Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1895-08-01
SUPERFLUOUS CIPHER SMELLS
THE LOSS
$4,000 INSTEAD OF $4,000
Building Burned-Insane Patients
All Escape Injury but the Superin-
tendent Unfortunately Fails to
Fare as Well.
Madison. July %.

luIeV7SloIS DulIuluSS uSeu u. bdue
county at its farm in Verona for
chronic insane involves a loss of about
$4,000, with no insurance. The loss
is happily much smaller than the first
reports (wherein an extra cypher got
into $4,000, thus making the loss $780,
600 led the public to suppose The
particular structure consumed was fin
iShed last summer at a cost of $4,000
and is total loss. Damage to sur
roundings and especially To the ada
cent building where the insane pa
tents slept aggregates $4,000 more.
The injuries Of Louis 2. Edwin, su-
perintendent of the farm, are more Sc
we're than at first thought. Besides
the fracture of his right arm, he suss-
tanned very serious internal injuries
the ultimate result Of which cannot
be determined. Since the accident he
has been delirious at times and during
the night was kept under the influence
Of quieting medicines. Dr.. Jayne, of
Verona, happened to be at the fire and
attended Mr.. Edwin. He fell about
% feet from the roof of the west cor
ridor which connected the old and new
buildings. At the time he was fight
ing the flames and doing what he could
to prevent the fire from reaching the
old bailding. The roof was slanting
and very slippery from water. He
struck the ground on his right side
and back. Willing hands tenderly bore
him to his residence in the poor-house,
some rods from the asylum. His wife
was soon at his side and remained
with him the rest of the night.
The building burned was large
three-Story brick edifice used mainly
for dining, cooking and laundry pur-
poses besides containing a large as
sembly room and a hospital. 1t was
connected with the old building by
two covered corridors about forty or
fifty feet in length. Between them
was an open space about 40 feet
square In this open space stood
windmill and beneath that was large
wooden tank. Shortly before IL
o'clock during a terrific rain storm
there was a sharp flash of lightning
followed by deafening roar of thun-
der. Immediately the wooden frame
of the windmill was all ablaze. An at
tendant at once telephoned to Super
in1endent Edwin who was just about
ito get into bed. Hastily slipping on
his trousers he ran from the poor
house, some little distance away, to
the doomed building which even in
that short space of time was beginning
to be encroached upon by the spread
ing flames. Mrs. Edwin, who was in
bed when the alarm was first given,
dressed quickly and followed her hus-
band. They first directed their atten-
ton to rescuing the eight inmates of
the burning structure, one being a. girl
who has been seriously i'll for several
days After this was done the insane
and other inmates of the old building
were removed to places Of safety.
They were huddled in the yard while
the furniture, bed clothing, etc, were
carried out. Then the unfortunates
were made as comfortable as possible
with blankets and kept under sur
VIGILANCE.
the big alarm bell on the farm was
rung and it's wild sound at that time
of night soon aroused the whole village
of Verona as we'll as the farmers of
the surrounding territory who fiocked
to the scene indicated by the flames
that lit up the sky roundabout. A tele
gram was sent to Madison for assist
ance. Chief Bernard soon had an en-
CINE and a hose cart aboard a North
western fat car and Engineer Andy
Gleason pulled open the throttle Of en-
CINE 361, as District Superintendent
r. A. Cowan signalled all right. That
was 1 O'Clock and in a remarkably
short time Verona was reached. The
fire had been burning over two hours
and a glance was enough to show that
little good could be done. The flames
were then licking up the last of the
wooden easements and portions of che
walls were failing. However the
hose was stretched and a stream was
soon playing upon the walls. The fire
engine was not unloaded. The train
stopped over the pond beneath the
track, the feed pipe was thrown off
into the water and the engine started
A stream was projected upon the walls
until the flames were wholly extin-
guished. The train then pulled into
Verona station, the locomotive at
tached to the other end of the train,
which consisted of the fiat car and a
coach, and the run back to Madison
was made. The hose was picked up at
the crossing on the return trip Madi-,
son was reached about 4:3O a. N.
Besides Chief Barnard and Engineer
W. II. Howe, the fremer who made
the trip were Fred Weiser, ORR Farm
ger, Hiram Nelson, Edward Winters,
Herman Scheibel, John B. Drives, Jr.
William Seeler, Orrin Felland and Roy
W. Gets. While stretching the hose
Felland stepped on a nail which
pierced his rubber boot and run into
his foot, leaving a very painful and ,
severe wound.
The county house people and the citi- ,
zens of Verona did good work while ,
the fire was young in cutting down '
and pulling away the two wooden cor {
'idors connecting the old and the few /
buildings. Had it not been for this the t
Did building would undoubtedly have
burned also and loss of life would al
most surely have resulted. Another
fortunate thing was the TACT that the