Year: 1871

dence streets were wide and we'll laid


out; the houses prettily built and care


fully painted, and little ornamental gar.


dens were frequent.


The river cut the town pretty fairly in


vain, the works and shops Of the Pesh-


tego Company covering most of the
northeastern shore, while trade and


business for the main part held them
selves on the southwestern hank. The
site was, and is to this day, unmistak-
ably a clearing. A solid wall of pine,
oak and tamaraok hedge in the desolate
waste even now. As it stood, the pretty
bustling village combined the orderly
enterprise of New England and the il
repressible vigor of the typical Western
"city." Roads cut through the forest
communicated with long line of pros
pering numbering hamlets and thriving
farms, to the west and south. The sur
rounding woods were interspersed with
innumerable open glades, of crisp
brown heritage and dried furze, which
had for weeks glowed with the autumn
fires that infest these regions. Little
heed was paid them. for the first rain
would inevitably quench the flames.
But the rain never came, and finally
valiant battle was waged far and near
against the slowly increasing fires. In
this, as in other towns, the danger was
thought well warded off by the general
precautions. The fire had ragged up to
the very outskirts of the town weeks
before the fatal Sunday and the fires set
outward to fight the enemy. Every
thing inhammable had apparently been
taken out of harms way on that memo
rable Sunday. One careful citizen
traversed the western outskirt, and as
sured the people that no danger could
come from that quarter.


THE FIERY FURNACE.


The sharp air of early October had
sent the people in from the evening
church services more promptly than
usual, although numbers delayed to
speculate on great noise and ado which
set in ominously from the west. The
housewives looked tremblingly at the
fires and lights within, and the men
took last look at the possibilities with.
out; for many it is truly the last glimpse.
The noise grew in volume, and came
nearer and nearer with terrific cracking
and detonations. The forest rocked
and tossed tumultuously; fire alarm
fell upon the imprisoned village, for the
swirling blasts came now from every
side. In one awful instant, before ex-
pectation could give shrpe to the horror,
a great flame shot up in the western
heavens. and in countless fiery tongues
struck downward into the village, pierc-
ing every object that stood in the town
like red hot bolt. A deafening roar,
mingled with blasts of electric fame,
filed the air and paralyzed every soul
i'll the place. There was no beginning
to the work of ruin; and flaming whirl-
wind swirled in an instant through the
town. There is no diversity in the gen.
eral experience; all heard the first inex-
plicable roar; some aver that the earth
shook, while credulous few avow that
the heavens opened and the fire rained
down from above. Moved by common
instinct, for all knew that the woods
that encircled the town were impenetra-
BILE, every habitation was deserted to
to the flames, and the gasping multitude
fiocked to the river. On the west the
mad horde saw the bridge in flames in a
score of places, and, turned sharply to
the left, with one accord. plunged into
the water. Three hundred people
wedged themselves in between the roll
ing booms, swayed to and fro by the
current, where they roasted in the hot
breath of flame that hovered above
them, and singed the hair on each head
momentarily exposed above the water.
Here despairing men and women held
their children till the cold water came
as an ally to the flames, and deprived
them of strength.


Meantime the eastern bank was
densely crowded by the dying and the
dead. Rushing to the river from this
direction the swirling blasts met the
victims full in the face and moved
swath through the fleeing throng. In
halation was aunihilation. Scores fell
before the first blast. A few were able
to crawl to the pebbly flats, but so des-
perately disfgured that death must have
beeen preferable. All could not reach
the river; and even the groups that fell
prone on the grateful damp fats suffer-
ed excruciating agony. The fierce blaze
playing in tremendous counter currents
above them on the higher ground, was
sufficiently strong to set the clothes
afame, and the flying sand, heated as
by furnace, blistered the flesh wherever
it fell. ALI that could break through
the estifingisimoon had come to the river.
In the red hot glare they could see the
sloping bank covered with the bodies of
those that had fell by the way. Few