The Lamoille news. (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1877-1881, 1877-09-12
GREAT FIRE IN NEW YORK.

the most destructive fires that New YORK
has Witnessed of late years occurred on the
west side. A spark from stove IN the
drying room on tie second floor OF John
P. Hale's large piano factory, IN Thirty
fifth street, is supposed to have started
the flames, which in a moment ignited
the mass OF iufiammable material with
which the place was filed. The flames
spread through the building with light
ning-like al.idity, and the whole struc-
ture, which was eight stories high and
extended through the block, was ablaze
in an incredibly short space Of time.
The staircases were blocked by the
smoke and blaze, and the escape of the
employees above was cut of. They ran
to the roof and to the windows and there
dropped to the ground. There was a
scarcity of water in the neighborhood,
and the engines could not for some time
get sufficient to play on the fire. Finally
water was obtained from Eighth avenue
and the river.
Meanwhile the fire extended, and the
piano factory was soon Quilted and the
walls began falling. One man, who had
dropped before the walls fell, was picked
up dead and sent to the morgue.
Several others who dropped were only
injured, and were taken to Bellevue
Hospital.
A high wind carried the flames across
Thirty-sixth street to the tenement
houses, 5O5, 5O7 and 500. The inmates
nearly all escaped, but n woman named
Mary Stewart died of fright in one of
these buildings. Annie Smith, a little
girl at 500 Thirty-sixth street, was suf-
located
When the fire in the factory was first
discovered the operatives, driven by the
smoke and heat from the lower floors,
sought refuge in the seventh and eighth
stories. When the fire had reached this
part of the building a few minutes later,
many jumped to the pavement below,
and were either killed outright ors%ere
fearfully mangled. One man, stationed
near window on the top floor, was seen
to pull off his coat and take his position
on the window.sill. The people on the
street below, thinking that he intended
jumping, shouted: "To the roofl To
the roof Don't jump, or you are
dead man !" Needless of the warning,
he got down on his hands and knees, and
then securing good hold on the win
dow facing, cast one glance below and
swung off. He alighted on projecting
window facing. Balancing himself for a
1Homent, he jumped again with the agil-
ty of a cat and rested on the casing of
window on the fifth floor. The flames
and smoke poured out in torrents and,
quick as a fash, he jumped to fourth
story window and so on until small
balcony on the first floor was reached.
Here he paused for breath for mo-
ment, and then jumped to the pavement
and was saved.
One of the most thrilling escapes was
that made by John Reumann, foreman
of the upper four stories, where eighty
men were, under his charge, engaged in
vanishing and other branches of finish
ing piano cases. He was in the seventh
story when yell of Fire p reached his
ears from below, and he at once dashed
down, in the hope of being able to di-
rect and aid in checking the confagra-
ton. When he reached the fourth
story, however, lie found a whirlwind of
flame surging toward him, and saw in an
instant that there was not hope Of saw
ing the building. Then, with all the
speed he could command, barely keep
ing ahead of the fire, he ran up to the
eighth story, shouting as he went
"Save yourselves. " Fire" "Run
to the fire escapes" 1t was on this
wild upward rush that he met old George
Greb running blindly down into the
jaws of death. The alarm thus given, he
thought of saving himself, and spranq
to the nearest fire escape, one of the
patent chain apparatus. By it he de.
scended in safety to the ground, and he
believes that fifty of his men got dowr
i'll the same way AS he remembers the
scene, he says it seem to him as if the
chain was black with men all the way up
The property destroyed comprises thu
entire block bounded by Tenth ant
Eleventh avenues and Thirty fifth ant
Thirty-sixth streets, with the exception
of two buildings next the corner o
Tenth avenue and Thirty-sixth street
about two-thirds of the Thirty-fftl
street front (all brown stone buildings
of the block below, and the building
on the upper side of Thirty-sixth street
Engine "a was developed in the flame
and abandoned, and finally destroyed.
The loss of property is variously est
mated at from 100000 all the way
100000. =
Hale's factory was one of the larges
in the United States. Four or five year
ago part of it, in an unfinished cor
dition, was blown down by gale an
several lives lost. At the time of til
fire it was filled with new pianos an
much valuable material. The workme
lost all their tools.
large amount of furniture, etc., We
lost by poor people, who were drive
from their homes by the rushing flames
and had barely time to escape with the
lives. AS at all large fires, the basenel
OF which human nature is capable W,
displayed in the operations of thieve
who preyed on the unfortunates, carr,
ing off the unprotected family goods lie
by helpless fugitives, who were engage
in caring for their children or in tryir