Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1900-07-05

mun1CaLG Co SEGa"CIS IAOA ~ ~NNO~SO
the Piers-Oeath List Placed at Near
1y $50 and the Monetary Loss at
S15.OOO,OOO - Victims Entombed In
the Blazing Hu11s.
With loss of probably 800 lives and
the destruction Of property valued at
nearly SIS, 100000, the entire pier system
of the North German Lloyd Steamship
Company at Hoboken, n. j., was burned
Saturday by q fire originating among
bales of cotton. The magnificent ocean
liners Main, Saale and Bremen were de-
stroyed by the flames and the peerless
Kaiser Wilhelm der Crosse was scorched
and only was snatched from the blazing
piers and shifted into midstream by the
liveliest kind of work.
Starting where cotton bales and OIL bar
rels were stored on pier of the North
German Lloyd Steamship Company, the
flames swept over five acres Of piers, de-
stroyed the FIVE large Campbell ware
houses near by and attacked the ocean
steamers lying at the piers. Three Lloyd
steamers, the new Bremen, the Saale,
survivor of many misfortunes, and the
freighter Main, were burned down to the
water line. The great steamer Kaiser
Wilhelm der Crosse, pride of the Lloyd
line and the second largest steamer
afioat, was seriously burned, while the
Phoenicia of the Hamburg American line
was damaged and a score of lighters and
harbor vessels were destroyed.
How Lives Were Lost.
Fully fifteen hundred people were
working on the piers and the vessels
when the fire began. There were the
'longshoremen removing and loading car
goes, the sailors on the vessels, and even
a number of passengers on one ship
which had just arrived. Cut off from
shore by walls of fire, driven off the piers
into the water, cooped UP in cabins from
which the sky could be seen through mar
row portfolios but no rescue could be had,
hundreds of persons met fearful deaths.
NobodZ. will ever know how great the
numbe is
SulpS, piers anu WAREHOUSES; WC1C Oh
burning within nine minutes from the
start Of the fire. Then when the engines
and fire tugs came they were powerless
to put limit to the flames. Not till a
pier Of the Hamburg American line was
blown up by dynamite was the fire under
control. The Kaiser Wilhelm der Crosse
was saved by cutting the cables that
bound her to the pier and towing her up
stream. Then the Saale and the Bremen,
one mass of fierce flames which licked
up masts and tunnels, the other with fire
bursting from every part of the super
structure were towed down stream. The
Saale carried many imprisoned men in
her hull, and the Bremen was known to
have seventeen men still alive at the
pumps, but no power on earth could res
cue them. The Main could not be freed
and burned at the pier.
Water and fire combined to make one
of the most fearful scenes Of destruction
Of human life that New York has ever
witnessed. The black column Of smoke
rolled straight to the east, where it was
visible still in a single mass seventy miles
away. Tens Of thousands of people lined
the banks of the river to witness the
awful spectacle. The hospitals in New
York, Hoboken and Jersey City were
crowded with the injured and men were
being brought in by scores.
An Awful Spectacle.
Those who gathered along the shores of
the Hudson river to witness the great
conhagration saw a spectacle that they
can never forget and one that always
will have a conspicuous place in the his
tory Of New York. River and bay were
enveloped IN a pail of black smoke,
through which angry flames, bursting as
from volcanoes, on the Jersey shore and
in the water itself leaped like red spheres
into the sky. The surface of the water
was covered with floating and blazing
masses of freight, thrown in haste from
the doomed vessels-all unnoticed in the
mad race to rescue more precious human
life being sacrificed in the great ships.
And through the pail of. smoke a great
crimson sun, enlarged to thrice its size
by the haze, glared like an enormous eye
as it slowly sunk in the west. Such was
the tremendous spectacle presented on
the surface Of the Hudson river, as if it
had been some holiday pageant.
The greatest loss of life appears to
have been on the Saale. She carried 45O
people and was to have sailed for Bos-
ton during the afternoon. When the po-
lice boat captain went aboard Of her with
his rescue party he saw bodies lying all
about the deck. The steamship Bremen
carried crew of 800 men, the Main 25O.
The burning or smoldering remains Of
canal boats, lighters and barges were
scattered all the way down the river and
bay to Staten Island and Governors
Island. Each of these craft added some
thing to the list of the dead.
News of Minor Note.
The natives In Gambia Colony, West
Africa, have risen against the British.
Chief Justice Judd. Hawaii. is dead