“Drowned in Mill River Flood”—Visiting those Buried in Village Hill Cemetery

On that fateful early Saturday morning of May 16, 1874, up in the hills, the Williamsburg Reservoir Dam gave way and the lives of the people of Williamsburg, Skinnerville, Haydenville, and Leeds were changed forever. A wall of water rolled down the narrow Mill River riverbed all the way to Florence Meadows. The disaster killed 139 people, and left 150 families destitute (more than 710 people); it wiped out families, homes, livelihoods, factories and more, leaving a trail of the heartbreak and destruction. In Williamsburg, 57 people were killed; in Skinnerville 4 people died; in Haydenville, 27 and in Leeds, 51. It also called communities together—each person doing what was needed and neighbors reaching out to neighbors as people rebuilt their lives.

Of the 57 people lost in Williamsburg, 20 were male; 37 were female—and of those 19 were children or infants under 10. Such tragic loss. The first funerals were held the next day, a Sunday, outside the First Congregational Church on North Main Street. Three local ministers held the service for 9 victims. The hearses then proceeded up Village Hill Road for burial.

In Village Hill Cemetery, 11 gravestones still mark the places of 13 victims and two of the men who risked their lives to warn others of the impending danger, D. Collins Graves and Jerome E. Hillman. Every May, on a special morning, I visit the stones of these victims and those two men, to remember them:

• William Adams
• Josephine and Willie Adams
• Spencer and Salome Bartlett
• Sarah Hillman
• Epaphroditus Hubbard
• Elizabeth Kingsley
• Electa Knight
• Sarah Snow
• James Stephens
• William Henry Tilton
• Jeremiah Ward