USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > The story of Essex County, Volume II > Part 36
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53
Unit No. 32, Marblehead-President, Mrs. Gertrude Hamson, Marblehead; secretary, Mrs. Beatrice Remick, Marblehead.
Unit No. 46, Beverly Farms-President, Mrs. Ruth F. Byrne, Beverly Farms; secretary, Mrs. Anna Drinkwater, Beverly Farms.
969
FRATERNAL ORGANIZATIONS
Unit No. 57, Swampscott-President, Mrs. Marie Chiancone, Swampscott; secretary, Mrs. Beatrice A. Weed, East Lynn.
Unit No. 80, Ipswich-President, Mrs. Gladys W. Wade, Ips- wich; secretary, Mrs. Pearl Fletcher, Ipswich.
Unit No. 98, Rockport-President, Mrs. Margaret Frithsen, Rockport; secretary, Mrs. Margaret Poole, Rockport.
Unit No. 113, Manchester-President, Mrs. Marion Coole, Beverly; secretary, Mrs. Helen C. Coole, Manchester.
Unit No. 122, Methuen-President, Mrs. Edith Spicer, Me- thuen; secretary, Mrs. Hilda McComish, Lawrence.
Unit No. 131, Lynnfield-President, Mrs. Alice A. Cox, Lynn- field; secretary, Mrs. Norma C. McKillop, Lynnfield.
Unit No. 134, Merrimac-President, Sabina A. Weeks, Merri- mac; secretary, Mildred Child, Merrimac.
Unit No. 150, Newburyport-President, Mrs. Nellie F. Leary, Newburyport; secretary, Mrs. Ruth Hewitt, Newburyport.
Unit No. 153, Peabody --- President, Mrs. Ethel O'Brien, Salem; secretary, Mrs. Margaret McNair, Peabody.
Unit No. 180, Danvers-President, Mrs. Margaret Poulsen, Danvers; secretary, Mrs. Ruth Conant, Danvers.
Unit No. 182, Wenham-President, Mrs. Martha Batchelder, Wenham; secretary, Mrs. Merle E. Parsons, Wenham.
Unit No. 187, Amesbury -- President, Mrs. Charlotte H. Moore, Amesbury; Secretary, Mrs. Laura G. Burke, Amesbury.
Unit No. 194, Hamilton-President, Mrs. Harriet Adams, South Hamilton; secretary, Mrs. Helen Danforth, South Hamilton.
Unit No. 210, Saugus-President, Mrs. Blanche Magee, Sau- gus; secretary, Mrs. Clara Clark, Saugus.
Unit No. 211, Georgetown-President, Mrs. Flora Smallidge, Georgetown; secretary, Mrs. Grace M. Twombly, Georgetown.
Unit No. 215, Nahant-President, Edith C. Lewis, Nahant; secretary, Alma Buckley, Nahant.
Unit No. 219, North Andover-President, Mrs. Yvonne Lewis, North Andover; secretary, Mrs. Mildred Eldridge, North Andover.
Unit No. 227, Middleton-President, Mabel Evans, Middle- ton; secretary, Edna L. Young, Middleton.
Unit No. 231, Essex-President, Margaret F. Taylor, Essex; secretary, Eleanor E. James, Essex.
970
THE STORY OF ESSEX COUNTY
Unit No. 240, West Newbury-President, Mrs. Doris Bailey, West Newbury; secretary, Mrs. Margaret R. Sawyer, West Newbury.
Unit No. 248, Groveland-President, Mrs. N. Olive Gordon, Haverhill; secretary, Mrs. Grace Lay, Groveland.
Unit No. 255, Topsfield-President, Mrs. Gertrude B. Martin, Topsfield; secretary, Miss Elizabeth Sheldon, Boxford.
Unit No. 291, East Lynn-President, Mrs. Bertha Distel, East Lynn; secretary, Mrs. Cecilia Montrose, East Lynn.
Unit No. 309, Salisbury-President, Florence Buswell, Salis- bury; secretary, Hazel Dow, Salisbury.
Committee --- Mrs. Grace Wingate, president; Mrs. Hattie F. Baker, second historian; Miss Bernice Beals, third historian; Miss Florence Thompson, fourth historian; Mrs. Norma C. McKillop, secretary.
