Richmond daily times. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1853, 1851-11-25

THE NEW YORK CATASTROPHE

| The following letter from Teacher in the build
ing occupied as Ward School rs, gives clear and
ineligible account of the awful calamity which beel
large number of children attending one of the free
schools in New York Thursday evening:
THURSDAY Evening" Nov 20, 1851.
MESS RS. EDITORS: take opportunity to give YOU
few facts in regard to the sad and fatal calamity
which occurred this afternoon at Ward School rs,
situated in Greenwich avenue. at the head oil Charles
street. The accident happened about o o'clock and
the circumstances follows
| There were, at the time. about eighteen hundred
children IN the three departments. The Principal of
the Female Department, while engaged in teaching
suddenly fell PROSTATE in tanlng fit The young
ladies much excited and alarmed, and gave Ut
terance TO their fears shrleks and cries and many
OF them rushed mo the ad Joining apartments.
The children of the three departments hearing these
scteams, and supposng that the building was on fire.
became so much excited that the teachers lost all con-
troll over them, and hen general rush made for
the door The children OF the primary department
filled the first flight of stairs, and the entry below so
closely that the doors, which opened inward could not
be opened. The children Of the Female Department.
rushing out, checked by the jam Below, and
the stairs were crowded that the railing gave way
for two flights, and the children upon them preci
pated upon the heads OF those be CIV, some OF them
| falling teen ieet The scene which eusued Is beyond
all description. The children were piled indscrimi-
nately III an area OF about ten eet to the height
nearly as many feet more, where many were smoth-
cred or Otherwise killed
The Boys from the Male Department rushed down
1.-The back stairs, and were stopped by door, which
ike those in front, opened inward, and the back stairs
presented similar that in the front entry and
one or two were fatally injured here. Many boys leap
ed from the wlndows-some OF them from the scond
story The bells were Iung, and the streets n front
were soon filled with distracted parents and the
citement in and around the building immense.
The whole and sole cause of thi melancholy casu-
atty was simply the tanng OF the teacher and the cries
and sh rieks OF the members OF her class, which
mistaken by the other scholars in the building, an
a arm OF fire, and which so suddenly filled them with
fear, that the teachers lost all control over them, and
! TEACHER IN THE BUILDING.
As already stated, the hfeess bodies of fifty one
children had been removed from the scene of the.
horrible calamity 10 the police station in the vicinity
where they were claimed by their arents and friends
The greater number of the children died from sutfo.
ca on-no external marks ofviolence appearing upon
their bodies. Some few, however, were sadly mutt
lated-so much render their identity doubtful.
1t is supposed that about sixty or seventy children
were wounded by the accident, but the exact number
will probably never be known, because their parents
bore the little sufferers away to their homes as soon
as they were recognised. The victims were mostly
little girls from SIX to fourteen years old
The N. Y. Post attributes this heart-renderng acct
dent mainly to the insecurity of the banisters around
the stairs. II says:
Each bauser secured at the base, where it fits
into the step, by but nail driven first, through an
d
about ~ Il inches long, 2 inches broad abou
three quarters of inch an inch deep. This brack
the only support tor the baluster against pres
from within and it may easily be conceived how
such trail support should give way before the crush
OF more than hundred children.
From the second story 10 the basement the baus
trades literally swept away, with the brackets,
few only of which remain hanging by the nails 1t is
well to state that the material of which the balusters
are made is OF the best description of wood and Ca
pable OF bearing great pressure; but the detect is
evidently in the slight manner in which they have
been fastened at the base.
II is rumored that some of the teachers, or parents
of the children at school in this building had made
two three applications the trustees to have bet
ter bausters substituted for those destroyed
The building was surrounded this morning by an
eager crowd of persons, anxious obtain further In
formation Of the calamity.
One boy, we learned who among the first to
rush OF the door in the general panic, instead OF
running down stairs with the of his schoolmates
took the contrary direction, and from the landing
above, witnessed the fearful destruction Of human
lite which followed.