The Butte inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1901-1912, 1901-06-22
TWENTY.0NE LIVES ARE LOST
THROUGH FIRE AND TORNADO
Explosion in Store at Paterson, N. j.,
Starts a Blaze That Ends
in Death.
DESTRUCTION IN A TENEMENT
Fourteen Men, Women and Children
Are Cremated or Dashed to r.
Their Doom.
(By Associated Fress.)

New York, June 22-Fourteen persons
We're killed and a number injured yester-
day as the result of fire following All
explosion among a quantity of fireworks
in the store of Abraham NJ. Rittenberg
at Paterson, N. J.
The store was on the ground floor of a
tenament building. The cause of the ex-
plosion is not known and the property
loss will not exceed $35, 900. The bodies;
already found are:
MRS. LUCINDA ADAMSON.
MRS. CHARLES WILLIAMS. burned
while trying to rescue husband.
CHARLES VILLAINS, helpess Grip
pie, BILE to leave bed.
HAROLD R1TTENBERG, 10 months
old, child Of the keeper of the fireworks
store
WILLIE ELsAssER, six weeks old;
mother kept baker shop.
MRS. BERT RAMBER, whose husband
is in the hospital. h
-RAMBLER, 6 months old.
MRS. ANDREW ELvIN, head only
found, trunk missing.
MRS. ANN BURNS.
CLARENCE, 6 years old, found clasped
in his mothers arms.
MRS. ANNIE LANNIGAN.
MRS. MARY DUFFY.
The building in which the explosion oc-
occurred was a frame tenement, four
stories high. with stores on the ground
floor.
The middle store was occupied by Rit-
tenberg. Ten families occupied fats in
the building. SO great was the force Of
the explosion that a boy playing in the
street half block away was lifted from
his feet and hurled against an iron fence.
one of his legs being broken.
| A, trolley car was directly in front of
the building when the explosion occurred.
The burst of flame blown out into the
street scorched the side of the car and
singed the hair of the passengers.
A number of those who were on the
upper floors of the building when the
explosion took place We're either stun
ned and then burned to death or found
their escape cut off and We're suffoca ted.
After the first explosion there was a
! succession of smaller ones. and then
came second big explosion which was
muffled and deadened and probably oc-
CURED in the cellar.
Every window seemed to be emitting
flames within minute after the first
explosion. woman, with her clothing
on fire. leaped out of one of the windows
and fell to the yard below.
Her dead body was dragged out of
reach of the flames, but the flesh was
roasted and dropped from the bones. She
later proved to be Mrs. Williams.
Mrs. Williams husband was cripple.
His wife is supposed to have remained
longer than she could with safety in an
effort to save him. He was found burn
ed to a crisp in his bed.
Some of the occupants of the rooms
bruised. Others hung from the VIM
dows until the firemen came, and twenty
persons We're taken down in this way
through the fire and smoke by the fire.
men, While others dropped into life nets.
Daniel Dooley, who was in the yard
when the explosion took place, saw the
two Rittenberg children in the rear room
annd rushed into the flames for them.
He got one of them and carried it our
and tried to go back for the other, bur
the room was then one mass of fire and
( he was too late. He was badly scorched
in rescu. ing the first child.
While the rescues were going on the
firemen were fighting the flames. Captain
Allen led with a hose line in an effort to
keep the fire from the upper floors, where
it was said many were penned in.
The men had hardly taken their posi-
tions and begun on the sidewalk to throw
water into the upper floors when. with
out any warning the whole upper part OF
the building above them sagged outward
and fell.
The captain and two of his men We're
buried under the blazing debris. One OF
the men is severely hurt.
Rittenberg will probably be arrested
pending an investigation.