Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1903-11-02
Is LIVES LOST
In Fire in Large Tenement
House in New York.
Men and Women Fought Eachother in
Trying to Reach Windows.
Heroic Work of Firemen Saved Many
Other Lives.


and three women and 10-months-old
Ibabe were burned to death or sutfocated
in a fire that started, early this morn
ing, in the tive-story tenement house at
No. 426 18th avenue, and which the po-
lice and coroner believe to have been
of incendiary origin.
Some of the peculiar features of the
disaster, in addition to the startling
loss of life, are that the fire was prac
tically eXtinguished in 20 minutes, that
the police could learn of but one person
being injured, other than those who
lost their lives, and that the. property
| loss was only $1,000. The dead were
mostly Italians.
! The only person injured. so far as
can be learned, is Mary Jane Quinn,
| Al years of age, who was burned about
the face and hands and severely bruised
| by leaping from the second floor fire
| escape to the ground.
Iii several apartments in the tene-
ment Halloween parties were in prog
| ress and the guests at these added
greatly to the number of persons in
the house and made the crush and jam
| to escape more than it ordinarily would
have been. Although plentifully pro-
vded with fire csca pes, front and rear,
escape here was cut off a few minutes
ltter the fire started by the bodies of
The dead becoming wedged in the open
'nes leading to The ladders. The fire
BAD becn burning for some minutes be
Gre it was discovered. 1t had started
Il the basement and rushing upward,
had attacked the stairway leading to
he apartments In a short space of
lime the flames had SO enveloped the
;tairways that egress from the build
ng by it was impossible. The house
i ON the third to the fifth floor was
-ntirely Destroyed.
At the windows, front and rear,
bodies of men and women were damned,
showing that desperate struggle to
ret free had resulted in the complete
hooking of these exits to the fire es-
apes and had been the cause of a
lumber of the inmates being suffocated.
Perhaps the most tragic sight was that
which the firemel saw on bed along
tide a window at the rear of the fourth
foor, where were the bodies of five
nen. Each had clutched the one next
10 him in an endeavor to push him
| way in order to get to the fire escape
| outside. The features CT the men were
distorted, some with rage, others with
| ngony, and in two instances the men
| lad gripped each other so hard that
| blood had been drawn and had run over
| heir hands.
On the third floor We're found the
| bodies Of Maculeta Winpiguerro and her
badly The mother had crawled to the
| front window and had succeeded in
srasping the sill when she was suffo-
ated. IN her arms lay the body of her
| HID On the third floor in an apart
| nent where a Halloween party was
| being held. John O'Toolc, one of the oc-
| upants, started to go to the street. He
| was met by volume of smoke as he
| opened the door. He ran to the fire es-
| ape, followed by all those in the fat,
with the exception of his mother, whose
| .harred body was found later lying at
| he entrance to the apartment. O'Toole
| md the others escaped.
When the fire men reached the scene,
a mass of flame was bursting through
! he middle of the roof while the air
| was filed with heartrendinE screams Of
| The women and the curses of the men.
| Many daring resCues were made by the
| iremen who at times bad to use vio-
lence in their attempts to disentangle
he mass Of writhing human beings
| struggling to reach safety from the
| roWded fire escape. One fireman
| climbed up q ladder to the second floor
| md then mounted to the window sill on
| the fourth floor to where 4 window was
| filed with Il mass of people, jammcd in
and fighting to got out. He struck the
I H. ...t-