There was a succession of arrivals of people: each day brought a different class; first the officials of the road; next the crowds of curious men and women from the village and surrounding country; then the representatives of the press from the distant cities, Chicago and New York; then the long swelling wave of the sorrowing friends. From farther and farther away this wave swept in. At last the two sides of the continent were reached. Two oceans had sent their echoes to moan over the graves of those who had left their shores. The coast of Maine and the Golden Gate had felt the shock.

First were those from the nearer cities. These had either bidden good-bye a few hours before or were waiting at the depot for the arrival of their friends. New Year’s day was nigh. A gentleman was at Cleveland on his way to California. His wife was on her way to meet him. Two children were with her on this train. They expected to spend New Year’s together in that city. She had telegraphed that she was coming. He was at the depot awaiting her arrival. The train was late but he waited there. At last the tidings came and he took the train with the officials and arrived in the night. The two children were dead and the wife was awfully burned. She was now lingering between life and death. The New Year would find her dead and the man bereft of wife and children.

Another had been waiting for a wife and child. He came and found them dead. The dread reality was worse than the worst of fears. But the morning came. The friends at Cleveland hastened to the cars at an early hour thinking to take them and reach the spot by 9 o’clock, but at the hour assigned the train delayed. Those who were warned of the wreck by the morning papers also went to the depot, but they could not go. Women, whose husbands were on the fatal train, were there and became anxious to start, but the train delayed.

The fathers, whose sons were wounded, became uneasy at the delay. Business men, who knew that their partners were among the lost, wondered at the long delay. Mothers, whose little children were among the dead, also were sick at heart; but the train delayed. The suspense became too much to bear; the train delayed. The agony increased; some fainted in their seats, and were taken to the air; the feeling became intense; that busy depot became a house of weeping; sorrow was depicted on every face. Sympathy moved the hearts of strangers; those gloomy walls became a prison to the heart; those heavy columns and lofty arches seemed draped with mourning; the iron roof seemed filled with bars; it was a castle of despair. Even the stir and confusion of the place mocked the grief. Never was that place so full of sorrow; the train delayed. Some returned to their homes and again came down. The city was moved; the fact became known upon the streets; excitement even entered the business circles, yet the train delayed. A young man lay in the Culver House; his face was deathly pale, his breathing labored. He was slowly dying. The father was in that train, delayed, and became very anxious; he was wealthy and offered money. Yes, the expense of the train he was willing to pay, but the train delayed.

At last, when patience was almost exhausted, and the feeling was so intense, and the night began to darken, the train moved out. The suspense was relieved, but the time was still too long, and the distance great. They arrive at last. The son is dead. He breathed his last among the wounded. Strangers were there to lay him out, but the friends could only bury him.

The arrival brought the whole reality to view. No one could tell the horror, it must be seen to be known. The search for friends must be carried on in the night. That horrid morgue was dark and covered with gloom; the scene of the wreck was also covered with the evening shades. Most of the bodies had, by this time, been removed; those which remained were deeply buried beneath the ruins. The valley was lonely and sad. The death itself, which had come down with one fell swoop, had ascended, leaving only the ashes of the burned, the dust of death which had been gathered by hands of iron, eaten by the tongues of fire, and the night winds were making them their sport. O! how the heart went down into that lonely valley, where so many perished. The night was full of tears; it was the second night. From one end of the land to the other, the fact was known; the greatest railroad accident on record had occurred. In that fall, so many went down! From the distant east to the distant west, the lightning had flashed their names. It was a stroke that spanned the heavens, and revealed how black they were.

This sorrow was continued. Day after day brought new scenes. Each train brought in new groups of friends. All were moved by a common feeling, but their sorrow was visible. In that dreadful morgue there were scenes which can never be described; God only knows what agony was in the hearts of many. The sorrowing company trooped in and out, and varied every hour; men and women, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, and even the children of the lost. Some already were dressed in mourning. Others had come in haste and stopped for nothing. The friends of the deceased from different places would meet at this spot drawn together from a distance by the common bereavement. Different circles had been bereft by each one of those who had so suddenly died. Often two or three would come looking for the same person. A different state of feeling concentrated at each separate spot. The morgue, the office, and the wreck, all had their circles and their scenes. Citizens and friends as they came, visited each in succession. The search for relics on the ice; the search for bodies in the morgue; and the sending of messages in the busy office, brought different feelings to those sensitive hearts. There was a language in each place which spoke more than words.

In the hotels at the upper town, there were also many exciting scenes. As the friends gathered from near and far, they passed from place to place, watching for some trace of the lost. Some became so overwhelmed by the great calamity that they were obliged to go home, and send others who were less afflicted to continue the search. Fathers were almost crushed by the fearful blow, and went in and out of the gloomy morgue and upon the cheerless ice, and into the busy depot, sick at heart, and depressed, and would return to their hotels, weary with the search, and lonely amid the throngs, for the sons or daughters on whom they doted, had gone forever. A young man came alone, and sought his mother for four long and weary days, but could find no trace. Each night he returned to the hotel with every lineament of his face expressive of the grief which was in his heart, and would sit down among the throngs of strangers, desolate and bereaved.

Brothers and friends came, seeking, but finding not, and with tearful eyes would return at night, their sorrow growing deeper as their search was vain. Whoever expressed a sympathizing word to those bereaved and stricken ones, knew how deeply the arrow had reached, and how the soul was riven, but there were none who knew it all. To God’s eye and that alone, was the grief revealed, and in His bottle were the tears preserved. There were times when it seemed as if the grief were too much to look upon.

A woman was seen to pass through the morgue. Her hard, care-worn face and humble dress showed her to be acquainted with poverty and accustomed to toil. But her husband was gone, and as the horrid scenes came before her gaze, and the awful death was known, she fairly staggered in her steps. Her glaring eye and strange, wild look betokened a mind almost deranged. Yet, the pity did not end, for another would come, so broken and so weak, and so subdued, in the widow’s garb, and then the trembling father, and even mother, stricken and bowed and almost heartbroken, so that it would seem as if there was no end to grief.