The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1902-12-29
LAFAYETTE'S
ESCAPE
Cars Loaded With Dynamite
Discovered in Time Near
Bartlett's Burning
Building.
HAULED TO SAFETY
Fire Burns the Entire Estab-
lishment to the Ground and
Does $40, 900 Damage.

G.. V. Bartlett & Co.'s pig slaughter
house at No. 369 Phillips street, was
completely destroyed by fire in the early
hours of yesterday morning The flames
We're discovered by the night watchman.
Nicholas Sylvester, who first discovered
the fire a few minutes after midnight
through a window of the second floor.
tie endeavored to telephone to the police
by the phone in the building, but the
operators evidently did not understand
the excited Italian, and the first alarm
was given by citizen who, seeing the
blaze from the Central Railroad bridge,
almost mile away, pulled Fire Box No.
625, near where he was.
The fremen responded promptly and
were soon on the scene, although it was
hard work for the horses to pull the
heavy apparatus through the snow and
over the broken ground to the burning
building, which is located at the foot
of Phillip street and but short dis
tance from the National Storage Ware
houses. Engine Companies No. s, 8 and
10, chemical engine No. 16, truck No. 5
and the Fourth Precinct police reserves,
under Roundsman Leonard, answered the
alarm. Battalion Chief Hague was in
charge and directed the work.
WATER SCARCE.
-Four streams of water, all that was
obtainables were directed against the
flames, which, by the time the department
had arrived, had almost enveloped the
big two story frame building. Chief
Hague led a detachment of firemen from
Engine Company No. and truck No.
5 into the building. Hardly had they
entered, through door which the Chief
smashed in, when a large cupola which
was at one end of the building, toppled
over and fell with crash and roar
through the burning roof, the firemen
narrowly escaping being buried under its
ruins.
DYNAMITE NEAR BY.
The fire had been burning for about
half an hour when Chief Hague was in
formed that nine freight cars loaded with
dynamite, which was to be stored on
floats anchored in the bay near by, were
on the tracks directly in the rear of the
engine house of the burning building.
He was about to notify the railroad
officials when yard engine backed down
to the train of cars and they were taken
out of the danger zone.
Fortunately the wind was blowing
from the southwest and the flames We're
carried away from the surrounding
h,1i NH oh bodc r hoIf
o'clock the place was a roaring furnace
and impossible to save. 1t burnt until
half-past four O'Clock, when the entire
structure collapsed and fell from the
spiles on which it was built into the
marshes below.
When the fremen first arrived they
endeayored to rescue small number of
hogs which We're penned in the building,
but were unable to get to the animals
and they were roasted alive. While the
fire was in progress swarms of rats
scurried out of the building and escaped
into the nearby swamps.
Orison Mcneil, of No. 2S1 Communi-
paw avenue, the superintendent of the
abattoir, arrived at the fire shortly be-
fore two o'clock and was at a loss to
explain its cause. The building, so he
said, had no heat, and was detached
from the iron and fire proof boiler house.
No railroad engines, whose sparks might
have caused the conflagration. were near
by, and the origin of the fire is a mys-
terry
The burned building was a two-story
frame affair, about IS feet in length and
possibly $50 feet in depth. The loss was
estimated at $4,000
J. V. Bartlett & Co. have business
offices in the Commercial Trust Company
building.