Daily new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1897-1906, 1900-10-30


that includes the Royal hotel fire, the
Park place disaster and the Windsor
and Hobollen fires. was added to by
the fire and explosion that shook the
lower end of Manhattan like an earth.
quake, hurled a seyen-story building
into the air. and set fire to two blocks
of buildings, with a loss of life that
only the efforts of the hundreds Of
men who were rushed to the work
oil digging away the ruins as soon as
the fire was eXtinguished will re-
veal
Number of Lives Lost Unknown.
The loss of life Is not known. but
from al sources of information it is
gathered that there are perhaps the
bodies of 30 persons in the ruins, be-
cause of the debris and the slowness
of the moving of it.
Chief Croker, of the fire department,
said that the loss is fully 81 100000
There are 30 persons reported miss
ing and 100 men, women and children
are or the list of the injured.
The big building of Tarrant q Co,
makers of medicinal specialties, stand.
ing at the northwest corner of Green.
witch and Warren streets, and filled
with chemicals, took fire in some way
that may never be known.
A citizen rushed into the house Of
fire engine 20, on Chambers street,
near Greenwich, and shouted that
Tarrants drug house was on fire
He had seen volume of black smoke
coming from the thirdstory win
dow. An alarm was turned in. Soon
afterward second and third alarms
were turned in One fire company
had Just arrived when a terrific ex-
ploson occurred and threw the en-.
tire engines crew down the stair
way. The firemeE, realizing the dan
ger of their position, rushed out of
the building to the street The ex-
plosion had filed the street in front
with shower of falling glass and
small debris, which sent the crowd,
which was already gathering on the
opposite sidewalks. fleeing for safety
and caused the horses hitched to the
engines to rear and try to get away.
Engineer Rocksbury was unfasten-
ing the horses and Fireman Brown, of
the company, was turning the safety
valve of the engine, when the eXplo.
sion occurred and covered them with
shower of glass. Both were injured,
as was another fireman belonging to
the company.
Captain Devanney. of the company,
ordered his crew back into the build.
ing again. They We're dragging the
line to the doorway for the second
time when another explosion, more
terrific than the first, came, and the
whole crew was hurled across Green
witch street, Devanney being so badly
injured that he was sent to Il hos
pital.
In the meantime the other engines
that had responded to the alarm had
collected and the firemen were busy
rescuing people from surrounding
buildings. Firemen had already
taken many girls down the only fire
escape upon the building and more
persons had been carried down the
escapes Of the Home Made restaurant,
next door. and the buildings adjoin-
ing upon Warren street
First Taken As IA Warming
The second explosion occurred about
five minutes after the first. From
the accounts of witnesses, the build.
ing seemed to leap into the air, and in
a moment masses of brick wall tim.
bers and stone were falling into the
streets. The force of the explosion
tore away the walls of the big commits.
sion storehouses fronting on Wash
ington street and caused them to col
lapse, falling all at once in a mass
of timbers, boxes and barrels. from
which the flames, which burst out
from the Tarrant building like the
belching of cannon, mt once broke
forth.
Across Warren street to the oppo-
site buildings the flames leaped set
ting them ali afire at once, the force
of the explosion demolshing windows
and all wooden structures about the
houses. In moment Warren street
was choked up with a mass of debris
and the whole place was afame.
The great explosion was followed
by half a dozen more, scarcely less in
tense, and by a countless number of
smaller ones.
BY this time the fire apparatus was
arriving from every direction. Dep
uty Chief Ahearn came about two
minutes after the second series of ex-
plosions and he at once ordered a
fifth alarm sent out, followed by a
general call for ambulances.
1t was at first thought that hun
dreds of lives had been lost Throngs
of people were rushing about in the
nearby streets. many of them panic
stricken, fleeing from the fire. They
mingled in the crowd that was rush
Ing down from Broadway to see what
had happened.
The second explosion carried destruc-
ton in every direction That it did
not cause wholesale loss Of life
was due to the fact that almost 10
minutes warning came after the first
cry of fire. Just after the outbreak
Of fire from the windows of the build
Ing downtown bound train stopped
at the Warren street station of the
Ninth avenue elevated road. It
passed on In time to escape the ex.