Mill River Flood Commemoration Poems (2024)

Poems by Kevin Hodgson

(Note: The pin numbers before the poems are reference points to the historical posters that were both set into the path of the flood in the communities of Williamsburg and Leeds as well as the digital posters and pins that are located on the Mill River Flood Storymap. Not every pin on the map was used for this poetry project.)

Pin 1 - Mill River Flood: 7:30 am (Williamsburg)

No time even
to saddle his horse,
George Cheney fled
the mountain, quick,
galloping on a mission,
and still Onslow Spelman
wouldn’t listen,
still, he stood at the door
of his factory of buttons,
arguing the reality –
the dam was breaking
and disaster was coming,
far faster than George Cheney
ever could ride

Pin 2 - Mill River Flood: 7:30 am (Williamsburg)

Later, it was known:

Lewis Bodman probably knew,

that they all knew

the leaks in the dam, grew,

but too few of those

in power cared to invest

enough to stop the disaster

until that fateful day

in May 1874 when panic flew,

but never fast enough

to outrun water and wave

barreling through

Pin 3 - Mill River Flood: 9:00 am (Williamsburg)

In New York City,

the messaged wire

to the owner

of the woolen mill

from bookkeeper

Gaius Wood

read like a flash

fiction tragedy:

‘it gave way …

washed away …

half the village …

don’t sail …”

And so the telegraph

followed the river,

sending news of

the unimaginable

into the world

Pin 4 - Mill River Flood: Next Day (Williamsburg)

The first bodies

borne by water,

and taken from

this Earth, were

buried, on this

Sunday afternoon,

May 17, 1874

and John Belcher

keeps ringing

the church bell

of warning

in his dreams,

the sound

now one

of loss and

the mourners,

singing

Pin 5 - Mill River Flood: 9:00 am (Williamsburg)

As is too often

the case,

the suddenly surged

river had a mind

all of its own

And luck, too,

played its terrible

hand for the people

of the village

The West was safe;

The East, not

Pin 6 - Mill River Flood: 8:00 am (Williamsburg)

Hard to even imagine

what Eugene Davis saw

as he stood there,

watching the storm

of flood approaching –

it wasn’t water he saw -

it was a tornado of brush,

trees and trash; of boards,

timbers and buttons;

but, he said, not water,

not yet, anyway, only

a deluge of lost things,

twenty feet high, and rising

Pin 7 - Mill River Flood (Williamsburg)

What saved the Hills

and the Hannums

in their house that day

was perhaps

the water itself,

strong currents pushing

two downed trees

around the building as

barrier, dividing the flood

like a monstrous Moses
made of fluid and strength,

parting the waters

around the people

like some whimsical god

Pin 8 - Mill River Flood (Williamsburg)

Twenty feet, and rising,

a hungry river feeds

on debris, a diet

of mills and homes,

and keeps roaring its way

along the path,

leaving little of the present

behind nor the past

Pin 9 - Mill River Flood (Williamsburg)

No voice left

from the frantic run,

Robert Loud resorted

to sticks, catching

the attention

of Williams Adams,

who saw what was coming

and lost his life,

crossing the water

to warn his sons

and wife, and Loud

never recovered,

neither

Pin 10 - Mill River Flood (Williamsburg)

One lone man,

standing, motionless,

on an island of nothingness,

the west and east branches

of the river, flowing,

no one yet knowing

the damage wrought

by sudden flood

Pin 11 - Mill River Flood (Williamsburg)

If a horse can be a hero,

then here, surely, is one,

the same one, unnamed,

who galloped three miles

from dam to town,

bearing the man, warning

that disaster loomed,

and still, not finishing

this most important race, first

Pin 12 - Mill River Flood (Williamsburg)

Milkman Collins Graves,

with the sound of metal buckets

banging and liquid inside, sloshing,

makes his way to the villages,

warning of the water to come,

yells tossing as echoes of homes

and businesses

Pin 13 - Mill River Flood (Williamsburg)

And as far away as Goshen,

the dam bursting, sounded

like an earthquake, shaking

ground and foundations

Theodore Hitchcock

never made it -

his dangerous trek

across the river to the mill

to find his ledgers

of business records,

and save it -

No, Theodore Hitchcock

never made it

Pin 14 - Mill River Flood (Williamsburg)

Rude boards

Slips of paper

Rings on fingers

Names, only

Pin 15 - Mill River Flood (Williamsburg)

Four days later,

the inquest begins

with the body of

John Atkinson

but it was the dam itself

the inquest jury

was looking into,

probing with critical eyes,

and looking for blame

Pin 16 - Mill River Flood (Williamsburg)

Ten year old George,

sat down to breakfast,

then lost his entire family

as the water washed through,

and who knows if it was luck

or grace, or just the opposite,

that kept that boy alive

Pin 17 - Mill River Flood (Williamsburg)

The village doctor

was last seen

with two children

in his arms, his wife

with the other,

by his side,

and then he was gone,

and they were, too

Pin 18 - Mill River Flood (Williamsburg)

Vats of dye

lie in the river’s

wake, colors

mixed with wool,

and rock rubble,

like an eye of

a bent needle

Pin 1  - Mill River Flood (Leeds)

Myron Day saw the wave,

the broken river rushing

forward in a powerful push

He raced the water

that day with speed,

to try to warn

the families and workers

of Leeds

Pin 5: Mill River Flood (Leeds)

Only five, left standing,
and all other buildings,

gone in a blink,

the river’s reach like a hand

expanding expanding expanding,

and then at least 50, dead, we think

Pin 7: Mill River Flood (Leeds)

Imagine the fear,

with water up to their necks,

those six children huddled behind

the bed, waiting as the river

diverted, receded, fled

Pin 14: Mill River Flood (Leeds)

At eight thirty, the flood left Leeds

in tatters, a village shattered,

and fell its way into Florence,

bringing with it not just water,

but debris of wood, buttons,

bodies

Pin 1: Mill River Flood (Florence)

Florence heard, and knew,

and left, and the Meadows -

at 90 minutes from the break

of the Williamsburg Dam –

became the landing place

of up-river’s lost pieces

Pin 6: Mill River Flood (Florence)

Months later,

four men  -

George Cheney

Collins Graves

Jerome Hillman

Myron Day -

were honored

for bravery, for rushing

to warn others and

presented gold medallions

and yet who knows

how many more

ran to neighbors,

shouted warnings,

saved lives,

sacrificed themselves:

men and women that were

not then, nor now,

ever remembered

(Final Note: At a Commemoration Event held in Leeds in May 2024, all names of those Leeds residents lost to the flood were read out loud by a variety of volunteers, each reader roughly the age of the person who died in the flood. A similar event took place in Williamsburg.)