Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-03-04
THESPIANS IN A FIRE
JOHN CoNLEY, COMEDIAN, LEAPS
TO HIS DEATH.

| CHESTER, Pa, March As the result
| Of one of the worst fires that has visited
! this city in years, and which destroyed
| the Hotel Arcade, 9th street and Edgmont
| avenue, at an early hour yesterday morn
| ing, one man is dead, one woman is dying
| and several other persons members OF a
! theatrical company, are patients in Chester
! Hospital under treatment for burns and
! other injuries
The dead:
John Conley, Philadelphia, comedian with
the Vanity Fair Extravaganza Company,
jumped from a thrd-story window.
The injured:
Mrs. Lillian Watson. Elmira, N. Y, men,
| Der of same company, burns of body and
| limbs: condition critical.
Fred Reed Boston, comedian, Vanity Fair
| Company, burned and suffering from shock
and inhalation of smoke.
Ella Reed, wife of Fred Reed suffering
! from shock and slight burns.
| Ernest Shaw Boston, burned hand
The fire was attended by many thrilling
rescues and escapes. There were twenty
| four guests and the members of the family
| of Thos. Hargreaves, proprietor of the
hotel, in the building when the fire broke
| out.
Baltimore Girls Escapes.
| Miss Bonnie Douglass and Miss Adele
| Hardy of Baltimore were guests and had
| narrow escapes from death, being rescued
when the flames were about to envelop
| them.
So quickly did the flames gain Roadway
that none of the guests had time to save
| any personal belongings, all escaping at
tired only in their night clothing
The origin of the fire is a mystery.
Shortly after 3 o'clock George Bartlett, a
performer at the Family Theater, was
awakened by smoke. Accusing his wife,
they hurriedly dressed and, going out into
the hallway, discovered the entire third
floor in flames At the same time Mr.. Har-
greaves was awakened and tried to send
in an alarm over the telephone, but was
forced to rush down stairs with his wife
and daughter.
off by the stairway, tied blankets together
and swung to the roof of the Morning Re-
publican building, adjoining.
In the meantime the other guests of the
hotel, the majority of whom were members
of the Vanity Fair company chorus, awak-
ened to find themselves hemmed in by
flames, and being unable to descend to the
lower floor, had gone to the windows, and
leaning outward with the fire sweeping over
them, screamed for assistance. In response
to an alarm turned in at 3:29 o'clock by a
pedestrian all the local fire companies were
soon on the scene.
A Thrilling Rescue.
Mrs. Lillian Watson, wife of the property
man of the theatrical company, cIasping
her eight-months-old baby to her breast and
shielding it from the flames, had made her
way to rear side window of the building,
where, becoming exhausted and partly over
come by the smoke, she held the infant out
from the SILL
James Kamin, procuring ladder, ascend
ed to the roof of the building adjoining,
crossed over and carried the woman and
baby to the adjoining and then tn q
home, from where she was sent to the Ches-
ter Hospital
Fred Reed, his wife and two children, who
occupied rooms on the third story, also fig
| ured in a startling rescue, using blankets to
swing his loved ones to safety.
Ernest Shaw of Boston leaped outward
full eight feet, grasped guide wire and
| slid to the sidewalk. Then Conley, who was
| an occupant of the front room, jumped but
| missed the guide wire and dropped with ter
rible force to the sidewalk. He died at the
Chester Hospital. The loss of the hotel
building. fixtures and furnishings is esti-
al $40