The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1909-04-16
CAUGHT N BUILDING
SIX PERSONS PERISH
LIKE RATS IN TRAP
FIRE At LERox. MAssAcHU.
SETS. DESTROYS LIFE AND
PROPERTY.
CAUSED BY COMBUSTION
Young Woman Climbed Out on veran-
dan And Leaped 70 Sidewalk 5e.
tow-Met Horrible Desth-Four
Blocks 5urn.

BLOCKS 5AfUs
LEMON. Mass. April i2--Six per-
! sons lost their lives. three others we're
badly burned ana a property loss of
Ibetweer~s2oo.OOO and 100000 was
caused By a IRE IN the heart OF the
business section OF this town early
sunday.
Four business blocks, two dwellings
and two other structures were de-
stroyed in a section bounded by
Franklin. Main. Housatonic and
Church streets
The IRE is believed to have started
in the Clifford Building from spon-
taneous combustion The dead;
EDWARD c. yENTREss. electri-
clan.
MRS. EDWARD C. yENTREss.
| MISS LESLIE vENTREss. aged IL
years.
/ MISS ALICE FRENCH, bookkeeper.
| MISS ISABEL COOK, bookkeeper.
! MISS MARY SPARKS. school
teacher.
The injured are: Mrs. Catherine
Root and her two sons. George and
Arthur. severely burned.
The loss Of life occurred in the Cliff
ford Building, where the blaze start
ed and resulted primarily from series
of explosions among the turpentine,
paints, oils and dynamite stored in
the cellar of the James Clifford &
Sons Company. hardware dealers.
| The fire was discovered by George
Root. who lived with his mother and
brother in the upper story of the
building, a three-story structure, short
ly after O'Clock Sunday morning.
Hastily calling his mother and
brother, all ran down stairs in their
night clothes. shouting to the other
occupants of the upper floors as they
went. They found the front door In
flames, but the men wrenched it open
and dashed through with their mother
between them. All sustained bad
burns
The Roots had barely crossed the
street before there was a terrific ex-
plosion in the building behind them,
which shattered windows within a
wide radius and caused fire alarm to
ring. In an instant the Clifford block
was wrapped in flames.
Horace Perrill and his wife, other
occupants of the top floor, aroused by
| the shouts of the Roots, had gotten
half way down the front stairs when
they saw the flames leaping up the
stairs to bar their exit. Three women
were below them trying to get out
through the front door, but Perrill
| saw the attempt by that time was use
| less. He then rushed his wife
through a long corridor to the back
stairs. where he got out in safety. All
the other occupants of the Clifford
block lost their lives.
The death of Miss Alice French
was one of the pitiful tragedies OF the
morning. While the fire was at Its
height a woman was seen to climb
ont of a fiame-filled room onto
yeranda on the second story with her
night clothing ablaze. Staggering to
the railing the woman leaped to the
sidewalk beneath, landing I'm heap
within FIVE or six feet of the blazing
walls. Some of the Mortified onlook-
ers attempted to rush in to drag ner
ont hut the intense heat drove them
hack. and not until the flames had
practically died out, several hours
later. was the body recovered. The
bodies of the other victims have not
been found.
The fire is believed to have been
due to spontaneous combustion. In
the cellar of the Clifford block were
several small packages of dynamite
and a barrel of turpentine, which ex-
ploded.
While none of the beautiful sum-
mer residences that have made this
Berkshire town famous the country
over were threatened, many promi-
nent New York and Boston people
we're at the Curtis Hotel, which was
at one time threatened They were
prompt in their work of relief for the
unfortunates driven out into the chill
air of the early morning.