Great Disasters and Strange Phenomena
CHAPTER XXIV
Great Disasters and Strange Phenomena
By Roger Wolcott Higgins
Geographical circumstances peculiar to Essex County have accounted in no small measure for both her early prosperity and her long history of great disasters, by storm, by earthquake, and by fire. From her fortunate combination of excellent harbors on the coast, and that broad inland waterway, the Merrimac, Essex County has enjoyed from her earliest colonial days the two-fold advantage of productive industrial towns easily accessible to unsurpassed shipping facilities, thus in effect uniting her factories with the markets of the world. But from these very circumstances leading to prosperity and fame have also come the less happy conditions directly conducive to disaster. Her exposed position on the coast has brought upon her the vengeance of the wintry Atlantic; her rocky substructure has made her susceptible to earthquake shocks; her crowded factory towns have invited great conflagrations; and the broad Merrimac, at once a highway and a source of useful power, has periodically threatened her cities and farm lands with floods.
Hurricanes on the seacoast have brought to Essex County undoubtedly her greatest toll in lives lost and homes broken up --- notably her incredible losses in the single month of December, 1839. But the fact remains that the keenest distress to her people, and the most overwhelming losses financially, have resulted from the con- flagrations of the past century and a quarter-disasters which, unlike her hurricanes and floods, in many cases might have been averted.
The rapid and unregulated growth of her industrial towns, wherein wooden factories involving highly combustible processes of manufacture almost invariably have been surrounded over large
974
THE STORY OF ESSEX COUNTY
areas by mushroom growths of shingle-roofed tenements, must bear the brunt of the blame for her losses by fire, losses totaling many mil- lions of dollars. Particularly serious has been the vast economic waste resulting from these conflagrations. Workers by the thou- sand, deprived overnight of homes and means of livelihood, have been obliged either to live on charity for months on end while the factories were being rebuilt and new machinery installed, or to wan- der penniless about the countryside from mill town to mill town in search of an elusive living. On the other hand, scores of mill owners and employers have lost large amounts of capital not only of greatest use to the industries concerned, but also essential to the prosperity of the communities in which they were situated. Valuable markets relying upon the manufacturers for a steady flow of finished goods have of necessity transferred their patronage to other sources, in many cases permanently. And ultimately both the workers and the employers of the county have had to meet the financial cost of her conflagrations through the assessment of higher insurance premiums.
I-GREAT FIRES IN ESSEX COUNTY
The following narratives of great fires in Essex County take into account only those six or eight major conflagrations of the last cen- tury and a quarter. Readers interested in the details of the countless fires of secondary or lesser importance which have occurred through- out the county's history will be rewarded by an inspection of the bound annals of their particular towns, and similar sources of local history usually available in the public libraries.
THE GREAT FIRE IN NEWBURYPORT IN 1811 -- The first fire of major importance in the county was that of May 31, 1811, which seriously threatened the total destruction of Newburyport, at the time one of New England's most prosperous and important seaports.
Newburyport's golden age had immediately followed upon the War of Independence, and for twenty or more years no port on the Atlantic seaboard enjoyed greater prosperity. With the revival of business, in seven years the tonnage of Newburyport shipping went up sixty per cent. The foreign commerce, the coasting trade, and the fish- eries poured wealth into her coffers. In a single month in 1805 her imports were worth $800,000, and Joseph Marquand had so many vessels coming from prosperous voyages that he is said to have cried
975
GREAT DISASTERS
out : "Lord, stay Thy hand; Thy servant hath enough." But all this was soon to change. There were three major forces working toward Newburyport's undoing. First came Jefferson's Embargo Act of 1807, which from the viewpoint of New England's mercantile class did far more harm than good; next, the catastrophic fire of 18II, which led to the withdrawal of much capital and the departure of many prominent families from the town; and, finally, the costly and destructive War of 1812. Newburyport had rapidly advanced; as rapidly she now declined.
Newburyport's "Great Fire of 1811," as it has been termed, was variously chronicled at the time, but perhaps in no instance with more of the provincial flavor of piety than we find in the broadside composed and peddled in Newburyport by one Jonathan Plummer, self-styled "Lay Bishop Extraordinary, Traveling Preacher, Physi- cian, Poet, and Trader." Plummer's news-sheet was captioned, "Great and Dreadful Fire. Fire, Fire, Fire," and professed to be "An Ode and a Sermon, Concerning a Tremendous Fire at New- buryport, Which Commenced on the Evening of the Thirty-first of May, 1811. N. B .- It is expected that about 196 dwelling houses, and stores, two stories high, or more, were partly or wholly burned. The loss is very great indeed."
