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| Fires |
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| Early Fires in
Monmouth |
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Daniel Folsom's house,
which stood on the spot where George
Hutchinson's house now stands, at East
Monmouth, was burned in the spring of
1826.
Cochrane, Harry Hayman, History of
Monmouth and Wales, Pp. 676. |
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On the fourth day of
April, 1841, North Monmouth was visited
by a conflagration which temporarily
blasted all manufacturing industries.
The fire caught accidentally in a
shingle-mill owned by Tinkham, Blaisdell
and Pettingill and soon spread to a
saw-mill owned by the same parties and a
webbing-mill owned by Thomas Stanton.
Although but few operatives were
employed in these mills, the loss was
severely felt by the community. Many a
long face watched the falling timbers,
and perhaps none was longer than that of
Thomas Stanton, who was then a young man
of only twenty years. He had worked hard
from his boyhood, had since the death of
his father, six years before, been the
main support of his mother, and now, in
one short hour, looms, stock and all his
prospects of gaining a livelihood were
swept away before his eyes. It is
doubtful if he watched the falling
timbers as calmly as did Mr. Tinkham,
who, when an excited young man ran up to
him with the interrogation, "Say, Mr.
Tinkham, are you goin' to build this
mill up again": slowly replied, "I think
we shall let it burn down first."
Cochrane, Harry Hayman, History of
Monmouth and Wales, Pp. 727-8. |
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About the middle of June,
1850, the Ichabod Baker house, one of
the first framed buildings in town, was
burned. It had caught fire twice before,
and had been saved by considerable
effort. On one of these occasions, as
the men were working with all possible
haste to head off the flames, Mrs. Baker
came to the door with her dish-pan in
hand, and, with the utmost coolness,
asked the man who was drawing water with
her slow-working well-sweep if he would
not spare her enough to finish rinsing
her dishes.
Cochrane, Harry Hayman, History of
Monmouth and Wales, Pp. 775. |
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While Wales has been
extremely fortunate in the matter of
loss by fire, losing only three
buildings in that way since it was
incorporated as a town, and two of these
in the past five years, Monmouth has
been as extremely unfortunate. It is
safe to assert that Monmouth has had, on
an average, a conflagration for each two
years of its existence as an
incorporated town; and since 1860 this
rate has nearly doubled. If we count
each separate stand that has gone up in
flames since that date, the average
would be something above one for each of
the thirty-five years. And yet Monmouth
has not so much as a single ladder or
fire-bucket that could be brought into
service in case of fire, without
borrowing. The fallacy of thus toying
with the fates was exemplified, in a
most thorough manner, on the 19th of
April, 1888. When the entire business
portion of Monmouth Center was leveled
to the ground.
It was Fast day when this awful
catastrophe occurred, and everything was
moving lazily. The afternoon mail had
arrived and was distributed and mostly
delivered. A few loafers were hanging
about the post-office, which was located
in a new three-floored store owned by
Edwards & Flaherty. This store had been
built only two years before, to take the
place of one which was destroyed by fire
on the same site in the fall of 1885,
and was the most pretentious building
ever erected in Monmouth. The first
floor was used by the proprietors as a
dry goods and drug store, the second, as
a dwelling flat and the third, as an
entertainment hall. The basement was
filled with such articles of commerce as
are generally found in a country store,
including barrels of kerosene, cans of
turpentine, oil and varnish and casks of
rosin and other inflammable substances.
All at once a puff of smoke came from
beneath, and in an instant the building
was in flames. The loafers rushed to the
street for their lives, and the
proprietors followed them, not getting
time to secure the remnant of the mail,
the postage stamps, money drawer, or
even to lock their safe. Fifteen minutes
later the chief of the Lewiston fire
department received a telegram from
Monmouth which read: "The town's on
fire. Send immediate help." One hour and
five minutes from that time, a special
train, consisting of two flats and a
passenger car, dashed into the village
bearing the L. C. Peck, Lewiston's
largest steamer, and a crowd of willing
helpers.
In the meantime the fire had made sad
havoc. An alarm from the church bells
had brought the villagers to the scene
with water-pails and home-made ladders,
and many of them worked heroically to
save the surrounding buildings, while
the flames mocked their energy. Curling
its red tongue toward the north, the
fire fiend lapped up a small building
occupied by E. L. Harlow as a cobbler's
shop, and then sprang to the roof of a
shoe-store owned by O. S. Edwards. Still
working northward, it devoured a large
building owned by S. O. & R. G. King and
occupied, on the first floor, by Gilman
& Beale as a hardware store and above,
by Frank Whitney as a dwelling. Next it
made its way to the dry goods and
grocery store of E. A. Dudley, and a
moment later was fastening its greedy
jaws on the ell of a fine stand owned by
H. A. Williams. This house was occupied
by Mr. Williams and his father-in-law,
Nelson P. Barker. The aged wife of the
latter was sick, and was removed with
considerable difficulty to a house
beyond the fire track. The stand flanked
the railroad crossing, and was the last
building on the east side of the street
for quite a distance. Consequently the
flames were stopped at that point
without difficulty, although constant
watchfulness was required to prevent the
lodgment of brands and cinders on the M.
