Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1881-10-07
A vivid Picture Of the michigan m
Forest Fires,

Forest Fires.
Fires had been burning in Sanilac, Huro1
and Tuscola Counties but no one apprehend
ed any danger. Farmers had set fire Il
slashings to clear the ground for fall wheat
but this happens every fall, aud the fac
that not drop of water had fallen in from
nifty to seventy days was not considered by
those who saw the oke-olouds and replied
that there was no danger. There was dan
ger. Behind that pail of smoke was great
er enemy than an earthquake, and it had
tornado at its back and two hundred miles of
forest in the front. From noon until :
O'Clock strange terror held the people in itl
grip: then all of a sudden the heavens tool
fire, or so It seemed to hundreds In some
localities it came with the sound of thunder
In others it was preceded by terrible roar.
ing as if tidal wave were sweeping over the
country. Almost at the same minute the
flames appeared in every spot over q district
of country thirty miles broad by one hundred
in length.
At Richmondville, ten miles above Saniac,
one hundred and fifty people had comfort
able homes, stacks Of hay and grain, teams,
cows, pigs sheep, and no fear of the fire
which they knew was burning a mile away.
At o'clock the flames rushed out of the
woods, leaped the fences, ran across the bare
fields and swallowed every house but two,
and roasted alive q dozen people. 1t is
hardly forty rods to the beach of the lake,
and yet many people had no time to reach
the water Others reached it with clothing
on fire and faces and hands blistered. The
houses did not burn singy, but one billow
of flame seized all at once and reduced them
to nothing in ten minutes.
saw many and many a spot where the
pillows of fire jumped a clean half mile out
of the forest to clutch house or barn. The
Thornton family were wiped out with the ex-
cepton of a boy. Thornton had hitched up
| his team to drive the family to a place of
safety, but when he saw that they were all
| surrounded by the flames he unhitched the
horses in despair Before they could be un-
harnessed they boted in different directions,
and the old man became so confused that he
ran directly toward big slashing, which was
then perfect mass of flame, and dropped
and died with his head toward it.
| Meantime the mother and children had
taken refuge in the root house. This was a
structure mostly sunk in the ground and the
roof well covered with earth. Here they
were all right for q time, but when the father
| failed to join them one of the sons went out
to see what caused the delay. He was hardly
out of the place before the door through
| which he had passed was in flames. In this
emergency he ran to a dry creek, and by ly-
ing on his face and keeping his mouth to the
| ground he lived through it.
l talked with a woman who lived neighbor
to the Thorntons and who escaped by fleeing
to field of ploughed ground. This was on
ly few rods from the root house, and she
said it was fully an hour before the screams
and shrieks and groans from the people in
side grew quiet in death. One by one they
were suffocated by heat and smoke, and their
bodies presented most horrible appearance
To one riding through the district it seems
t,sra 1a,,, tl,oNo -, l.,
fire swept through the green trees the same
as the dry. 1t ran through fields of corn at
the rate of twenty miles an hour, and fields
of clover were swept as bare az a floor.
Dark and gloomy swAmps, filled with pools
of stagnant water, and the home for years of
wildcats, bears and snakes were struck and
shrivelled and burned almost in a flash. Ov-
er the parched meadows the flames ran faster
than horse could gallop. Horses did gallop
before it, but were overtaken and left roast
ing on the ground. 1t seemed as if every
hope and avenue of escape were cut off, and
yet hundreds of lives were spared. People
spent ten to twenty hours in bitches and
ponds, or in fields under wet blankets, hav-
ing their hair singed, their limbs blistered,
and their clothing burned off piece by piece.
In dozens OF cases the first flames spared
houses and barns, but after seeming to have
passed on for miles suddenly circled back
and made clean sweep of everything. Un-
less one rides over the burnt district he can
not believe the eccentricities of forest fire.
In the great swamp, between Sanilac and
Sandusky, it burned everything to the roots
for mile in breadth. Then it left patches
from ten feet to ten rods wide. Then again
it struck in and burned lanes hardly twenty
feet wide leaving half a mile of fuel on eth
er side. In the timber it seemed to strike
the green trees harder than the dry ones. 1t
was like a great serpent making its way
across the country. 1t would run within
three feet of wheat stack, and then glide
away TO lick up a house. 1t would burn
stack and spare a barn ten feet off.
People felt the heat while the fire was yet
miles away. 1t withered the leaves of trees
standing two miles from the path of the fiery
serpent. The very earth took fire in hundreds
of places, and blazed up as if the fire were
feasting on cordwood. The stoutest log
buildings stood up only few minutes. The
fire seemed to catch them at every corner at
once, and after a whirl and roar nothing
would be left. Seven miles off the beach, at
Forester, sailors found the heat uneomforta-
BILE. Where some houses and barns were
burned we could not find even blaekened
stick Every log, beam and board was re-
duced to fine ashes.
Seven miles back from the lake at Forester
a farmer gathered up fifteen persons in his
wagon and started for the beach, The fire
was close behind them as they started--so
close that the dresses of some of the women
and children were on fire from the sparks
1t was seven miles of up hill and down, with
corduroy, ruts and roots, and the horses
needed no whip to urge them into mad run.
As the wagon started the tire of hind wheel
rolled off. They could not stop for it, and
yet, even on good road the wheel would
have crushed down in going twenty rods
without it.
1t is an actual fact that the horses pushed
over that seven miles of rough road at a wild
run, and the wheel stood firm. A delay of
five minutes at any point of the road would
have given fifteen more victims to the flames
which followed on behind. saw the wagon
at the lake, and l saw the tire seven miles
away on the roadside.
The people who sought the beach had still
TO endure much of the heat and all of the
smoke, Wading up to their shoulders they
were safe from the flames but sparks and
cinders fell like snow storm and the smoke
was suffocating. The birds not caught in
the woods were carried out to sea and
drowned, and the waves have washed thOus-
ands of them ashore. Squirrels, rabbits and
such small animals stood no show at all, but
deer and bear sought the beach and the COM
pany of human beings. In one case a man
leaped from a bluff into the lake and found
himself close behind a large bear. They re-
mained in company under the bank nearly
all night and the bear seemed as humble as
a dog. In another instance two of the ami
mails came out of the forest and stood close to
a well from which a farmer was drawing wa
ter to dash over his house, and they were
with him for two hours before they deemed
it prudent to jog along. Deer came out and
sought the companionship of cattle and
horses, and paid no attention to persons
rushing past them. Detroit Free Press.
Examples Of Obedience.
A correspondent writes that during the visit
of Gen. s. at the White House, an Incl
dent happened which exhibited Gen. Garfield
an obedient son. twas the practice of the