When the Williamsburg, Massachusetts, reservoir dam broke, it flooded a valley lined with factories and farms and killed 139, making it the deadliest dam failure in the United States at the time. In the 1940s, local historian Phyllis Baker Deming compiled this account of the flood for her History of Williamsburg. She wrote that “the direct cause of the disaster, aside from the general weakness of the dam, must remain a subject of speculation.” After the flood, the coroner’s jury and professional engineers firmly established that the dam failure was due to inadequacies in its design and construction, and negligence by the mill owners who owned it.
Deming, Phyllis Baker. A History of Williamsburg in Massachusetts. 1946. Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, American Centuries. https://americancenturies.org/collection/l05-002/. Accessed on October 16, 2024.
Please note: Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.