The Bloomfield times. [volume] (New Bloomfield, Pa.) 1867-187?, 1872-11-19
The Boston Fire.


pect, still the loss is very heavy, reaching
to over one hundred millions of dollars.
From an Eastern paper we copy the follow
ing description:
"The alarm was first given at 7.30 on
Saturday evening" and there was no wind
stirring. The fire broke out from the
fourth story windows of Tebbett, Baldwin
& Davis wholesale dry goods store, gran
ite bull ding, corner of Summer and Kings
ton streets.
It broke out in the engine-room, and
swept up the elevator with terrific roar,
showering the whole neighborhood with
embers, and in few minutes igniting
other buildings Just opposite, at the C or
ner of Otis place, was another large whole
sale dry-good store, which also caught fire.
The scene now beggared description.
The air was filed with flying granite and
heavy planks, as from volcano, and the
heat was so terrific that the hand engines
were cracked and blistered, while the fire.
men who held the pipes were only kept
from burning by streams of water poured
upon them constantly.
Steadily they were compelled to fall back
and haul off their engines, as the granite
bombardment struck them down at their
posts. Dispatches were sent to Worcester
and other towns for help and steam fire
engines were sped here at the rate of mile
a minute.
But the surging flames gained all the
time, and the furnace-heat created sort of
whirlwind, as at Chicago, which swept a
pail of desolation before it, in a northeast
erly direction. Beebe's five-story granite
block, the finest in the city, next crumbled
to the earth.
The flames next rushing madly up Fede-
raj street, licked up whole rows of tene-
ment houses as if they had been made of
cards, while mothers with babes in their
arms, and children crying piteously for
their parents, ran madly through the
streets.
The wool houses, also on Federal street,
and the Freeman's and North America
Banks next succumbed to the general ruin.
The fire had ragged eight hours, and at
four o'clock Sunday morning it was un-
der fiercer headway than ever. The wind
had risen to gale, and the sullen roar of
it, was appalling to the stoutest hearts.
Those who were not crazed were moving
their valuables to places of greater safety !;
but here new difficulty arose, all the
horses being prostrated by the prevailing
epidemic. Many goods were left in the
streets to be consumed, or carried off by
thieving men and boys, of which several
hundred were caught plundering by the
police and locked in jail
BY daylight it became evident that the
engines were useless. The firemen were
exhausted and the heat in Milk, Devon
shire, Federal and other streets was so in
tense that the pipe-men could not get with
in three blocks of the burning buildings to
throw streams upon them.
Three buildings were blown up on Con-
gress and Lindell streets, but without avail
Fire would break out suddenly from build
ings remote from the centre of destruction,
as if spontaneously. By 10 o'clock Sun
day morning Everett and Winthrop blocks
were blackened ruins, and Congress, Pearl,
Arch, Franklin, and adjacent streets, were
obliterated.
Some hours earlier detachment of U.
s. Marines had offered their services to
patrol the streets, which offer was accepted.
And at two o'clock Sunday morning a
meeting of citizens had assembled in Mayor
Gaston's Office to suggest means of fighting
the destroyer.
General Burt proposed that committees
of citizens take supreme charge of each
street on the line of fire, and to use pow
der if necessary. Two hours later the
blowing up of buildings on Federal street
began, and at intervals through the morn
ing the rumbling ofexplosions reverberated
through the stricken city.
AT the same time the Transcript building
took fire, and the old South Church, which
stands Immediately opposite, seemed to be
doomed. But, as if miraculously, this
structure escaped unscathed.
BY o'clock Sunday morning the flames
were working up towards State and Broad
streets, though scores of buildings had
been blown to wreck to intercept its course
1t was not till two o'clock in the after
noon that the fire was supposed to be under
control. AT this time the loss in the burned
district bounded by Summer, Federal,
Broad, Central, Water Washington and
! Bedford streets was estimated at $3.50, ,00O,-
600. II is now feared that It will be greater