"The town of Newburyport has long been surprisingly preserved, and the efforts of one or two incendiaries, I expect, have been surprisingly baffled. Two, or three, or four, or five attempts, I expect, have failed so far that not a single building was destroyed by them. . . .. How beautiful beyond description is it to see a desert blossom like a rose; to see a howling wilderness converted to fertile pastures and fruitful fields; and to see fertile fields turned into famous towns and populous cities. And alas! How unspeak- ably affecting is it to see one of those renowned cities, wrapped in flaming fire, burning rapidly to ashes, while the astonished inhabitants, with grief unutterable, survey the ravages of the blazing fury, and behold the sparks, the smoke, and the consuming fire ascending with great velocity towards the heavens. .
"Shall there be evil in a city, and shall not the Lord do somewhat? Shall men commit fornication or adultery in a
976
THE STORY OF ESSEX COUNTY
city, and shall not the Lord some way or other punish them for their sins? If their affections are improperly glued to houses and stores, to rich merchandise and costly furniture, shall He not send, if He pleases, a fire so irresistible that no men can stop its progress, till it has consumed the whole that it is His pleasure to have it burn up ?
"P. S. Let none think, because I speak freely on this sub- ject, that I would be understood to say that I know that any of the people who have lost a house by this fire are adulterers or fornicators, or impenitent sinners of any kind. Far be it from me to judge, lest I should be judged. Whether this tre- mendous conflagration was permitted to take place, of the Highest, by way of vengeance in anger, or whether it was permitted in loving kindness to the chastised for their ever- lasting benefit, is not, I expect, for me to say. It may be proper to repeat this, lest some readers should misunder- stand me."
From other sources we learn that this worst fire in Newbury- port's history originated in an unoccupied stable in the center of the town, that it spread rapidly both north and south, and that it burned fiercely and quite out of control until dawn, when it subsided of its own accord. During the night the flames were visible at a distance of forty miles. The devastated area comprised fifteen and a half acres in the populous business part of the town. All told, two hun- dred and fifty buildings were consumed, including all the printing offices -- four in number-the Custom House, the surveyor's office, the post office, two insurance offices, the Baptist Church, and the town library, with a loss estimated at nearly a million dollars.
From a pamphlet commemorative of the "Great Fire," which appeared for sale on Newburyport streets a few weeks after the dis- aster, are culled the following highly descriptive passages, interesting also for their contemporary flavor :
"Blunt's Building and the Phenix Building, two large four-story brick buildings, seemed to present a barrier to the destructive element, and great hopes were entertained for a time that they would effectually restrain its rage; but by a sudden change of the wind the flames were carried directly
977
GREAT DISASTERS
upon these immense piles, which they soon overtopped and involved in the calamity, which threatened to become general. State-street at this time presented a spectacle most terribly sublime! The wind, soon after its change, blew strong; these buildings, which were much the highest in the street, threw the fire in awful columns many yards into the air, and the flames extended in one continued sheet of fire across the spacious area !
"The large brick Baptist meeting-house, in Liberty-street, in which many had deposited their goods, furniture, &c. as (from its distance and construction) a place of undoubted safety, with its contents shared and increased the awful calamity.
"At 2 o'clock in the morning, the fire seemed to rage in every direction with irresistible fury, and the inhabitants saw very little prospect of preserving any portion of the town. Every thing was accomplished which intelligent and ardent exertion could effect ; but they were disheartened by perceiv- ing those efforts apparently without success. About 4 the danger diminished, and at 6 the fire had in a great degree spent its fury.
"The scene, says a gentleman who was present during the night, was the most truly terrible I have ever witnessed. At the commencement of the fire it was a bright moonlight night, and the evening was cool and pleasant. But the moon gradu- ally became obscured and at length disappeared in the thick cloud of smoke which shrouded the atmosphere . . . . the glare of light throughout the town was intense, and the heat that of a sultry summer noon .. The streets were thronged with those whose dwellings were consumed, conveying the remains of their property to places of safety. The incessant crash of falling buildings, the roaring of chimneys like distant thunder, the flames ascending in curling volumes from a vast extent of ruins, the air filled with a shower of fire, and the feathered throng fluttering over their wonted retreats and dropping into the flames; the lowing of the cows, and the confused noise of exertion and distress, united to impress the mind with the most awful sensations.
Essex-62
978
THE STORY OF ESSEX COUNTY
"The loss of property is immense, and cannot fall short of 1,000,000 dollars. Upwards of 90 families are driven from their habitations with the loss of a very considerable part of their furniture and clothing, and many of them are deprived of the means of furnishing themselves with the necessaries of life. . .
