The Earlier Details of Saturday Night's Catastrophe at the Opera House.
The long expected has happened. A panic in the Canonsburg Opera House and a score or more dead, and at midnight tonight no one knows how many are injured. But the list is a long one, and a number of the maimed are not expected to recover.
A fuse in the motion picture machine burnt out, there was a flash, and some one in the crowd yelled "Fire!" and a panic was on, and death reaped the richest harvest he ever gathered in Canonsburg in a single day, in a single week, in a single month.
The Opera House was crowded, as it always is on a Saturday night. Many men from the mills and mines, with their families, were in the playhouse, their long week's work ended, and they were out for an evening’s enjoyment.
Just about the time the 8:06train from Pittsburg, a few minutes behind its schedule, had rattled across the Central avenue crossing, and the flash of the film machine and is accompanying cry of "Fire!" sent people into a frenzy. There was a rush for the exits, the people mostly rushing for one door in the rear of the hall, although some dashed for the fire escapes, and some ran across he stage.
Down the stairway, which has sharp turn, the frenzied crowd fell pell mell. There was just as great a crush in the aisles, and here many were crushed.
A. Sheldon, president of the town council, was passing along Pike street directly in front of the entrance to the Opera House when the first of the panic-stricken people came rushing pell-mell down the stairway. In talking to a reporter Mr. Sheldon said:
"The deaths and serious injuries were caused by one man stumbling and falling when about five steps from the foot of the stairway. The frantic crowd behind him fell and piled up many feet deep, so that people, wild in their effort to get to the street, literally walked over the fallen mass of humanity and jumped to the sidewalk. "
A pitiful sight was the crushed bodies of infants and children, whose parents had taken them to the playhouse. Every body seemed to lose his head, and the effort to escape the awful place of death overcame every other feeling.
When it became known on the street that something was wrong at the Opera House there was a rush in that direction. Many people thought there was a fight, but when the fire bell struck "12" it was believed there was a fire. The sound of the bell still more frightened the people inside, and made still worse the panic that already was crushing out the lives of men and women and children.
The two forces clashed. The frenzied people rushing from the supposed burning building were met at the entrance to the stairway by a crowd from the street, anxious for the safety of dear ones. This caused the greatest confusion imaginable.
In what seemed an incredible short space of time the square at Pike street and Central avenue and east along Pike street in front of the Opera House building was a solid mass of humanity. People came rushing from every direction; women, believing their children or dear ones to be in the fatal building, wrung their hands and raised them in prayer to God that their loved ones be spared. Shouts and cries rent the air on this the wildest night that Canonsburg ever experienced. The news spread rapidly over town and people hurried from nearly every house.
Fire Company No. 1 reached the scene soon after the alarm, but as there was no fire to extinguish the firemen turned their attention toward getting out the imprisoned people.
This indeed was slow work. The fire escapes were the means of saving many lives, and were used by hundreds of people in reaching the street before the awful jam in the stairway was cleared.
As soon as the cry of fire was raised men, women and children joined in a rush for the doors. A few tried the fire-escapes, but the great majority joined the rush for the main stairway, which was jammed in a moment. Helpless babies and terrified women were brushed aside, trampled on and crushed to death under the feet of people, mad with fear, attempting to get out. Strong men forgot all mercy in their frantic endeavor to reach the street, and the smaller and weaker ones were underfoot. Few bore marks of the awful struggle on the steps leading to Pike street, many having died from the intense crush, and from exhaustion. As the first person, a man, reached the door he fell and the ones following fell over him, quickly putting a stop to any further exit.
The mass of people, possessed of frenzy, began jumping over the heads of others in their endeavor to reach the street, while others, walking on the shoulders of the people below, managed to reach the transom, from which they jumped.
As the first mass of people reached the street others in search of members of their families tried to gain admittance, thus holding up for a time the attempt to release those who had fallen to the floor. An alarm was rung in, despite the fact that there was no fire, and soon the firemen, with ladders, were on the scene and had gained admittance through the Pike street windows to the second floor, but few were removed by this means, those who were out of the crush being perfectly safe. More than a half and hour passed before every one had left the building and the dead and injured were carried into Beadle's bakeshop, the Idle Hour theater, the Favorite restaurant and several other business places.
Immediately crowds began entering the temporary morgues and many were identified. The scenes in these places were heart-rending. When one member of a family unexpectedly came upon the face of a dead brother, wife, sister or mother many fainted. Others, moaning and sobbing, waited in anxiety while bodies were being carried in, temporarily relieved when they did not recognize the face, and the ext minute crying aloud in their grief when a dear one was brought forward.
The foreign people especially were emotional and with difficulty were restrained from rushing in where they supposed their friends to be lying dead.
Hundreds of shoppers were massed around the stores when ambulances came to remove the dead and injured and it was with difficulty that a way was cleared for them. As soon as possible the bodies were removed to the undertaking houses of Hopper brothers and to William McNary, where all were officially identified as quickly as could be done.
Owing to the crowded conditions about the stairway, considerable time elapsed before the work of carrying out the dead was completed. Slowly the dead and dying were picked up; the bodies being carried to nearby places. Five bodies were taken into the Idle Hour Theater, a few doors east of the Morgan Building, in which the Opera House is situated, while other bodies were taken to the E. T. Beadle store, the Favorite restaurant, the J. B. Washabaugh hardware store, Donaldson's drug store and other places.
After a time the work of conveying the dead to the morgues in West Pike street was begun and on stretchers and in ambulances the bodies of the victims were removed to Hopper Bros. and W. H. McNary morgues.
Immediately crowds collected in front of the undertaking rooms, and many tried to force their way in, in an effort to see if the victims being taken there were relatives or friends. The list of dead grew steadily. At first the number was given as seven, then ten, a dozen, twenty, and still it grew.
Every time a body was carried out there was a rush by those who ere anxious about their dear ones. But the solemn processions of four men carrying a stretcher on which there was a covered object moved steadily along Pike street, between walls of humanity.
The work of compiling a list of the dead was begun finally, but it had to be added to, so many times. And the list will be larger before tomorrow’s sun marches forth.