Dan Ingram, curator of the Johnstown Area Heritage Association, said he was left speechless when he traveled to Philadelphia last year to see a collection of photographs, diaries and other memorabilia from the Johnstown flood of 1889.
An unidentified man from Philadelphia called the heritage association to inquire about its interest in the Rev. David Beale's original papers and photographs. Beale was the author of "Through the Johnstown Flood," a first-person memoir of the May 31, 1889, tragedy that killed 2,209 people.
Beale left Johnstown in 1890 amid controversy and died in 1900.
"Beale was head of the morgue committee, and he let his church be used as one of nine morgues in Johnstown," said Richard Burkert, executive director of the heritage association. "He also had a run-in with one of the most powerful men in Johnstown, John Fulton, an elder in his congregation and general manager of the Cambria Iron Co."
The controversy arose when Beale was accused of not showing a morgue book to those interested in seeing it.
The book, one of only three known to survive today, records details of the bodies of flood victims brought to the temporary morgues, including Beale's church, First Presbyterian. Many people assumed Beale kept the book to himself so he could write a memoir and prevent others from gaining access to the information.
After flood-recovery efforts, in which Beale played a major role, he and his family moved to Frederick, Md., before settling in Philadelphia, where he lived for the rest of his life.
In an article Dec. 20, 1889, The New York Times reported Beale was charged with neglect of his congregation. The minister claimed his absence was caused by ill health.
Beale's 30 handwritten diaries dating from the 1860s to the time of his death, the morgue book and about 80 photographs were discovered during the cleaning of a carriage house in Philadelphia last year.
The photographs of the flood's destruction contain Beale's handwritten captions, which include the date and details about the subjects. Letters written to Beale and his family and photographs of his friends and relatives are also part of the collection.
"Many of the flood photographs have never been seen, and they are in such wonderful condition," Burkert said. "Beale wrote one of the better books of that period, and he recorded first-person accounts of the flood. He also goes into his personal thoughts in his diaries."
"The collection gives us an opportunity to know Beale. We can see who he was and how he takes the information from his diaries and puts them into his book on the flood," Ingram added.
The heritage association purchased the collection from the Philadelphia man for an undisclosed sum.
A major upgrade of museum exhibits and some building renovations are being planned to coincide with the 120th
anniversary of the flood in 2009.
"Our collections have doubled since we opened in 1989 and yet we have precious few, if any, first-person accounts of the flood," said Shelley Johansson, marketing manager at the heritage association. "Beale was an extraordinary person, and to have his material is very exciting."
Collection on view
Nathan Koozer, an AmeriCorps member working at the Johnstown Flood Museum, has been reading the long-lost diaries and other papers of the Rev. David Beale, the author of "Through the Johnstown Flood," a first-person memoir of the event.
"As a whole, the diaries give a good insight into how this man thought on different issues of the day," Koozer said. "It also provides a very detailed account of the day of the flood and afterward."
Koozer will offer an illustrated presentation, "Through the Flood: The Collection of the Rev. David Beale," at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Heritage Discovery Center, 201 Sixth Ave. in Johnstown.
The presentation will be part of annual events held by the Johnstown Area Heritage Association and the National Park Service to commemorate the Johnstown flood of 1889.
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