The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1885-02-20
AN ASYLUM HORROR.
Many LunaticS Burned to Death
in Philadelphia.
Unable to Help Themselves, They
Perish in the Flames,

Many raving manacs were burned to death
in the insane department at Blockley aims
house, Philadelphia, in a conhagration which
needed nothing to make it the most hor-
rible disaster of the kind ever known in
the history of the city. The fire origin
| ated in the wing of the old building
of the insane department which fronts
toward the Schuylkill river and directly
east of the main building of the almshouse
In the north building where the fire broke
out there were sixty separate cells for violent
patients-twenty on each floor. In addition to
this there was large room on each of the three
floors in which cots for twelve men were
! placed, all of which were occupied when the
fire broke out.
AT the time there were insane patients in
! each of the twenty cells on these three floors
ten in the larger room of the first floor and
twelve in each of the large rooms on the sec
ond and third floors.
From all the conflicting accounts to be OBJ
tanned it appears pretty certain that the first
| alarm was given by an insane patient on the
first floor OF the main building. This man,
| joseph Nadine, occupied a room adjoining the
stairway and the drying room with about
| O'Clock he saw smoke issuing from above
| the door which opened into the wing
in which the cells were situated He ran to
| the big iron CRATE door fronting on the main
corridor of the building and cried out Fire.
| This fearful sound reached the ears of joseph
| Shredder, the attendant of the ground floor
who was in his room directly opposite the one
| from which Nadine had given the alarm
Attendant Shredder thus relates somes of
the horrors Of the dreadful night: "As soon
as | heard Madness cry | rushed to the foot
of the stairway, and after q short attempt to
check the fire, at once set to work t. yet out
the patients First | unlocked the door of the
| room in which Nadine and his companions
were They ran out at onco. BY this time
the flames were gathering in fury, and dense
volumes of smoke We're ascending into the
| upper stories. | succeeded in unlocking the
doors of all the cells on the first floor and al
though with difficulty i'll some cases, in get
| ting all the inmates out | had no time to
look after them further than to run them
into the yard, for the flames were get
| ting SO fierce that it was almost
! impossible to breathe in the now ferccly
burning building. The smoke in the upper
stories was 50 thick that breathing was I'M
| possible. While ! was getting the men out
below, the attendant, William Strain, was
doing the same for the inmates of tbs second
| floor. | met Mr. Hanna, the night wat h
man, who was also helping, and we went up
TO the third story, but were driven back by
the flames, which had forced
their way through the stairway and
We're creeping along to the cells of the doomed
inmates. We ran around to the other stair
way, near the new buildings on the west and
by that time some fitemen had arrived. All
the inmates had been gotten out Of the second
story, 50 that there remained about twenty
eight on the third floor, twenty in the cells
and eight i'll the large common room on the
west end
"Thc unfortunate occupants of the cells
were being smothered to death by the smoke
and perhaps blistered and burned by the
| flames Their cries We're heartrending. Some
of them cursed and swore, others lnuyLe,l
heedessly, ana Others yelled with pain. with
such awful cries as would have aDuallad the
hardest heart The firemen, myself and Il
patient named Rafferty,, crawled on our hands
and knees to such of the men as we could reach
and dragged out fourteen, eight of them i've,
four suirocated to death and two 50 horribly
burned that they died before we could yet
them out of the building. We could not see
any of the men in the cells OF course, but
could hear their horrible cries above the roar
ing of the flames as they came to realize what
a horrible fate was in store for them
While Shredder was going through this
terrible experience the flames were extending
to the main building Of the department. The
wing in which the victims We're being burned
alive was wrapped in flames, winch were
shooting many feet into the air and illuminate
ing the city.
At midnight twenty-seven deal hodie;
had been taken out, and it was then estimated
by the superintendent that the death list
would foot up TO sevcnty-five The fire was
IN full blast before an alarm was sounded.
Each one of the Go inmates seem Il TO l.,
driven wild, and no words could d.s rbg
their actions. There were no women in tn
new wing, and not many sic; men in the
hospital wards The women occupied
rooms ana cells in the main hous,
fronting on the hollow square, and
except those VINO We're locked in all were re,-
cueL Nearly all tho lives We're l1st in thu
immediate nciThburhoOl of the stairway. at
the foot Of which the fire started. No !v,,
We're lost on the lir-t and not more than Aai
a dozen on the second floor, but few O. I'll,
inmates of the room, and cells on the third
floor, and the junction of the buildings. e.
capped. The open shaft surrounded hy tn.
stairs, formed perfect draughtWay through
which the flames fairly raised to the upper
part of the house
The G7G inmates who were turned out of
the various wards were, as far as possible,
and MS soon as could be- provided for in the
out wards and other parts of the almshOuSe.
Many of them, however escaped into the city
and wandered about the streets, where som.
We're captured by the police and either returned
to the institution or locked up in the station
houses. The bulk of them were taken to tho
hospital and large number We're placed in
the clinical lecture room of the hospital The
women were slowed about the hospital as fan
as possible, and all were finally cared for.
Among the dead is James Burke, who killed
three of the inmates Of the institution in the
twenty-five years he was confined there
For twenty years his hands were chained 10
his body. Herriges, another victim, was the
man who was discovered in 1870 in a Phil
adelphla shanty, where he had been confined
III chains by his parents for twenty years