icon for Home page
icon for Kid's Home page
icon for Digital Collection
icon for Activities
icon for Turns Exhibit
icon for In the Classroom
icon for Chronologies
icon for My Collection

Online Collection

document
(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
Contact us for information about using this image.



label levels:

After the Mill River flood, the stories of Cheney and Graves racing downstream ahead of the floodwave to warn the valley captured the nation's attention. Their tales were repeated in newspapers, magazines, and in a small book. In a civic ceremony held in Northampton, Cheney and Graves (and two others) were honored with music, speeches, and gold medals engraved with images of them racing down the valley. Poems praised them as heroes for the ages, in a league with Paul Revere and Civil War hero General Philip Henry Sheridan. When the Williamsburg reservoir dam broke on May 16, 1874, it flooded a valley lined with factories and farms and killed 139, making it the deadliest dam failure in the U.S. at the time.

 

top of page

"True Heroes" article from scrapbook kept by Celia M. Kimball

publisher   Hampshire Gazette
maker   Celia Mann Kimball (1828-1911)
date   1874
location   South Deerfield, Massachusetts
width   2.25"
height   14.5"
process/materials   printed paper, ink
item type   Personal Documents/Scrapbook
accession #   #L05.009


Look Closer icon My Collection icon Transcription icon Detailed info icon


ecard icon Send an e-Postcard of this object



See Also...

"Reservoir Disaster" article from the Gazette and Courier newspaper

"Terrible Horror" article from the Journal of Industry newspaper

"Mill River Calamity" from "Harper's Weekly"


button for Side by Side Viewingbutton for Glossarybutton for Printing Helpbutton for How to Read Old Documents

 

Home | Online Collection | Things To Do | Turns Exhibit | Classroom | Chronologies | My Collection
About This Site | Site Index | Site Search | Feedback