USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Chelsea > The burning of Chelsea 1908 > Part 2
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The fire traveled more rapidly than any other of the large fires. It reached its most distant point inside of five hours, and inside of ten hours all of the build-
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ings burned were totally destroyed. How many persons lost their lives in the fire will probably never be known. Eighteen bodies were recovered, and it is safe to estimate that as many more were en- tirely burned. Over three hundred in- jured were treated at the United States Naval, United States Marine, and the Massachusetts Soldiers' Home hospitals.
The Metropolitan Water Commission records show that forty million gallons of water were used in Chelsea on April 12, instead of an average consumption of 3,000,583, the cost of extinguishing the fire in water alone being $1600.
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START OF THE FIRE NEAR THE EVERETT LINE
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CHAPTER III
THE START
The fire started a little before eleven on Sunday morning, April 12, 1908. Its origin will probably never be positively known. The most plausible theory, how- ever, is that the roof of a building of the Boston Blacking Company, which is located just off Summer Street, close to the Everett line, in the extreme western part of the city, caught fire from a burn- ing pile of rags on the dump to the windward. At all events, the flames were first seen just before eleven o'clock lick- ing up this inflammable building with its contents of oil, and sending a shower of sparks blown by a forty-mile gale towards the heart of the city, and an alarm was at once sent in.
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Immediately upon his arrival Fire Chief Spencer ordered a second alarm sounded as a matter of precaution, owing to the high wind. The firemen did good work and soon had the initial blaze well in check, as is shown by the fact that the remaining buildings of this company close by were saved.
Soon after the second alarm was sounded the firemen and spectators were astonished to see the three-story rag- shop of T. Lewitzky & Son, fully two blocks away, burst into flames. Apparatus to successfully fight its burning was not available. It was this fire that doomed Chelsea, for sparks from it started fires in several directions.
Opposite Lewitzky's factory was the tar paper factory of Chapin & Sawdin. The fierce heat from the tar paper drove the firemen back. A shed containing a large quantity of gasoline near by soon caught fire and blew up, just after a man, who was trying to save it, was ordered off by the police. This explosion set
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fire to houses in the vicinity, which were principally of old-fashioned wooden con- struction, and allowed the fire to get such impetus that it spread out diagonally across the wind like a fan. When it reached Everett Avenue on the north and set fire to Justin S. Perkins' hay shed it looked as if nothing could save the Standard Oil Station, not over two hundred feet to the windward. "Cy" Coben was showing his nerve by sticking to his plant, but it was to the Malden firemen that Chelsea people are indebted for the saving of the northern section of the city. They arrived just in the nick of time and without thought of their personal safety, or of the awful result if the thousands of gallons of naphtha blew up, stuck by and saved the building.
If this plant had burned the exploding oil would have set fire to the great building of the Eastern Storage Company across the railroad track, and nothing could have prevented it making a clean sweep of
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Caryville, increasing the burned area by at least one hundred acres.
As it was, the fire did not cross the tracks until an hour later, and then there was enough apparatus to extin- guish it. After once getting hold of the little buildings on Maple Street, the flames almost simultaneously laid re- lentless hold of wooden buildings on all the surrounding streets. It raced down Summer, West Third, and Elm streets to Arlington Street, burning everything on Spruce Street and Everett Avenue.
Although it took but a short time for the fire to reach and burn the city stables, through the energy of City Engineer O'Brion all of the horses, carts, harnesses, tools, etc., were saved, which was for- tunate, as it enabled the city to set large numbers of unemployed to work the next day cleaning the streets.
Before this time assistance had been asked of Boston, Everett, Revere, Lynn, Winthrop, Cambridge, Malden, Medford, and Melrose, and the engines soon began
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RESPONDING TO THE FIRST ALARM
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to arrive; but from the moment the fire crossed Arlington Street there was no formidable stand made against it, as it spread so rapidly under the impulse of the gale and stretched out over so long a front, backed by acres of lurid flames.
