Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1871-11-17


respondence of the New York Tribune:
PANIC AND TERROR
Three brothers, Williamsons, owned
the mill, and had in the colony, mother,
father, sisters, wives aud children. Has
tily charging the women to care for them
selves, the brothers set about saving the
property if possible. But before the hose
could be brought to bear, the saving of
life alone became the stake in the dread
ful encounter. The brothers, as propri-
etors, seem for a time to have been tull
of calm, brave discretion, and with the
full realization of the sudden danger in
the first rush of the tornado, attempted
systematic plans Of preservation. The
women were directed, as far as possible,
to put on mems clothes throughout, as
offering less chance for the fire to catch.
So far as known, not woman needed
the advice. Had they done so, their lives
might not have been sacrificed on that
ignoble pyre. Even if life had not been
spared, the most revolving sights of the
massacre would have been spared the
heart-broken survivors This was the
last shred of coherent conduct among
the frightened people. Swift whirling
columns of flame had cut through the
intervening timber, and fell voraciously
on the light frame buildings. The whirl-
wind lashing the trees into fragments
caught the fire in roaring surges, and
flung it about in billowy waves among
the tree-tops. Slender tongues OF fire
falling from above played in malevolent
currents across the clearing. A desper-
alton of terror filled men, women aud
children-a terror as natural and as fa-
tai, for, had common fortitude led the
group, not a soul need have perishe ed
With one impulse the frantic mass, bat
Ting and crowding, rushed to the pota-
toe patch. Here rising ground was
crowned by a shallow pit, not six feet
around, and hardly, at the deepest part,
two feet below the surface of the ground.
Men now living, who came almost un-
scathed through that night of doom, tell
how before the evil time, when the fires
we're raging about, this spot had been
fixed on as place Of safety, because al
most in the center of the clearing, with
no infammable matter near, it seemed
to promise breathing, in case of gene
raj confiagfation. There had been con-
slant jocosities and banter about this
i" center Of salvation, and some one ac-
tuaily attempting TO enlarge the cavity
had been driven off by good rid
icule. Even as late as Saturday it had
been used as place of refuge notwith-
standing, and when the actual danger
came, the ecredulous mass remembered the
delusive pit. II that fatal spot had not
been, if the whimsical belief had not OBJ
tanned firm hold, there is not the slight
est doubt but the forty that perish
ed would have escaped in the neighbor-
ing woods. Into that cramped place,
crowding, buffeting,s begging, eursing,
imploring, praying, shrieking, men wo-
men and children elbowed and foughtin
the frenzy Of hideous desperation and
terror. Not large enough to admit a
dozen by the closest packing, nearly 80
wrestled and crowded in and about the |
fatal spot. With ostrich instinct, in the |
abjectness of their unreasoning fear, men !
plowed their burning heads under the
living pyre. An inextricable pyramid
of bodies, in all sorts conceivable pos
lures, stood in the fame-swept place.
A BIT OF ROMANCE AND HERoIsM.
There were few in this awful time /
that preserved an amazing equanimity. |
The engineer of the mill, Byron Merrill /
a young fellow of marked character and I
battled resolutely till the
last chance to save bis employers prop
erty, and only when the futility of the
effort and the danger to life became OBJ
yious, wash his selfimposed duty resigned.
His sweetheart was the relative of the
mill owner, Miss Maggie Williamson, a
girl, it is said of rare beauty and attrac-
ton. The young fellow, bright aud cul-
tured beyond his kind, regarded with fa-
vor and affection for many a mile around
had won her heart, and the two were to
have been married. The girl with her
had fled to the potatoe patch,
and here, sufocaling with smoke, their
garments in flames, and wrthing in aw-
full agony, the young fellow found the
chief part of the people. He tried to
scatter the infatuated group; with his
hat pressed closely over his mouth and
nostrils, he directed the group to break
and take shelter in the edge of the tim
ber Hopeless The roar of the hurri-
cane, even the blood-curdling shrieks of
the sufferers drowned his voice He tried