Since there was so much interest in the 1900 Storm this is the Willis Hawley Family’s account.

This beginning of the Willis-Hawley family story of the 1900 storm is a telegraph found in some of the family papers from a relative in Houston to some of the family up north, sent in care of R.S. Willis. The importance, other than the message is the date of the telegram. The storm came September 8th, 1900 and the telegram was sent September 11th, three days later. My Galveston Hawley kin got the telegram through on the 14th of September to his wife and daughter in Ohio, the first message out of Galveston.

The Western Union Telegraph Company. Cannot reach Galveston reports city almost destroyed no water, no provisions dont come love

Foley.

Below are the letters and accounts from the Willis Hawley family accounts.

September 19, 1900

This letter is from J.H. Hawley

Galveston, Texas

My dear wife and daughter;

This is the first time in the rush of business and other duties which have fallen to my lot, in which I could calmly sit down and write you of the events which have transpired since Sep’t 8th. Our office desks and furniture of every description, papers etc., are a total wreck and I have had so many thousand things to do and so many people to talk to that I could not do more than wire from time to time. Do not think it strange of me that I have not written but I have not had a typewriter in the office and the time required for such a letter as I feel the occasion demanded, could not be spared. I have sent you the copies of the Daily News and the Houston Post daily and have arranged with the Galveston News to send you a copy of the paper for a month, that you may keep posted as to current events. It is evident from your telegrams to me that the mere statement that I was safe and well was not sufficient and I will therefore endeavor to give you some details that will be of some interest.

I was apprised very early of the day of the 8th of the likelihood of the great storm which swept over the city, beginning about 3 o’clock and ending at 12 o’clock at night and took early precautions to protect the property at home and such other property under my charge, as far as practicable. I had, of course, no idea of the extent to which it would go. Water in this office was four feet high, in fact over all the counters, overthrowing all the desks and other furniture, mixing it up in an inextricable mass of confusion. The wharf front from one end of it the other is a mass of wreckage and sunken vessels. Business houses were crushed, carrying down valuable goods and in many cases valuable lives. Fully 5,000 people lost their lives and fully 3,000 more suffer from injuries from slight to serious wounds.

The whole territory from 9th St. east, out to the beach, and then for a distance of four and one half blocks of the densely populated district, clear out to Welman’s Lake and beyond the Harris’ house, has been swept away and fully two thirds of the inhabitants given up to the angry waves.

It is impossible at this time to enumerate single instances but I cannot refrain from mention Mrs. Wakloee, whom you no doubt remember. Early on Monday morning when going through the long row of bodies in the morgue, I lifted the pall, and found beneath it, with a faint smile on her lips, Mrs. Wakolee, with her grey hair all matted and streaming in disordered confusion about her shoulders. I next lifted the pall of Walter Fisher, the husband of Lillie Marie, and then came to Richard Swain, who no doubt you remember, but these are simply nothing compared to the great mass of people who lost their lives. I superintended the handling of 500 bodies over the wharves at Galveston on to barges, whence they were taken out to sea, with weights attached them and sunk as only means, at that time, by which they could be disposed erected and 10, 12, 14 to 16 bodies piled thereon, saturated with oil, and burned, while hundred of bodies were burned in individual instances. On Monday it was ascertained it was utterly impossible to dispose otherwise of the bodies except by giving them up to the sea or by cremation. (Handwritten across the bottom of page: Do not get in the papers--please. I have need---?)

Lillie Harris Fisher and all her children are dead; Mrs Rebecca Harris and three of the Davenport children- but one of the Davenport children being saved. Davenport, with a voice steady with the strength of a man, told me all of the details and simply laid his hand in mine and said "Mr. Hawley, we know you mourn with us. I am grateful to God for the saving of our little daughter."

Every man here has nerve and has tried to do his duty--the measure of it was that which he could do. For two days and two nights we stayed up, not knowing even that we were tired, until we could go no further. Instances of courage necessary to meet such an occasion.

Harry and Sarah (my grandmother’s brother) and the baby, passed a dreadful night, with flying timbers, etc., bombarding the house in which they were, but they survived, and while they were at my house looking for me I was at their house looking for them, and the baby, when I got there, was sleeping peacefully, although, as the servant said he was hungry. Harry and Sarah went on board the S. Savannah, Wednesday evening and remained there until Friday, when they left here for New Orleans, from which point Harry, Sarah and the baby will take a train for Litchfield. It is Harry’s intention, as soon as he has arranged for Sarah and the baby, to return at once to his duties in Galveston. It will be a great disappointment if he fails to do so. Mr. McVitae expressed himself to me yesterday, in being very tenderly attached to Harry, but was afraid he would not return, on account of the expressed fear he had of the situation here.

The storm has left the city without drainage and the limited supply of water prevents us from giving much attention, at present, to our sanitary condition. The wreckage I have reference to is fully 100 ft deep and in many place 25 ft high, undoubtedly underneath which, there still remains a great number of bodies yet to found. Of course you understand the accumulation of filth, etc, the stench, arising from the lack of drainage from perhaps 40,000 people must produce sanitary conditions injurious to the health in the last degree. The weather is intensely hot, since the 8th of September to the present time. The weather has been perfectly clear and with the sun beating down on it, odors arise make it almost unbearable. There is no place today in our country that is not a more desirable locality than Galveston for the weak and helpless. I cannot invoke too strongly your remaining away from Galveston for a time, until we have gotten the city into a condition to receive healthy people. We will do all that human hands can do. 2,000 men are employed daily cleaning up, but this will not be accomplished in less than four or five weeks of continuous work. We are gradually coming up out of the disaster which settled over the city, and we know that with our locality, deep water and our commercial importance, that we will build a city here along modern lines which will attract citizens from all over the world.