Not till it actually passed Arlington Street did people have any apprehension that it would not be stopped at this line, where the houses were of substantial brick construction. Ash Street, next to Arlington, was soon blazing and spread- ing the fire towards the railroad track in one direction, and Second Street in the other. The people on Walnut Street, next beyond, began moving out, and soon Union Park, near by, was filled with household goods. Women with babies in their arms stood huddled in the smoke, old men stood guard over the few things they had saved, and crying children hunted in vain for their parents. All the section about Walnut Street was in- habited by poor people with large fam-
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ilies; Jews predominated, but all nations were represented. Many could not speak English, and panic seized all.
It seems as if every one tried first to save a mattress, which would become ignited before it was carried a block, and add to the volume of the flames. The yards and open spaces were strewn with old bedding and other inflammable ma- terial, which assisted in spreading the fire. Trunks and other heavy things were dropped from upper windows, regardless of those beneath. In some cases men and women fought as to what they would save, while their houses burned. One man loaded a team with old junk; some women cried and refused to look at the flames, others were hys- terical and looked and laughed. Many Jewish women carried live hens in their
arms. All fled towards the park, but this haven of refuge was only temporary, for soon the suffocating smoke drove them out, and a few minutes later the flames destroyed most of the property
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laboriously removed from the houses. From here people dragging little ones or some article of furniture made for the railroad station, with the flames in close pursuit.
While the human beings were having such a hard time of it, dogs and cats were also having their sufferings. Looking out into Walnut Street one dog was seen, that had once been black, rushing madly about; its hide had been singed to a crisp, and when last seen it was headed right into the flames. On many streets dogs, cats, and hens were found after the fire, burned to death, and many horses also perished, as more would have, but for heroic work. In one instance Frank W. Wentworth, with some help, saved nineteen horses from a burning building by covering their eyes with blankets.
Huntington Smith of the Animal Res- cue League estimates that as many as two thousand cats were burned to death. He says that these figures are conserv- ative, and gives as the reason their
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devotion to their homes; dogs, on the other hand, are more devoted to their masters, whom they followed, and for this reason very few perished.
From Walnut Street the fire leaped across Fifth and entered the windows of the new Jewish synagogue and literally lapped it up, and then hurled itself against the imposing brick walls of the Central Congregational Church at the corner of Fifth and Walnut streets. This church is one of the largest in the city, yet the flames took but a few mo- ments to go from the basement up through the immense auditorium into the tower. While these buildings were burning the fire had destroyed on the other side of the city and at intermediate places the African Methodist Church, two Jewish synagogues, one on Walnut Street and one on Fourth Street, the Williams School, the Universalist Church and the Polish Church on Chestnut Street, and was headed straight for Broadway.
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The Universalist Church caught first in the steeple, as did most of the churches. It burned very slowly, but finally the great golden cross fell with a crash into Fourth Street. After this the pastor, Rev. R. Perry Bush, went in by a back way and up into the pulpit to take a last look at the familiar scene which was so dear to him. In a lecture which he after- wards gave he described his feelings very dramatically, and said that he stood in the pulpit until the church was filled with smoke and the flames broke through the big stained glass window, then say- ing, "Good-by, dear old church," he went as he came.
The deacons had saved the communion service and had loaded a team with other church property, including valuable
books and documents. On top of these they piled many pew cushions, - a fatal error. To quote Dr. Bush, "Do not ever try to save cushions under such condi- tions; if we hadn't tried to, we would have our books and papers to-day."
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The cushions caught fire before they had been taken two blocks and were instru- mental in setting fire to several wooden houses in the vicinity of Chestnut Street and Washington Avenue.
Chestnut Street was, until a few years ago, one of the best streets in the city, and parts of it were still considered very nice. Among the prominent people still living on the street was Dr. J. B. Fen- wick, whose wife lost her life in the fire, together with her niece, Mrs. Walter C. Barnes, of New York, and Elvina Boyn, Mrs. Fenwick's maid. Mrs. Fenwick was prominent in Chelsea, being a member of the School Board and an active member of the Woman's Club.
