Person

George Thompson Swank

"We think we know what struck us, and it was not the hand of Providence. Our misery is the work of man." -George Swank

George T. Swank was the editor and proprietor of the Johnstown Tribune. His parents were George W. and Nancy Moore Swank. He resided at 122 Main Street and was a member of the Reverend Beale's Presbyterian Church.

He worked at various newspapers learning to become a printer and his job took him to various locations in the country. He worked at Valley Wreath, the Mountain Echo, the Cambrian and Cambria Tribune. He traveled to Illinois in 1854 and worked at the Rock Islander and Napiersville Journal. He came back to Pennsylvania in 1855 and the Cambria Tribune. He went back to Illinois to work at the Aurora Beacon.. He traveled to Prescott, Wisconsin and worked at the Transcript. He came back to Pennsylvania and worked at several different places before going to Pittsburgh where he was a printer on The Union. Other locations include St. Louis and New York City.

It was in New York that he joined Company D, Seventy-first New York Infantry and Company D Twenty-seventy Connecticut Infantry. A promotion was granted to corporal and then first sergeant. He fought at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. At Gettysburg, he was badly wounded in the wheatfield trying to assist Major General Daniel Sickles on July 2, 1862. He received an honorable discharge.

The Johnstown Tribune was located at 92 Franklin Street and Swank arrived in 1868. About five years later, the first daily edition of the Johnstown Tribune was published in 1873. Swank's roles included foreman, pressman, jobber and business manager in edition to editor. It was modeled after the New York Tribune. Subscribers grew from 800 to 4,000.

On May 31, Swank was in the Tribune building preparing the next edition of the newspaper. He decided to keep a list of events as they unfolded throughout the day as people continued to call and provide updates. He also received a call that Johnstown received a warning about the dam.

A few of Swank and George Gibbs' observances that were published on June 14, 1889:

7:00 a.m.
"From 7 o'clock on the water rose. People who were glad they didn't live downtown began to wish they didn't live in town at all. On the water crept, and on, up one street and out another, across the imaginary lines between the many boroughs, until at last there was consolidation, and the same wet blanket covered all. Eighteen inches an hour the Stonycreek rose for a time, and the Conemaugh about as rapidly."

Noon:
"As we write at noon, Johnstown is again under water, and all about us the tide is rising. Wagons have for hours been passing along the streets carrying people from submerged points to places of safety...A most exasperating state of affairs, and one for which there ought to be a remedy."

3:00 p.m.
"At 3:00, the town sat down with its hands in its pockets to make the best of a very dreary situation. All had got out of the reach of the flood that could, and there was nothing to do but wait; and what impatient waiting it was- anyone who has ever been penned in by a flood and has watched the water rising, and the night coming on, can imagine..."

The flood hits Johnstown:
"...It came in like a thief, and was upon us before we were aware. Already when it reached us it had numbered its victims by the hundreds. In a moment Johnstown was tumbling all over itself; houses at one end nodded to houses at the other end and went like a swift, deceitful friend to meet, embrace, and crush them..."

The fire:
The fire at the Stone Bridge burned "...with all the fury of hell you read about-cremation alive in your own home, perhaps a mile from its foundation; dear ones slowly consumed before your eyes, and the same fate yours a moment later."

The Tribune building survived the flood, but the presses were badly damaged. Swank was also witness to the horrific fire at the Stone Bridge on the evening of the flood.

The first edition of the Johnstown Tribune was Friday, June 14, 1889, two weeks after the flood. The title read: "Our Calamity." The edition documented how the day of the flood unfolded. Swank and others at the Tribune, also documented survivor stories and the massive relief effort.

Swank was present at the dedication of the Unknown Plot at Grandview Cemetery in 1892. He saw this event as a way to have people look forward, not back. He had been encouraging people to do so since mid-June 1889.

In addition to his duties at the Tribune, Swank served as district court clerk and three terms as postmaster of Johnstown. He was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, Johnstown Lodge of F. & A. Masons and the No. 6 Typographical Union of New York City.

The Tribune building still stands in downtown Johnstown.