Joanna Gould Westcott’s Account of the 1849 Hickory Run Flood

Joanna Gould was a little girl in 1849 when her family’s pioneer cabin in the forest of the western Poconos was washed away, and her sister killed, in a flood caused by the bursting of a dam upstream of them.  Joanna later wrote a harrowing account of this disaster, which has been preserved in Charles Weygant’s book, “The Sacketts of America” .

Weygant relates that Isaac Gould at the time of his marriage in 1830, owned jointly with his brother Stephen, several large tracts of timberland located mainly in Pennslvania’s Carbon and Lycoming counties.  On one of these tracts, Isaac and his bride, Susan, née Sackett, moved into a pioneer cabin on a mountain stream called Hickory Run.  About two miles below the cabin was the hamlet of Hickory Run, comprised of a number of woodchoppers’ cabins, a blacksmith shop and a church.  Several miles further down, where the stream emptied into the Lehigh River, stood a large solitary hickory tree among a stand of tall pines, inspiring the area’s name. 

The following is Weygant’s report of Joanna’s chronicle of the event:

“When I was a girl of six years I was living with my parents at Hickory Run.  There were seven of us children who were often left alone with my mother, as my father’s extensive lumber business frequently required him to travel long distances through the unbroken wilderness, blazing the trees as he went that he might find his way back.  It was after a tramp of sixty miles in this fashion that he purchased the well-known Buenavista tract, which proved highly remunerative to him.

My mother was carefully reared among educated and cultured people, but nature evidently intended her for the helpmate of a pioneer, and she cheerfully accompanied her young husband into these lonely solitudes.  Never during the long years of toil, danger and sorrow did she utter a complaining word.  She cheered him when he was discouraged, counseled with him when he was perplexed, and by the example of a sweet Christian life commanded and maintained the love and respect of every member of her household.

On coming to Hickory Run our father began without delay the erection of a number of sawmills.  Each of these required a dam for accommodation of water power.  The first of these was three miles from the mouth of the run, which was the point of shipment, and the others were about half a mile apart.  Several hundred men were employed at these mills, for whom comfortable homes were built at convenient distances.

Just above the line of my father’s property a wealthy Philadelphian  owned a fine tract of timberland, on which he erected and operated a mill.  This gentleman made the mistake of laying the foundation of his dam on a bed of treacherous quicksand.  While he was building it my father went to him and pointed out the danger, and begged him to desist, and went so far as to serve legal notice upon him, without avail, and the dam was finished.

Our house, a one-and-a-half story building, stood about midway between this dam and the river.  Two hundred feet below our house was the barn, about a mile further down the river were a number of other houses, in one of which lived the village blacksmith and his large family.  From this point could be seen the country schoolhouse, on the summit of a hill.  Near the school house dwelt an uncle of ours, and half a mile further on, near the village of Hickory Run, was the home of another uncle.

During the last week of October it rained continually day and night.  The streams were greatly swollen and all the mill dams were placed in imminent peril.  I remember that on the last day of the month, when the rain was coming down in torrents, one of the mill hands visited the house and urged mother to move at once to higher ground, saying that the dams above would almost certainly be carried away before morning.  My father was absent at the time, while my oldest brother was at boarding school.  My mother was in sore distress.  She went to the door several times and peered longingly into the gathering gloom, anxiously praying for the speedy return of father.  She was so accustomed to leaning on his strong arm that she could not be induced to move until he should return and advise it.  At her earnest request, two of the most trusty mill hands came to stay at our house throughout the night.

My sister Lizzie, aged eleven years , had been out on an errand and returning about dusk added to our fears by saying she had heard many say that the dam above us could not withstand the fearful pressure much longer.  When night had fully come, mother took three of us with her into her own chamber, which was on the first floor, adjoining the sitting room.  Lizzie, after disrobing, rolled up her clothing and placed it on the chair which held mother’s, saying, “If the water does come, my clothes will go with yours mother and that is what I want them to do”.  In the bedroom directly above were two small brothers and another sister .