It is not known how the women met their death, but it is believed they left the house by the rear door, as the street in front was thick with smoke and flying fire brands. They may have first turned up Cherry Street, a narrow street which ran past the rear of their house, and been stopped by the falling tower of the Polish
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GRANITE BLOCK, DYNAMITED DURING THE FIRE
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Church. This would have caused them to return towards Fourth Street. At about this time Granite Block on Broad- way, directly back of which their bodies were found, was dynamited in an attempt to stop the conflagration, and the women probably took shelter in the porch of the building where their bodies were found, and were overcome by smoke.
Dr. George Fenwick, the son, has told friends that the last he saw of them was on the second floor of his home. As he was going to his room on the third floor Mrs. Barnes stopped him and handed him a wet towel to put over his face. The house had not yet caught fire, but the windows were cracked and broken by the heat from the fires across the street, and the building was full of smoke. He says he was not in his room over five minutes collecting his valuables. When he re- turned downstairs the women had left, and after making sure of this fact he made a dash down the street to the fire lines. Here he met his father, who had pre-
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viously gone out with things of value and was not allowed to return. As the women left before young Dr. Fenwick, both men supposed them safe, and get- ting out their automobile, which was at a garage, helped others save property. The bodies were not found for four days.
On Chestnut Street, not far from the Fenwicks, lived Miss Ellen M. Stone, the missionary, who a few years before was captured by Macedonian brigands and held for a large ransom. People from all over this country contributed. Her home was filled with priceless souvenirs and a great many valuable books. Miss Stone was away from home over Sunday, and her servants had been given a holi- day. Her brother, knowing that she was out of town, secured a horse and express wagon and drove to the house to save whatever might be possible. The doors, of course, were locked, and while he was battering one in the structure caught fire. When the door finally yielded the interior was all ablaze, and
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Mr. Stone had to flee without saving a thing.
Captain Frederick M. Whiting of the Eleventh Company, Coast Artillery Corps, also lived on Chestnut Street. When his company was ordered out, he went with it. When the fire reached his home, his brother gathered some valua- bles into a trunk and removed them to the Armory for safe keeping, but later the Armory burned and they were lost.
Dr. J. M. Putnam was another resi- dent of Chestnut Street, and was fortu- nate enough to save a few things with the aid of his son, Dr. Ralph Putnam, who came over from Winchester.
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CHAPTER IV
BEYOND CONTROL
Every one seemed to feel sure that the fire would be stopped at Broadway, as the buildings on this street were sub- stantial structures built of stone and brick, and no one even then judged rightly the havoc which must ensue before the fury would abate.
The local militia (the Fifth Company, Coast Artillery Corps) had been sum- moned, and the militiamen had donned their service uniforms and overcoats, leaving in their lockers, in security as they supposed, their civilian clothes, their watches, and pocket money. Hardly had they been assigned to their posts before Broadway was threatened, and soon their new $100,000 Armory
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became a volcano of flame as the ele- ment of destruction spread on.
It first reached Broadway between Third and Fourth streets. Here a heavy battery of engines was assembled to prevent its crossing, but the efforts of man and the floods of water were of no avail; the fire was beyond human control.
Up to now the flames had rushed through the foreign tenement district, but when it passed Chestnut Street it entered the business center. Before the fire had even reached Chestnut and Fifth streets awnings in Bassett Square, two and three blocks away, caught fire. The fire reached Bellingham Station about
two o'clock. The sight from here, look- ing down Broadway and Hawthorne Street, was beyond description. The fire fairly lay across the streets in a cyclonic whirl of flame.
All at once out of Hawthorne Street shot an engine, as if coming out of a cannon. The driver was almost doubled
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up and the horses were going at a two- twenty clip; where they came from or how they ever got out of that furnace alive is a mystery.
The new six story brick Young Men's Christian Association building caught first in the upper story and then all over; hose was burned at this point as fast as it was laid. An electric car of the Boston and Northern Railroad which had been stopped on Broadway, just below Belling- ham, by the shutting off of the power, was pushed up the street and over the bridge to safety by fully a hundred men.