"From the great extent of injury by the late desolating fire, although Charity may have its perfect work, and dona- tions made in every town, yet probably 20 years of prosperity will not repair the breach made on this memorable night; still it is consolatory to observe the sympathy for our dis- tresses manifested by our benevolent fellow-citizens in many neighboring towns. In Boston, Salem, Portsmouth, Haver- hill, &c. we have already heard of general meetings of the . citizens being called to devise measures for our relief. Such tokens of kindness cannot be forgotten."
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE PEMBERTON MILL IN LAWRENCE- While the loss of the Pemberton Mill by collapse and fire in 1860 did not involve a general conflagration such as was the case with the other disasters recorded in the following pages, in loss of human lives it far exceeded the worst of them, and for that reason it has been ranked among the county's greatest tragedies.
The most direful calamity in the history of the city of Lawrence was the collapse and subsequent destruction by fire of the Pember- ton mill in 1860. This tragic event ranks among the most terrible catastrophes on record. Scores were crushed to death in the fall of the five-story building, and as many more, trapped between the fallen floors, were roasted alive when fire swept the ruins.
There were six hundred and seventy men, women and children at work at their cotton looms in the mill when it fell, without the least warning, at thirteen minutes before five o'clock in the afternoon of January 10, 1860. The fact that nearly half of this number escaped serious injury is to be considered a modern miracle. Many owed their lives to the swift and heroic work of the volunteer rescue squads, promptly organized, which combed the ruins, clearing away the debris to free the trapped workers. Many more undoubtedly could have been saved had fire not broken out in the ruins about six
979
GREAT DISASTERS
hours after the fall of the mill. The flames, sweeping almost instan- taneously through the oil-soaked timbers and inflammable waste of the several floors, put an immediate stop to the rescue work, while within, scores of men, women and children, many of them quite unin- jured, cried out to their distraught friends in vain for release. A dispatch sent that night from Lawrence affords graphic realization of the horror of the scene :
"MIDNIGHT-Within the past ten minutes the whole mass of ruins has become one sheet of flame! The screams and moans of the poor, buried, burning, and suffocating creatures can be distinctly heard, but no power on earth can save them."
The fire fighters of Lawrence, reinforced by departments from surrounding towns, were unable to control the blaze, although they labored incessantly. The physicians of Lawrence and vicinity responded ably to the call for help and converted the city hall into an emergency hospital and morgue. The relief committee which was at once organized proved so efficient that the large sums asked for were rapidly over-subscribed, contributions pouring in unstintedly from all parts of the country.
Eye-witnesses of the catastrophe testified to the coroner's jury that the fall of the mill began with the collapse of the roof near the south end, and described it as falling in towards the north end as fast as a person could run. The great weight and force of the fall- ing roof carried down the upper floors with all their heavy machin- ery, and nothing below could withstand the descending mass. The supports of each floor in turn gave way under the terrific burden, until the solid earth was reached. The five floors, solidly built, seem to have descended without breaking apart, which accounts for the large number of workers who escaped with their lives, as well as for the imprisonment between the floors of those who were suffocated by the flames before they could be reached from the outside. The cor- oner's jury found that the cast iron pillars supporting the several floors of the mill were defective, and that this was in fact the sole cause of the disaster.
Coming after three years of severe financial depression in Law- rence and the consequent general unemployment, the fall of the Pem- berton mill was for a time almost too great for the city's endurance,
980
THE STORY OF ESSEX COUNTY
as much from the loss of employment to hundreds of workers as from the great cost in life and property. That the city not only sur- vived the blow, but has since become one of the foremost industrial communities of New England, will be evident to the most casual visitor to the Lawrence of today.
HAVERHILL FIRES OF 1873 AND 1882-Essex County's next major fire occurred in 1873 in the prosperous shoe manufacturing city of Haverhill, situated on the Merrimac some few miles inland from the coast. For the following accounts of that disaster and of the more extensive Haverhill fire of 1882, we are indebted to Mr. Arrington's "Municipal History of Essex County," published in 1922, which has also been drawn upon for the succeeding narratives of the Marblehead fires of 1877 and 1888.
On November 16, 1873, a disastrous fire, originating in the Pres- cott Building, west of Washington Square, destroyed eight buildings in the shoe district and caused a money loss of $175,000, and the death of two esteemed citizens, Amos George and Amos C. Heath.