The children soon fell asleep, but mother did not close her eyes.  It was about four o'clock when she heard a faint rumbling sound, which increased rapidly to an overwhelming roar.  There was no mistaking its awful meaning.  She threw open the window and called “Heaven save us, the waters are coming!”.  It was utter darkness within and without the house.  Not the faintest ray of light appeared in any direction.  She had hardly time to close the window when the onrushing flood struck the house, lifting it from its foundation as though it had been an egg shell.  It sped downward with the torrent, spinning as it went, for 500 feet, when it crashed against the fragments of the barn which had been caught by the stumps of trees.

Incredible as it may seem, the house was submerged the entire distance, and thousands of feet of lumber shot over it, while we escaped drowning because of the air that remained within when the flood engulfed it.  The breaking of the dam formed one prodigious wave that passed so rapidly that almost immediately after the house was caught by the drift pile made by fragments of the barn being caught by the stumps, the roof arose above the submerging waters.  Had the torrent continued a few minutes longer not one of us could have escaped.  Mother, groping in the darkness, found that the floor overhead had settled on our bed and we were captives.  She was able, however, to loosen the boards enough to push me through.  She then handed me my infant brother , bidding me to sit quietly there until she joined us.  Then I heard my mother calling for Lizzie, who had been in the room with us, but there was no response to her calls.

I was now benumbed with the cold and do not remember anything more that occurred until daybreak.  Then the rain was still falling in torrents.   I was sitting in my night clothes beside my mother on the drift pile.  She was holding my baby brother on her lap and the water was still flowing about us, but was only a few inches deep.  I remember that I took several steps in different directions, and finding the water on every side ran back to mother saying we would all have to die.  She replied saying, I hope not, and wrapped her night robe about me.

The roof having fallen upon the bed in which my brothers lay, they managed with great difficulty to crawl out upon the floor, only to find that the stairs had been washed away.  By this time the two mill hands, hearing the voice of mother calling for help, leaped down to her.  She was almost insensible from cold but was still guarding me and the baby.  By means of a standing board the men now climbed to the upper story and released my brothers and little sister.  But one was missing.  Never can I forget the anguish of my mother when she said,  “I can’t find Lizzie, but she is near me.  I hear her voice, look for her!  I hear her now!  Listen, she is calling me!”.  No one heard Lizzie call, but mother was right and Lizzie was indeed near her.

Under mother’s direction the men wrought diligently, and down under the driftwood beneath the wrecked house they found the lifeless body of Lizzie.  By this time the neighbors were flocking to the spot, and it was decided that we go to our nearest uncle’s house.  The body of Lizzie was wrapped in a bed sheet and tenderly borne thither.  My mother, whose knee was found to be badly injured, was assisted by two mill hands, while another carried me all the way on his back.  He held my bare feet - one in each hand - and often slapped my limbs to keep up the circulation.  On the way to my uncle’s we saw the havoc which had been created on every side.  In the sandbank was found the body of one of the blacksmith’s little daughters.  His wife and four of their children were drowned and many other lives were lost.  

Investigation proved that the disaster had been caused by the breaking of the upper dam, against the faulty construction of which father had protested in vain.  The very disaster he had feared and warned the owner against had occurred.  The indignation against the owner was so great that he was obliged to flee from the neighborhood to escape violence at the hands of the community .

A messenger was dispatched to the woods to hunt for father, who arrived about the middle of the afternoon.  He looked eagerly into the face of mother and the little ones, clasping each in turn in his arms;  and he wept over the cold form of Lizzie, who could not respond to his caresses.  My baby brother died a few weeks later as a result of the exposure to which he had been subjected that awful night.

For weeks and months articles which had been washed from our house were found, some of them miles distant.  The floor of my mother’s bedroom, with the carpet intact, was discovered near the river, and a bag of gold coins was picked up more than four miles distant.  Fully a year after the disaster a small boy picked up and brought to our house a gold chain that father had worn for years.”


Weygant concludes by reporting that a few years after the Hickory Run disaster, Isaac Gould purchased a gracious home in Trenton New Jersey, in which he established his family and lived the remainder of his life.



R. H. Neergaard   5/27/96