Beyond Broadway lay blocks of sub- stantial residences. The flames were gnawing up the structures on Haw- thorne Street, and the Unitarian Church and Newspaper Row on Fourth Street were quickly burned. The fury of the spreading flames was indescribable. There would be no sign of fire in a build- ing, when all at once it would seem to fairly burst into flames and simply melt away. One large double house, which
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was timed, took just eight minutes to burn from the moment the flames were first seen until the building was a mass of ruins in the cellar.
All this time people were fleeing from the fire, many moving things to what they considered a place of safety, only to be obliged to move them again and eventually have them burned. Many people who lived east of Broadway went out to see the fire before it had crossed that thoroughfare, only to return and find their homes either on fire or already destroyed. No one seemed to realize how fast the fire was traveling, except those who fought it. If people had heeded the first warnings of the soldiers and the police, many could have saved something, but they waited, not wishing to appear timid, and afraid of ridicule if they started to move too soon. In the face of the great battle they had to fight, firemen and police officers could not give heed to the frantic appeals of women to save furniture.
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Many people, when they realized that they had lost everything, threw them- selves in the street and cried aloud in their suffering. It was no uncommon sight to see white-faced women walking aimlessly along the street, heedless of where they were going, yet carrying a frying pan or tin dipper. One man rushed into his house, at the risk of his own life, to save the family cat. After carrying it a block the cat scratched itself free and dashed back into its burn- ing home. Hundreds of people saved canary birds, and one woman came along the street with a statue, which had no head or feet, under one arm, and a bird cage with a cat in it under the other. When asked why she was saving the broken statue she looked at it in a dazed sort of a way and threw it away in dis- gust, and then wonderingly inquired how her bird had got out of the cage, never realizing that the cat had eaten it. One woman, remembering that she had left a pocket-book containing $17 on her
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A BOSTON FIRE BOAT FIGHTING THE FIRE
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BROWN STONE HOUSES FARED NO BETTER THAN WOODEN TENEMENTS
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dining-room table, rushed back into her home and grabbed up what she thought was her pocket-book, but when she had gotten several blocks away she found that in her excitement she had taken a piece of cut glass instead, and it was then too late to return. Another woman was ordered out of her house by a militia- man, but would not go until she had first filled her teakettle with water. After- ยท ward she couldn't explain why her- self. Many people went temporarily in- sane. On the Washington Avenue bridge one man stood for hours making appeals for volunteers to fight the fire; his coat was off and his hair was mussed. People paid no heed to his frantic gestures, but he probably imagined he was saving the city. Another man committed suicide by shooting himself near Union Park. Some lost the power of speech, but under the circumstances the number of minds affected was small.
One woman lugged a great marble clock under one arm and a dog under
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the other for three quarters of a mile. The dog couldn't lay down for three days, she had held him so tight. Many people saved things of little value and left things impossible to replace. One man carried twenty-two pieces of cut glass loose and unpacked, tied up in a sheet and thrown over his shoulder, for over a mile, through all the excitement, and not one piece was smashed.
A fireman entered Freeman's drug store while it was burning and taking the reflection of himself in the long mirror at the end of the store for another fireman walked through the glass.
Two men trying to save an upright piano gave it up when the cloth in the back caught fire. One opened the lid and played "There 'll be a hot time in the old town to-night," while the build- ings all about him burned.
Fate was especially kind to Eli C. Bliss, who lived in what is called Chestnut Street Pocket, - a short blind end of Chestnut Street beyond Washington Ave-
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JUNCTION OF WASHINGTON AVENUE AND BROADWAY BEFORE THE FIRE
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nue, ending in a steep embankment at the railroad tracks. The fire approached so rapidly that escape was impossible, except by way of the embankment. Just as Mr. Bliss was leaving his attractive home a passing freight train stopped directly at the end of the street, and the train crew rushed up the bank and announced that they had two empty box cars. Working like demons nearly every- thing in the house of any value, including a grand piano, a lot of old mahogany furniture, books, and paintings, was piled into the cars, until they were nearly full. The train then pulled out just as the house commenced to burn, none too soon, as the cars were smoking themselves. Mr. Bliss later located his furniture in Lynn, after it had landed in Portland and been shipped back.
