The Indianapolis journal., 1883-11-05
TIE SAVANNAH DISASTER.
The Great Fire that Ragged in the
Southern Capital.
A Historic Site Burned Over-The Bodies of
Eight Victims RecoVered-MiraculOus
Escape of a Child.

When the fire was first discovered lin a
cotton warehousel the warehouse hose and
water buckets were Immediately brought
into service, and as the first water was being
thrown the flames darted across the face OF
the bales and drove those who escaped into
Farm street. All the other doors were block
AIDED by cotton and locked, so that it was i'm
possible for the Others to escape except by
climbing. In less than fifteen minutes all
the cotton in the warehouse was on fire. At
the beginning of the fire the wind seemed to
be from the northwest, so that by the time
tine apparatus of the fire department
reached the scene the shed in the south
east corner of the structure was on fire
beneath the metal roofing. The window
frames OF the old Stiles mansion on Farm
street were also smoking. The rapidity with
which the flames spread rendered every mo-
ment precious. The dense clouds of smoke
and the intense heat kept the fremen at
distance. Though line of hose was in sery-
ice at the Farm-street entrance, another
was speedily stretched to the Stiles house
and the wooden residence on the south side
of the warehouse. AT 1245 o'clock the two
story frame residence just beyond the south
west angle of the warehouse, occupied by a
family named Smith and owned by Mr.. A.
LaRoche, took fire. and was subsequently
destroyed, the occupants moving out all their
furniture. By Ills o'clock the interior of
the Stiles house and the roof were in flames
and shortly after portions of the south wall
of the warehouse fell outward with terrific
oh A hNt1 1.20 N'O Ol hn on ha
west side dropped in and revealed mass of
seething flames, the heat from which caused
the cornices OF the houses on that side to
smoke, when Mr.. Horace Rivers formed
bucket brigade, and for time prevented the
spread of the conflagration in that quarter,
where there were no engines or other regular
fire apparatus from the beginning to
the termination of the catastrophe.
The inmates of all houses within
a block of the warehouse on the south, west
and north sides succeeded in moving their
household effects by 2 o clock, but very many
articles of furniture were broken destroyed
and stolen. The excitement of these people
was great in anticipation Of losing their
homes, though at that hour many bystand-
ers felt that they were sincerely speaking
when they attempted to reassure them by as
serting that all danger of the fire spreading
had virtually passed. -a1
At 8 o'clock the wind shifted to the south
west and seems to have increased in veloc-
lty. A large portion of the north wall of the
warehouse fell, when a row OF houses on the
continuation of Indian-street lane west of
Farm street took fire, and the flames rapidly
communicated east west and north to the
frame buildings on that side, and thence to
nine one-story tenements owned by Mrs.
Habersham. When the fire took possession
of these houses on the north and west side of
the warehouse the roar of the flames was
heard from 300 to 400 feet distant, and as the
wind had risen it was at once apparent
that all that north portion OF the city was
at the mercy of the devouring element.
Residences and stores were quickly va
Gated; the streets were crowded with mer-
chandise, furniture, bedding aud vehicles,
and hundreds of distracted mothers and
weeping children, white and black, intensi-
fed the piteous aspect of the calamity. Sew
eral persons barely escaped being surrounded
by the fire at different times during the after
noon, as sparks were waited frequently some
distance and set the roofs of other houses in
a blaze. By q o'clock ali the buildings north
of Indian n-street lane from West Boundary to
Farm street were destroyed, and the fire had
crossed to the east side of the street, and was
burning along the north side of Joachim
street and on Indian street and Indian-street
lane About 6 o'clock the electric-light
works were invaded and destroyed, extin-
gushing the lights on the towers and leav-
ing the city in darkness. The works were
erected about year ago, al cost of $50, 600.
The destruction of these buildings was COM
plete in few minutes. When the latter
mentioned structure was on fire all the
electric lights in the city went out. By s
O. clock the spacious machine-shop of Mr.
John w. lyman was burned. The smoke
was exceedingly dense on Canal street, and,
with the heat, drove the spectators onto the
east side of West Broad street,
whence tine occupants of the houses
moved their furniture into the Bay and ad-
iacent streets, into Franklin or the water
works square, and other places east of West
Broad street. But West Broad street was
fortunately to be the eastern boundary of the
great devastation. The structure last de-
stroyed was on this line. 1t was on the west
side of that street and on the north side of
Canal street. and was occupied by Alderman
D. r. Thomas as an Office. At $50 o'clock
the march of the fire stopped.
The part of the town destroyed is what is
known as Yamacraw, and is the site of the
Indian settlement which existed when Ogle
thorpe's colony landed. Joachim, Indian and
Farm streets were occupied by white people
of moderate means, mostly employees of the
cotton press and rice mills, and the other
streets by poorer class of white and colored
people With the exception OF the electric
light works, Tynan's foundry and Stubbs's
warehouse, all the larger buildings were
saved Had the fire crossed Canal street and
destroyed the cotton presses, the rice mills
and warehouses on the river front and the
cotton warehouses near the canal, the loss
would have been increased about 81, 100000
THE PANORAMA OF THE FIRE.
The leaps aud cracking of the flames, the
mingled din of shouts, tumbling walls and
battering implements, the surging mass of
spectators and fugitive tenants streets piled
high with furniture, windows giving egress
for the heterogeneous contents of hundreds
of dwellings, the rush of the firemen, their
ladders, engines and trucks and the impene-
trable volume of suffocating smoke, which
rushed skyward from the fiame-lit crater Of
the conhagration and hovered over head like
a mighty ill-omen, combined to produce a