Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1894-09-10
THE IRA GEDIES OF THE BURNING
FORESTS.

w
port twenty six towns in MinnesoGa
Wisconsin and Michigan devastated
by the flames. Many of these towns
are literally swept off the face of the
earth. All that is left is the blackness
of ashes to mark where they stood,
and, to complete the smile of the
poet, there is many a mother who
shrieks DER her famishing brood.
There are hundreds of hearts sadden
ed by the yet more terrible task Of
searching among the dead to ascer-
tain if, among the burned and disfg
ured bodies there may be found those
dear to them, and but a few short
hours gone instinct with life and ac
tivity. The charred wilderness will
give up it's secret grud gingly, and it
will be long time before we shall fl
nally and definitely know the number
of the victims of the flames.
Already the ascertained total is ter
rible both in numbers and in it's sug
gestions of horror. Three hundred
and twenty eight bodies have been
found in what was week ago brisk
little numbering town, Hinckley, ex-
elusive Of those dragged from the
swamp to which many fled for safety,
but which proved but caldron of
fire. Hinckley had probably more
than 1 200 inhabitants, for it had 618 in
1890 and was rapidly becoming an i'm
portant lumber shipping point. 1t is,
Or rather it was, seventy seven miles
north of ST. Paul, on the ST. Paul and
Duluth Railroad, and sixty nine from
Superior, Wis, with which it is con-
nected by the Eastern Minnesota, a
part of the Great Northern system.
To the west and north of Hinckley the
fires have been raging through the
forests for weeks past, but at that |
point the disaster entered upon it's
most striking and horrible phase. |
Starting from Hinckley as the western
INIT of the greatest intensity of the
fire it can be followed, diminishing in
destructive power, as far as Bay City,
on Saginaw Bay, Mich, O distance in
as near a right line as can be drawn
Of 475 miles, Or twenty-five miles
longer than the rail route between
Boston and st. John, N. B. The fire
is now ravaging the northeastern cor
ner Of Minnesota, the adjoining region
of Wisconsin and Michigan from
point near Ontonagon to Bay City.
Near the latter point there are great
er facilities for fighting the flames,
for the towns are larger, the country
more open, and the communities older
and better organized than in the PIN
cries of Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Forest towns like Hinckley are not
only built on clearings of great for
ests, but they are stored with vast
piles of finished lumber, menaced by
their situations and by the great
masses Of combustibles which, they
contain.
Everything concurred to make the
devastation swift and mplete. The
forests and fields had been scorched
by weeks Of drought. The many lakes
in the region which have here tofore
often set bounds to the progress of
forest fires were fair ly leapt by the
flames. One eye witness in boat on
one of these lakes, describes the mass
of flames on Sunday projecting clouds
Of sparks mile across its surface, SO
that both shores were soon blazing,
the further almost as fiercely as that
On which the fire first made it's ap-
pearance.
1t would seem as though at first
thought that the fires have we'll nigh
destroyed the white pine timber re-
serves of Wisconsin and Minnesota.
But the mayor of Superior estimates
that only about one tenth of the re-
serve pineries are being burned over,
and that is not entirely destroyed
There will be work for all able and
willing hands this fall; for the lumber
will put in armies of chop
pers to cut the standing scorched
5rees. Green trees are not burned to
4 cinder even by such fire as this.
The employment of all available labor
will in great measure help to allevi-
ate the sufferings of the homeless and
lestit ute survivors.
Food supplies and clothing are al
ready being rushed forward from the
cities, Superior, Duluth,
st. Paul and Minneapolis. There will
De no lack of bread for the starving
antilles when they can be reached by
'elief parties. Those cities which are
he wheat repositories of the country
ire pouring out food lavishly. But
,ven with their bounty there is likely
% be great need for clothing and