E. church and parsonage beyond.
While buildings on the north were
rapidly falling, the paint on those on
the south began to blister and smoke.
Next to the store where the fire
originated, on the same side, was the
dwelling-house of M. O. Edwards, the
senior partner of the firm of Edwards &
Flaherty. This was soon in ashes, and
the hotel at the corner of Main and
Maple streets quickly followed it. On
the opposite side of Maple street wet
blankets and a liberal distribution of
water on the buildings of R. G. King
saved that stand and the Congregational
church, which almost joined it. Turning
the corner at Maple street, the flames
followed down the ell and stable
connected with the hotel and leaped
across a narrow driveway to a harness
shop occupied by W. A. Smith, with a
tenement above. The Cochnewagan stream
flowed between this and the next
building, and here, by a tremendous
effort the fire was turned.
Across the street from the Edwards &
Flaherty store was a block containing
two stores, one occupied as a grain
store by Mr. Jewett, and the other, as a
marble shop by H. S. Hooper, and two
tenements above. The flames and sparks
were blowing in the opposite direction,
but the heat was so intense that this
block was soon in flames. A livery
stable which adjoined it on the west was
the next to fall, and a large store
separated from it by a narrow alley was
not long in following. This store was
occupied by W. W. Woodbury, in the sale
of boots and shoes and ready made
clothing, and the upper floor was
furnished for the manufacture of coats
for the Boston trade.
At the rear of the King store was a
large house containing three tenements,
the principal one of which was occupied
by Mrs. Getchell as a boarding house;
and in the rear of the Dudley store was
a small dwelling-house occupied by John
A. Wilcox and a large one owned by Simon
Clough. This last was the finest
dwelling-house in the village. Sad as
was the spectacle of an entire village
falling into ashes a yet sadder one
followed, for the goods that had been
carried into the street for safety
caught from the excessive heat, and,
like a line of tinder, the accumulations
of years, and mementos that no years of
toil could replace flashed up for a
moment, and then fell in a bed of
sparkling coals.
The weird appearance of the village
streets that night could be described by
no one but Charles Dickens. Eighteen
homeless families turned from the
hospitable doors that were opened to
them and wandered, with strange
fascination, among the debris, their
melancholy faces lit up by the
intermittent flashes of the now dying
flames; tall black chimneys and
skeletons of trees stood like giant
demons in every direction; heaps of
rubbish, so mixed that they looked as if
they would hardly pay for sorting, were
scattered here and there. In one place a
homeless man cooked his supper over a
smoldering nail keg; in another, groups
of women with shawls over their heads
were hysterically exchanging
experiences. Men who ought to have been
praying were swearing vociferously,
women were weeping and children ran
about with excited faces, enjoying the
novelty as keenly as they lamented the
misfortune. Busy reporters flying around
in anxious haste to secure every
particular collided with elephantine
coffee-pots borne by dispensers of both
sexes flying around in as anxious haste
to secure, and fill to the chin, every
brave fireman who had rendered such
valuable service. Such a spectacle is
seen but once in a life time, and it can
not be afforded oftener, for it cost, at
least, $40.000.
It would seem as if an experience like
this would lead to the immediate
purchase of something in the line of
fire-extinguishing apparatus, but
nothing has yet been done. {1895, ed.} A
special town-meeting was called, it is
true, to discuss the expediency of
providing for future emergencies, but
whatever plans were developed, like the
village, went up in smoke. And because
nothing was done thousands of dollars in
valuable buildings have since gone up in
smoke. Less than a year passed before
the cheese factory at the Center was a
heap of ashes. Then followed the Hackett
place on Monmouth Ridge; the residence
of William Palmer at No. Monmouth; the
Lindsay & Sanborn store in the same
village, stacked with valuable general
merchandise, and the adjacent residence
of Charles Sanborn; the Blake Sinclair
stand in the Lyon district; the valuable
residence of Frank H. Beale at the
Center, and the home of D. H. Dearborn
in the Warren district. All of this
property could not have been saved by
hand tubs located at the Center and
North Monmouth, but the most valuable of
it certainly could have. An assessment
of one per cent of the real estate
valuation of the town would purchase two
good second-hand extinguishers; but in
this case, at least, the burned child
does not fear the fire. |
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Cochrane, Harry
Hayman
History of Monmouth and Wales
Pp. 839-844. |
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