The railroad tracks which passed through this part of the city have always been considered an eyesore and have been the cause of much regret to many residents. There is not a resident of
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Chelsea to-day, however, who is not glad of their presence, as they were the means of saving the northern part of the city, the best residential section. The fire burned only a single building north of the tracks.
Not far from the Bliss estate lived the Millers. Miss Edith Miller was to be married in a few days, but so hurriedly were they obliged to leave that not even her wedding dress was saved, and all her beautiful presents and trousseau were lost.
When the fire started up Mount Bell- ingham, hurried calls were made for ambulances to take the patients out of the Frost Hospital. There were twenty- five patients suffering from different in- juries and diseases in the building, and the doctors and nurses showed great heroism. But for their running into the street and hailing all the automobiles and teams in the vicinity, and making them carry the patients to the other three hospitals in the city, none would have
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been saved. As it was, before the last patient was out the roof was blazing. Meanwhile the children at the day nursery had been taken care of and were nicely housed, thanks to Mr. Jesse Knowlton, at his home on Powderhorn Hill. .
The City Hall did not last long after the flames took their first mouthful. The city treasurer, Thomas B. Frost, early recognized the peril and removed all the city funds, while the books were locked in the safes by the city clerk, Charles H. Reed, who stayed in the building so long, saving property, that he was obliged to make his escape through a second-story window. The beautiful Baptist Church across the street melted away before the flames in a few minutes.
Many people made a frightful mistake by thinking they were safe in fleeing to the Garden Cemetery. Those who did were surrounded on all sides by the flames, and for hours they crouched be- hind tombs, fighting the burning embers and gasping for breath.
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The flames fairly shot up Bellingham Street, on which were many fine homes. Chief among them, on the very top of the hill, was the beautiful estate of Ex-Mayor Thomas Strahan, filled with valuable paintings, tapestries, and art treasures, collected from all parts of the world. The house was of brick and stone with a slate roof and plenty of land about it, and it seemed as if it could be saved. The view from the tower of the Strahan house can never be forgotten. As far as one could see, a seething mass of flame, like a tidal wave, was rolling up the hill. So fast had the fire approached that the Lynn engine, stationed halfway up Bell- ingham Street, was unable to get away. The firemen did not abandon it until their faces were burned and their hair singed. It was beyond human force to withstand the terrific heat and suffocating smoke, and it was with difficulty, when they finally abandoned it, that they were able to save their lives, as the fire com- pletely surrounded them.
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At this time the fire had already passed the Strahan house in the valley to the left, and the Highland School, halfway up the hill on that side, was in flames. Great pieces of burning wood came into the tower and the wind was so strong that it was hard to stand against it.
So fascinating was the sight that it was not until the Strahan barn, only a few feet away, burst into flames, as if it was made of celluloid, that the writer descended from the tower to help the Strahans to escape; but they, like too many others, had waited too long, in hopes their home would be saved. With the help of the servants we carried out several blankets filled with clothing, a chest of silver and some jewelry, leaving thousands of dollars' worth of beautiful things to be devoured by the flames.
We fled down the hill in the direction of Orient Heights. Hundreds were going the same way; poor and rich were on equal terms. The wind blew with such force that women were blown into fences
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and trees or lost their balance and fell. Great pieces of furniture went bounding end over end down the hill, blown by the wind. Horses were running away, and the scene was one of terrifying confusion. Escape was possible only by enduring the hostile breath of the flames, running, tripping over abandoned furniture in the blinding, sickening smoke, towards the marshes to the northeast, where, although safe from the flames, the refugees suf- fered untold agony from the hail-storm of stones and showers of blazing embers that fell upon them, burning holes in their clothes and starting grass fires in every direction.
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