Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1881-10-14
aHOCKINa CALAMITY.
Mill Operatives Imprisoned IN :
Burning Building.


Oct. Is. The fire at Lau-
$1,000. mill last night, originated III Tue
S,;sb;ny room on the second moor anu sPIe~"
n:.. .n,sz;ng rapidity, cutting of the escape
80 .hont 45 hands. IL of whom were girls.
Tho we're at work on this floor. Inc MAJOR
;tv were engaged on the upper noors. Men
.nd women rushed to the windows crying
frantically to the crowd below to save them.
II was proposed by the people to form
square in the street and catch them as they
Leaned. but before anything could be done,
xoune woman leaped from the fifth story. 1t
seemed that every bone in her body was
broken for she never breathed again.
The imprisoned people seemed to become
frenzied and though the crowd sought to en-
courage them BY shouting that help would
speedily be there, they began jumping from
the windows like sheep. man, apparently
bereft of reason, flung himself headlOng to
the street, and while his body was still in the
air others followed, now a man, then a
woman, until II in all, unconscious. and with
fractured skulls and broken limbs, were being
carried to a neighboring saloon until they
could be conveyed to the hospital
By this time the relatives of the victims
had gathered outside the building and the
cries of mothers to their children still in the
burning rooms and their lamentations over
those who had been dashed to pieces were
heart rending.
When the fremen were able to enter the
building. they found on the third floor the
bodies of two females burned almost to a
crisp and a man badly scorched and dead, but
before they could search further. the fourth
floor, with its heavy machinery, came crush
ing through and they barely escaped. The
fremen were compelled then to desist in their
labors, because the floors had gone through
to the ground. and the machinery. charred
wood and operatives, ten or dozen in num-
Der, were mangled in an unacceptable
mass.
The following is a list of the victims as
far as ascertained;
Dead-Annie Brady, Mary Kelley, Henry
Norman. three unknown girls and an I'm
known German.
Injured-Mary Kloss, fractured leg; Geo.
W. Dougherty and Joseph Reynolds, both
legs broken; Geo. X. Hutton, broken leg
VIM Cooper back broken Joseph F. Burns,
breast hurt and injuries fatal; David Lap
ham, fractured skull; Michael Larkins, frac-
tured leg, Fred krehr. injured internally
Martin Conlon, spine injured: Henry Arm
strong, jumped from the fourth floor; Thos.
Edwards, shoulder blade broken by striking a
stone in falling; LIZZIE Franks. Mary Brady
Samuel Langham, Annie Miller. Matilda
Schuiaze, Kate Shaeffer, George Lapham,
David Hutton, Annie Staub and Mary Kelley.
The victims were carried some home, some
to houses close by and others to the hospital,
so that the exact number cannot be stated.
The physicians say that nearly every case
admitted to the hospital will result fatally.
The total number of deaths will probably
exceed twenty, there being ten bodies in the
ruins. George Dougherty, who jumped
from the fourth story, died this morning.
The search for the bodies is further impeded
by the falling of the interior down to the
second floor.
Up to noon the bodies recovered as re-
ported to the coroner were eleven. A deputy
coroner visited the scene this morning
and learned that the means of escape were
inadequate.