The Ballad of the Flood
Contemplations on the Williamsburg dam disaster of 1874, greed, climate change, and making art to open hearts.
You would never guess by the look of my small town of Williamsburg, MA. that on May 16th, 1874, six hundred million gallons of water broke free from a shoddily made dam and barreled into the town at 20 miles an hour, killing 140 people, shattering homes and melting huge brick factory buildings. Towns along the Mill River were laid flat on that grey, rainy morning, and those who were left wandered in shock, digging loved ones and neighbors out of the mud and debris. The stories that emerged are horrific and heroic.
Historian, Elizabeth Sharpe wrote a powerful account in her book: “In the Shadow of the Dam”, clarifying how money and power amongst the Mill owners made compromise possible in the building of the dam. My neighbor, poet and singer songwriter, Jonathan Stevens came by one spring day and said: Beth, would you be interested in making a cranky to go along with a song I just wrote about the flood? ”River, river, such a fine and pleasant stream, dam you, damn me, we’ve gone and drowned all of our dreams”.
His request resonated with me strongly. I was immediately struck by the similarities to our current dilemma with climate change. Everyone knows climate change is happening but the power to stop it is in the hands of a few who willingly pursue profit over people in the fossil fuel industry. They refuse to change, even as drought, fire, floods, hurricanes and tornadoes caused by climate change, kill people, destroy ecosystems, and cause anxiety everywhere, everyday.
The story was the same in Williamsburg. The Mill owners who built the dam, saved money by making the base of it far smaller than was required to hold back 100 acres of water. The dam leaked right from the beginning. Old Mr Hayden, a mill owner and major investor, was known to ride out to the dam when the rains were heavy, as if his presence could somehow hold back the deluge? Everyone in the town knew the dam was likely to break, but the mindset of the time was that industry and economic growth must come first. And in the end, the mill owners lost everything along with the workers and the town folk, and the town’s center was scraped bare to the rocks.
My neighbor’s request inspired me to write a short play about the imagined perspective of the first child to die in the flood, Viola Coyler. I made a cranky, an old time picture show on a scroll that you turn on a crank, with actual images from the flood collaged together. I performed the play just a year ago on the stage of the Williamsburg Grange Hall that survived the flood.
As I rehearsed the play I came to know the story in my bones. I could feel how an innocent child cannot comprehend that elders would imperil them deliberately. It is the work of adults to recognize that some, especially those in power are plagued with the disease of greed that causes blindness, hardens the heart, and brings about immense suffering for everyone around them. It is the adults who need to look within to heal their tendency to deny what is hard to look at, painful, scary, or requires real courage to face.
In particular, How do we influence those who are blinded by greed? My simple answer is to create art that helps open the floodgates of feeling about the injustices of our violent history that was fueled by the disease of greed.
We need to feel to heal. Making art about harm and healing is the thread that can sew us back together. It gives us time to contemplate, empathize, and experience a felt sense of the affects of harm and the path to healing. I offer up my play “The Ballad of the Flood” as a part of that vast quilt being made by artists to bring wisdom and courage to the human heart. Please comment and let me know how it has touched you!
www.bethfairservis.com
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