, 1871-12-04

but smothered to death. Through this
underbrush, thirty bodies of men and
children were picked up, more or less
injured by FIRE. In good many in.
stances the human remains were dis
tinguished from animals by the teeth
alone. One horor stricken relative rec.
ognized the relics Of his nephew by a
pen-knife imbedded in an oblong mound
of ashes. What does it avail to narrate
circumstantially the inexpressible hor.
rors of these succeeding days, What
good to tell of the dead faces staring up
through the waters; or the piteous cir-
cumstanees of a hundred heart-Yreneh>
ing tragedies during and following that
treacherous Sunday blast? No moral
underlies the terrible story; all that
frightened human nature was capable Of
came into play that dreadful night; the
slaughter resulted from no sin of omis.
sion or commission on the part of man.
No unseemly panic aided natural causes
in achieving; comparatively, the com,
pletest devastation in human annals,
On the contrary, superhuman energy
and daring were put into active opera
ton to mitigate preternatural horrors,
The immensity of visible destruction at
Chicago surpasses the completeness Of
this devastation, but Chicago, with all
its woes, has not two-thirds of its cits
liens to deplore as dead.
With one of the men who passed
through that night of destruction I wan-
dered over the pretty rising plain where
Peshtego spread its thriving stores and
handsome houses. Save where ths
houses were built with cellars, which
was very rare, there is no trace of a
former habitation. Here and there are
metallic remnants of sewing-machines
and cracked stones. The hardware and
drug store leave almost the only remin-
ders of things that were-a blackened
mortar stands idly in wild confusion
of melted glass and lead, with the
pestle ready for new decoction. Two
or three men with troubled faces were
moving about putting up shed for the
Relief Committee. They answered
civilly and sadly that they had been in
the fire, but saved themselves and near.
est kin. They would have starved to
death if the outside world had not step.
ped in, and now hoped to be shortly on
their feet again. They despaired of the
bright, cherry little town ever being
again as it was, but complacently
''reckoned" if the scared ones didn't
drive newcomers away by their silly
stories, that new people would make
a new Peshtego.
If you ever walked over the ground
where a camp has been burned, and
there are few who served during the
war that have not, you found there an
much semblapce Of substantial city aa
now marks the spot where Peshtego's
1900 people carried on the business os
life few days ago. On the bank Of
the river fish killed by the dusting fame
are still to be seen, which the day after
the fire were soft and white and unu
wounded. Crossing the frail remnants
of the bridge On timbers eharred and
fragile, my neighbor said, "It was az
like judgment day had come as can im-
agine. Friend Hansen with his wife and
four children, believed firmly that Ii
was, and while the fire rained down he
began to walk eomposedly up and down
his parlor with his family about him,
and have never seen him sinoe.'
The material loss is estimated at $3,a
600, 200, the greater part of which falls
on VIM. B. Ogden, who suffered simul-
taneously greater losses in Chicago.
But undaunted by his accumulating
misfortunes, that energetic man instant.
ly sent an agent on to rebuild the mills
and shops, and gather new people In
the place if possible. There are 400
dead authentically accounted for; there
are besides IF .as many missing who
cannot be accounted for, and PROBABLY
never will be. Many of the mill hands
and Company employees were utter
strangers in the place. and the majority
of them, something like 100, trusted ia
the stout walls of the Company's build.
ing, perished en- naasse.