The actual loss of life in the Conemaugh Valley can never be known accurately or even approximately. Johnstown was largely occupied by working people, many of them recent immigrants from foreign lands. There were hundreds of families who had no other relatives in America, or even intimate friends. In many instances, doubtless, such families were literally blotted out, every member being lost. No one was left to tell the tale and there were none to remember that such a family ever existed. As to determining the number of the dead by the number of bodies found, that is futile. There is every reason to believe that a considerable proportion of the bodies never have been and never can be recovered. No one can tell how many hundreds of corpses were utterly consumed in the great fire of wreckage at the stone railroad bridge, nor how many were blown into unrecognizable fragments by the explosion of dynamite; nor yet how many were buried so deeply under stones and mud in the bed of the creek that they will never be exhumed. The roll of such lost ones may not unreasonably be reckoned by thousands.

    Three weeks after the catastrophe, and after a careful census of the survivors had been made, the number of the lost was discussed at a meeting of the local physicians at the Bedford Street Hospital. They represented all parts of the stricken city, and from their knowledge of the people, their estimates must be regarded as worth of credence. They united in the conclusion that not less than ten thousand persons had perished. A week later the officers of the Cambria Iron Works reckoned that from four hundred to five hundred of their workmen were lost. Counting women and children dependent on them, they put their loss of people at two thousand. They estimated the entire loss of life at ten thousand. Mr. Haws, the fire-brick manufacturer, thought that this estimate was about right. He believes that five hundred strangers were in the town at the time of the flood.

    Down to July 12th, the morgue reports gave the number of bodies found as two thousand and thirty-two, of whom nine hundred and fifty-one were unidentified.

    The loss of property can be more accurately determined. The Board of Inquiry went into this matter very carefully, because it was on the basis of losses sustained that the relief fund was to be distributed to the survivors. The owners of property destroyed or damaged, of course, often put extravagant figures upon it. The Board did not accept any such statements, however, but determined for themselves as nearly as possible the actual amount of the losses sustained. At the end of a month they had investigated and determined the cases of three thousand six hundred and sixty-four sufferers, divided according to the amounts into five classes. These were all private individuals, and the average loss in each of all five classes was $1,424, the aggregate loss being $4, 791, 747. In a sixth class of four hundred and forty-five cases, the average loss was $2,499, with a total of $1, 111, 192. The total losses of municipal property were stated at $168, 180. School districts, seven in number, lost $52, 132. Six fire companies lost $37, 151. The total losses of individuals, boroughs, schools, fire companies, and private corporations reported up to July 12th, were $7,894,064. But about five hundred other cases had not yet been adjusted, and, averaging them according to the foregoing, they would swell the sum to $8, 655, 114. These figures do not include the losses of the Cambria or other great companies.

    About two hundred deposit books on the Johnstown Savings Bank are reported lost by depositors or their heirs. There was $774,000 on deposit, and much of this is the property of people having no heirs.