On February 17, 1882, occurred the most extensive fire in the history of the city. Shortly after midnight on that date, fire was discovered in a wooden building standing on the north side of Wash- ington Street and half way between Washington Square and Rail- road Square. It spread rapidly, and when, after four hours, it was checked, it had swept out of existence the buildings of the shoe dis- trict from the river to Wingate Street, and from Washington Square to Railroad Square, with the exception of two. The money loss was a million and a half dollars, and one life was sacrificed, that of Joseph St. Germaine, who was killed by a falling chimney after the fire had been subdued. The night was intensely cold and there was a very high wind, and only the assistance given by the fire departments of Lawrence, Newburyport, Lowell, and Dover prevented the disaster from being a stupendous one. The throwing out of employment of 3,000 operatives, the losses and general disorganization, made it advisable to establish a relief commission. With commendable cour- age the manufacturers reestablished their operations wherever even the most primitive accommodations could be found, and when a year had gone by, at a dinner on the anniversary of the fire, they were able to congratulate one another and the city on the new growth of the district and the recovery from the severe conflagration.
98 1
GREAT DISASTERS
MARBLEHEAD FIRES OF IS77 AND ISSS-Marblehead was vis- ited in 1877, in the month of June, by a very destructive fire. Scores of buildings in the business and residential sections were consumed, and hundreds of workers were thrown out of employment. Again, in December, ISSS, an even more disastrous fire threatened to com- pletely wipe out the town, which had scarcely had time to rebuild since its first great fire eleven years before.
The fire of 1877 broke out early in the morning of June 25, in a barn in the rear of the three-story building known as the "Marble- head Hotel," situated on Pleasant Street, in the midst of the largest and finest buildings in town. Before assistance could be summoned the fire had communicated to the hotel, and when the firemen arrived on the scene the building was in flames. Every effort was made to stop the progress of the contlagration, but without avail. The Gen- eral Glover Engine House, situated directly over the Brick Pond Reservoir, was soon in flames, cutting off the supply of water from that source. The fire was now beyond the control of the firemen, and in spite of all their extreme efforts to stop it, spread from build- ing to building with lightning-like rapidity. In a few moments a large shoe factory, known as Pope's Block, was on fire, the flames spreading to the barn and shoe factory of the E. V. Bartlett Company.
The fire now defied all efforts at control. Leaping around the corner of School Street, the conflagration extended all the way from the Rechabite Building to a shoe factory owned by Nathaniel Glover, thence to a large block owned by Wormsted & Woodfin, and soon the shoe factory of William Stevens and sixteen other buildings, mostly dwelling houses, comprising every building of Sewall Street from the corner of School Street to Spring Street, were in flames. Extending along the north side of Pleasant Street, the fire consumed nine buildings, including the large shoe factory of Jonathan Brown and the railroad depot erected a few years previously, said to be the finest on the line of the Eastern Railroad at that time. On the south side of Pleasant Street, every building save one was consumed, from a point nearly opposite the place where the fire originated to the Mugford Monument, at the junction of Essex and Spring streets. These included two large blocks, a shoe factory, a boarding house, and several dwelling houses. On the southern end of School Street every building was destroyed, including the South Congregational
982
THE STORY OF ESSEX COUNTY
Church. On Essex Street every building was destroyed, among them another large shoe factory. On Spring Street, two shoe fac- tories were burned, the only building left standing being the Sewall School. On Bassett Street, two dwellings and a barn were destroyed, and several others seriously damaged.
At one time every church in town was on fire except the Baptist and Roman Catholic. Many feared that the town would be destroyed, but at length, reinforced by assistance from Salem, Lynn, and other cities, the firemen were successful in conquering the fire. But what a scene of devastation met the eye when the morning sun broke forth. Where but a few hours before had been large factories and comfort- able homes were now only stone walls, black with ruin, and tottering chimneys. The entire business portion of the town had disappeared in a single night. Seventy-six buildings, with all their contents, rep- resenting over a half million dollars' worth of property, had been consumed; only four of the large shoe manufactories were left stand- ing in the town; while ninety families were made homeless and fifteen hundred men and women were thrown out of employment.
Eleven years later, the town's reconstruction not yet completed and the terrors of the fire of 1877 still fresh in the people's minds, came the great fire of Christmas, 1888. This fire was even more disastrous than that of 1877. Not so many buildings, possibly, were destroyed, but a larger financial loss was sustained.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.