The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-01-07
Teachers and Pupils Make Frantic Efforts
to Escape, but Twenty Seven of the
Inmates Meet Fiery Death.
Eleven Bodies Recovered and the Sad
Search Still in Progress.
Heavy Losses by Fire in st. Louis, Cleveland,
Chicago, and Wheeling Minor Fires
at Other Points.
DISASTER AT BELLEVILLE.


Twenty-seven Teachers and Pupils Perish
in a Burning Convent.
BELLEvILLE, H., Jan. 6.--At l o'clock last
night fire originated in the Institute of the
Immaculate Conception of the Sisters of
Notre Dame, this city, and in mirac
ulously short period of time nearly the
tire building-a huge three-story brick-was
wrapped in rushing, roaring fame An alarm
was sounded Immediately upon the outbreak
of the fire, and the local fire department
responded quickly. but the efforts of the
were comparatively futile, owing to the absence
of extension ladders and all means of reach
ing the upper stories of the building. A
scene of the widest excitement and horror
was presented. Between sixty and seventy
five persons, mostly girls and women, were
in the academy, and the greater part of them
were still asleep when the fire had mounted
to the top of the building The flames sped up
ward with the swiftness of perpendicular pow
der train. A strong, biting wind was blowing
from the northwest, and the bitter cold
of the night made the calamity only more ter
rible. Huge serpentine-like tongues of fame
enveloped the entire building almost quicker
than thought, and the cracking roar of hungry
flames, mingled with the screams of the women
and girls, frantic in their efforts to escape, to-
gether with the shouts of the fremen and the
shrieks of the townspeople, who had turned
out of their beds en- masse, produced an uproar
utterly ndescribable in its horrible confusion
At the windows of the burning building the
crazed with terror, shrieked piteously for help,
while all human assistance seemed impossible.
On either side the streets for blocks were
thronged with people, anguish stricken at the
fearful calamity, and at the same time almost
spellbound by the overwhelming grandeur of
the awful spectacle.
Hardly an hour passed from the beginning
of the confagration until the spot on which the
magnificent institute building had stood was
marked only by one great seething redhot
mass of ruins. 'A re8as E-l
The fire is said to have started in the rear of
the third story, which was used as dormitory
An attempt was made by the sisters to extin-
guish it, but this failing, efforts were made to
remove the pupils. The flames spread so rapidly
however, that order could be preserved A
panic seized both children and sisters and there
was wild, confused rush to escape. Forty
more pupils are known to have got out or were
taken from the building and given shelter in
jumped from windows and were either killed or
badly injured. Miss Mary Campbell a teacher
of East St Louis, leaped from the third
story and died in few minutes. Another name
not ascsrtained, climbed to the roof of the
portico and either fell or was blown off and
fatally injured Among the others
injured by jumping Daisy Eber-
man, residence four miles from Belle
vile; Agnes Schneider and Lou Matt East
St Louis; Fanny Renker, Washington, Mo.
Sister Reparata, Sister Stylighta, Sister
Manussa, and fifteen to twenty smaller pupils;
also, Sister Mary Jerome, the Lady Superior,
were missing at a late hour last night, and it was
feared some of them perished in the building.
Parents rushed frantically around searching for
their missing children, and wailing over their
supposed loss
Another report says the fire started from
furnace in the basement, and this seems the
most probable explanation, as the flames spread
upward, cutting off most of the exits, and com
pelling some of the pupils and sisters to leap
from the windows
A later dispatch says the bodies of twenty two
pupils and five teachers including the Mother
Superior have been either recovered or are
1-,,o 90 ho,, 41o,