, when our rivers attained a height without parallel, 36 Flood of 1832. 37 so far as we have any data; unless it be, as I have seenstated, that the flood of 1884 reached a level of three orfour inches higher. Even should this be the case, thev
. Life and reminiscences from birth to manhood of Wm. G. Johnston . ded on Front Street,below Ferry, and my earliest recollections go back to aperiod midway between these dates. Certain events ofthe early part of 1832, when I was but three and a halfyears old, have been ever fresh in my memory. One ofthese was the famous flood on February 10th of thatyear, when our rivers attained a height without parallel, 36 Flood of 1832. 37 so far as we have any data; unless it be, as I have seenstated, that the flood of 1884 reached a level of three orfour inches higher. Even should this be the case, thevolume of water in the earlier flood was greater, inas-much as the width of the streams in a half-century hasbeen greatly contracted by the constant filling in of earth,rubbish, and ashes ; their banks being a common dumpingplace. I remember well the sight of that vast body ofwater, and such evidences of its destructiveness as houses,barns, haystacks, and lumber borne along by its rushingcurrent, as led by my nurse I walked along the bluffbanks of the THE MONONQAHELA BRIDGE AT TIME OF THE FLOOD OF 1832. About two weeks prior to the flood, as an empty coalwagon hauled by four horses—one of Jacob Beltzhooversteams—was returning from the city to the pits on CoalHill, just as it reached the centre of a span of the bridgenearest the city end, one of the great wooden arches split, 38 Deep Snow. and the driver, wagon, and horses were precipitated intothe stream, and curious to relate no injury was sustainedby either. The sinking of a pier occasioned the bridge in the condition here related was one of thesights obtained that day, and a vast number of personswere there viewing it, as it was feared that the floodwould sweep it away. As above stated, I was accom-panied by my good nurse, Mrs. Rosanna Biggs, orRosey, as we called her, who, I doubt not, made itpart of her duty that both she and her charge should seeall the sights, and thus through the conscienti
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