The Southern Enterprise

Graniteville

The following extract from a letter written by the President of the Graniteville Company to a stockholder, contains the full particulars of the extent of the damage done by the late freshet:

August 19, 1867.

Dear Sir: We had the most disastrous freshet last week, that was ever known in Horse Creek. All the mill dams above here, and in the vicinity, have been swept away. I was absent in Columbia, attending to the business of the Penitentiary, and was telegraphed to return immediately, as our dam was badly broken, which I found to be the case. The rain during Wednesday was incessant, and my son James was up all night in the rain, with all the available working force on the dams. At two o'clock, they concluded that all was safe; but soon after, the water from dams which gave way above, came down and raised the water until it covered the stone wall on the canal bank from end to end, ran over the lower end and washed holes on both sides of the shore, went through the iron gate middle of picket fence on canal bank, in a stream six inches deep for an hour, was on the dam in fifty places, and running over slightly before 2 o'clock; but when the rush came, it was thought advisable to cut the dam in a safe place, but that precaution did not prevent its breaking in a vital point, causing great damage, and which will take two weeks or more to repair. The cost to the company will probably reach $4,000 or $5,000. Included in this estimate is the cost of a fine covered bridge across the canal, which was swept away.—The large, public bridge just above the factory in the village was carried away, as well as all our private bridges about the mill. Our lumber yard was swept clean of 5,000 or 6,000 feet of lumber. You are aware of our having a gate in the stone dam of four feet diameter under twenty feet head, which will discharge more than ten times the volume of the creek at its ordinary stage. The stone dam, 160 feet wide where the water pours over, had four feet depth of water on it. As soon as the dam gave way, an express was sent to inform them at Kalmia Mills and Bath Paper Mills. The water was seven hours in its progress to the latter point, so that there was sufficient time to draw down the pond and save them from disaster. The dam at Kalmia Mills was not built across the creek, therefore they sustained but little damage. At Vaucluse, above Graniteville, the water was higher by three or four feet than ever known before, even when their former immense pond was emptied by a break in that dam. The blacksmith shop and oil house, also the fine bridge there over Horse Creek, were carried away. A fine new buggy, which was in the Vaucluse iron and wood shop for repairs, was taken off by the flood, and not yet found. I may add, too, that great damage was done to the Columbia and Augusta Railroad by the washing away of a quantity of earth-work, and damage to bridges which had been completed.—Phoenix.