The Holly chieftain., 1900-07-06
IMMENSE FIRE AT
HOBOkEN DOCKS
Three Big Steamships Wholly Dssroysd
with Great Loss of Life.


New York. July almost $4,000
000 worth of property was destroyed,
many lives lost. many persons were IN
1ured and 1t least $50 lives imper1ed
by fire that started among cotton
bales under Pier No. 3, of the North
| German Lloyd Steamship Company, IN
Hoboken, n j., at o'clock, Saturday
afternoon.
In less than fifteen minutes the
flames covered an area Of a quarter OF
q mile long. extending outward rom
I the actual short line TO the bulE-heads,
from six hundred TO one thousand rect
away. and had caught four great ocean
liners and q dozen or more smaller
harbor craft in its grasp.
The losses sustained in the IRE are
tonight conseryatively placed at near
ly $4,000, coo. The loss Of life merely
| guess work at even this late hour, will
reach probably as high as 200. and
there are over 300 men in the hospitals
In this city, Hoboken and Jersey City,
badly burned.
Up to Ia o'clock tonight eighteen
bodies have been recovered. Eleven Of
these were placed in row at the
morgue in This city and were number
ed, this being the only means the au-
thorides have OF maintaining any sort
| Of identity over the corpses, as they
| are SO badly charred and dismember-
ed that identification will be made on
ly by trinkets or pieces Of clothing that
were found about the bodies. The on
ly way the steamship officials have Of
approximating the loss of life is by
comparing the list Of those reported
safe with the list of the employees on
the steamships.
A spectacular but horrible sight was
presented to-day. Where two days ago
piers reached hundreds Of feet out In.
to the river and rose like great hills
alive with outgoing and incoming com
merce, lay a great waste of burning
and smouldering beams, with here and
there remnant of high brick wall.
The three immense piers of the North
! German Lloyd line We're burned to
tn waters ripple, the Thingvalla pier
lay smouldering and a part of the
Hamburg-American pier, which had
Just been added to their great piers
were ruins. Four large store houses
of the Palmer Campbell company are
wrecked. and they, with the piers, went
to make up the appalling mass Of de-
bris, smoking. sizzling and steaming.
1t covers over four city blocks, and
reaches out into the river for over
thousand feet. Streams of water are
being pumped upon the ruins and
woEkmen are poking about for bodies.
This was the scene of the greatest
attraction to-day and thousands upon
thousands of people went there. The
streets were jammed.
| Far off, up the North river at Wee
hawken, a great cloud Of smoke rose
and tumbled, ut one moment on the
water and the next rising just enough
| to show the skeletons of two Of the
great ocean liners, the Bremen and the
Maine, that rose like giant spires out
Of the smooth face of the water. They
had been beached there. Around them
swarmed n fleet of small boats carry
Ing ssgntseers.
Far down the river, off Ellis island,
lay the smoking and steaming hulk Of
the Saale, almost a total wreck.
The loss of life will probably prove
greatest when the wreck of the Saale
has been searched. Already number
of bodies have been taken of, and as
soon as the fire in the hold has subsid-
ed there is every possibility that many
bodies will be found below decks.
Various tugboat captains claim to
have seen thirty or forty persons In one
compartment just before the Saale
went down.
OF the 266 persons reported missing
tonight II is believed some will be
found in sailors boarding houses In
this city, Jersey City and Hoboken.
The North German Lloyd officials
deny that any passengers were lost, de-
| cleare that few, II any, visitors perish
ed, and that the loss of life was almost
entirely among employees of the COM
pany.
The fearful havoc to life and proper
ty caused by the fire which broke out
at the docks of the North German
Lloyd company in Hoboken yesterday
cannot be approximated with any de-
| gree Of certainty. Conservative people
who have had experience along the
docks are of the opinion that not more
than 200 lives were lost. One of the
officers of the steamship Bremen said
to-day that there were fully 200 visit
| ors on board that vessel when the fire
touched there, the majority Of them be-
ing women. A boat was lowered from
the Bremen shortly after the alarm had
been given, but the craft capsized as 1t
| touched the water and all hands were
precipitated into the water and none
Of them We're saved by those remaining
on the vessel. This in itself would in
| dictate that the list of dead may be
larger than it was at first thought.
| The property loss can simply be ap-
proximated at this time. None Of the
Officially around the docks could give
| anything like precise estimate Of
their losses, and none was prepared to
make statement on this point. A con-
servative estimate made by promi-
nent fire underwater places the entire