Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1883-08-27
rRRrsHED IN THE SMOKE.
Five Persons Lose Their Lives n Q
Burning Tenemeat House.

Bosrox, Aug. 26.
An alarm was rung in this morning for
fire in 4 tenement house, No. 6 Thatcher's
Court The house is owned BY the heirs or
Dennis Dolan and occupied by eight families
The fire spread with frightful rapidity ana
before the inmates could be taken out four
were smothered and one was fatally injured
by jumping f.om the top of the building. The
killed are George and Thomas McLaughlln,
aged IA and IL respectfully, Mrs Fred Saw
age, aged 40 years, Katie and Mamie Savage,
aged Is and II years. The cries for help
from the persons imprisoned in the flames
were heart-rending. but the people on the
street could do nothing towards saving them.
The fire department labored hard to save the
lives which we're Imperfect and to extingulsh
the flames. The flames were subdued in less
than half an hour, and the promptness and
yigor of the iremen saved the nelghborlng
houses which were mostly of wood. The
locality of the fire was one surrounded by
cheap wooden and brick tenement houses and
occupied by poor classes. John Mclaughlin,
who had a wife and six children. occupied
front tenement and attic, and Fred Savage.
wife and two girls one rear tenement. Four Of
McLaughlin's children were asleep in the attic
at the time of the fire. Himself, wife and two
girls were down stairs on the second floor,
Savage's wife and two children were in an
other attic room opposite that in which the.
Mclaughlin children were reposing. John
Savage was the first to discover the fire and
giving the alarm by yelling sprang from
window, escaping with badly injured leg.
Mclaughlin was awakened by the cries and
saved his wife and girls and succeeded
in bringing down his two boys, Willie and
James. In the second attempt to return he
was driven back.
1T n,ub1;p ornusa1 bv the
flames or the cries of the occupants,
and succeeded in reaching the roof. Canvas
was spread in the street below and he was told
by his father to jump into his arms. The boy
bravely jumped but missed the canvas and
was fatally injured. His mother, crazed with
anguish, tried three times to enter the burn
ing building to save her other boy, and re-
ceived such injuries before she could be Sc
cured that she is not expected to live. Mrs.
Fred Savage. her children, Katie and Mamie
were suffocated, and the bodies found where
they had been seleping. The fire undoubt-
eddy started in Savages apartments, and is
now believed to have been caused by kero-
sene lamp. which evidence at present attain
able indicates to have been thrown by John
Savage, who has been boarding with his
brother, at Fred. or by the latter at John.
1t is also thought John Mcintosh, who has
previously had trouble with the Savage BROTH
ers, may have had a row causing the fire, as
it is known he visited Savage's during the
night. Mcintosh, however, denies that he
was there at all. John Flynn, who slept in a
room near that occupied by the Savage's,
states that just before the fire broke out heard
some one cry, "For Gods sake don't throw
that lamp" Mcintosh and the two Savages
were arrested this forenoon to await develop
ments.
The three arrested men tell contradictory
stories, but there is little doubt in the minds
of the police that all the men were intoxicat-
ed and engaged in row when the fire caught,
and that one of them Is responsible for it.