Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1881-10-05
NO. 234.


At Richmondville, ten miles above Sani-
lac, one hundred and fifty people had COM
Portable homes. stacks of hay and grain.
teams, cows, pigs, sheep, and no fear Of the
| fire which they knew was burning q mile
away. At two o'clock the flames rushed
out Of the woods, leaped the fences, ran
across the bare fields aud swallowed
every house but two. and roasted alive a
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
4, it with clothing on fire and faces and hands
blistered. The houses did not burn singly.
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
billows of fire jumped clean halfmile out
of the forest to clutch house or barn. The
Thornton family were wiped out with the
exception Of 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 uuhitched the
horses in despair. Before they could be un-
harnessed they bolted 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
structure mostly sunk in the ground and the
roof well covered with earth. Here they
were all right for 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
lying on his face and keeping his mouth to
the ground he lived through it.
talked with a woman who lived neighbor
to the Thorntons and who escaped BY fleeing
to a field of ploughed ground. This was
only few rods from the root house, and she
said it was fully an hour before the shrieks
and groans from the people inside grew quiet
in death. One by one they were suffocated
by heat and smoke, and their bodies present
ed a most horrible appearance.
To one riding through the district it seems
miraculous that a single soul escaped. The
fire escaped 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 rs bare
rs floor. Dark and gloomy swamps,
filed with pools of stagnnnt water, and
the home for years of wildcats, bears and
snakes, were struck and shrivelled and burned
almost in a flash. Over the parched meadows
the flames ran faster than horse could gallop.
taken and left roasting on the ground. 1t
seemed as If everv hope and avenue of es-
cape 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, having 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 a clean sweep of everything. Unless one
rides over the burnt district he cannot believe
the eccentricities of forest fire. In the great
swamp, between Sanilac and San,lusky, 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 mile of fuel on either side. In the tim
ber it seemed to strike the green trees harder
than the dry ones. 1t was like a great serpent
making its way across the country, it would
run within three feet of wheat stack, and
then glide away to lick up a house. 1t would
burn stack and spare barn ten feet of.
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 blszed up as il the hre were
ings stood up only few minutes. The fire
seemed to catch them at every corner at once
and after whirl and a roar nothing would
be left. Seven miles off the beach, at Forester,
sailors found the heat uncomfortable. Where
some houses and barns were burned we could
not find even a blackened stick. Every log,
beam and board was reduced to fine ashes.
Seven miles back from the lake at Forest
er 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 wO-
men and children were on fire from the
sparks. II was seven miles of up hill and
down. with corduroy, ruts and roots, and the
horses needed no whip to urge them into q
mad run. A the wagon started the tire Of
hind wheel rolled off. They could not stop
for it, and yet, even on a good road the wheel
would have crushed down in going twenty
rods without 1t.
II 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 ] saw the tire seven miles
away on the roadside.
The people who sought the beach had still
10 nuCu VI TIE neat ana all OF the
smoke. Wading up to their shoulders they
were safe from the flames, but sparks and
cinders fell like q snow storm and the
smoke was suffocsting The birds not caught
in the woods were carried out to sea and
drowned. and the waves have washed tiious-
and of them ashore. Squirrels, rabbits and
such small animals stood no show at all, but
deer and bear sought the beach and the
company Of human beings. In one case =
man leaped from bluh into the lake and
found him self close behind large bear.
They remained in company under the bank
nearly all night. and the bear seemed as
humble as dog. In another instance two
Of the amin ais came out of the forest and
Stool lose to q well from which farmer
was drawing water 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 campaDionship Of
cattle and horses, and paid no attention to
persons rushing past thcm.-DetyoH Free
Press.