Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 September 1879 — Shocking Disaster. [ARTICLE]

Shocking Disaster.

From the Boston papers we glean the following particulars of a heartrending accident, by which five people lost their lives: The occupants of the tenement 120 Gold street, which was burned last night, were: On the first floor, an aged couple whom no one in the vicinity seems to have known, and one Gillespie and wife. On the second floor, a German family, consisting of father, mother, and three children, named Pfeiffer. Ou the third floor, Ferdinand Merotb, wife and two children, and George Holdreid, wife and two children, making fifteen persons asleep in the house when the incendiary kindled the fire. When the fire was discovered by a policeman it was a quarter to 12, and the flames were breaking out on the first floor, having burned away tlie stairs, making them impassable. The smoke was rollihg up the narrow staircases, and the awakened inmates, before the firemen could arrive with their ladders, bad either leaped from the windows, gone to the roof in hope of safety, or dropped suffocated in the hall. Tlie old couple on the first floor made their escape, and wore not heard of during the night. The Gillespie family escaped, with the exception of the wife and mother. The latter, 50 years old, might have escaped by walking six feet, hut became bewildered and swooned in hc-r room. She was found by the firemen in an apparently-dying condition, and was taken to the station with the other victims of the fire. Her injuries are terrible, the burns being both external and internaL Rosa Pfeiffer, aged 23, was found in the hall of the second floor. Mrs. Pfeiffer and two children jumped from a window and were but slightly hurt, but Pfeiffer’s father was lost Meroth, on the third floor, lifted his son, Charles, aged 14, out of tho window and allowed him to drop to the ground, a distance of forty feet, and then instructed his wife and daughter, Rosie, to jump, which they did. Last of all ho himself jumped to the ground, and in falling met instant death. Mrs. Meroth is at the City Hospital, with fractures of both legs and one arm, and her face is bruised beyond all recognition. The daughter Rosie sustained no serious injuries, but Charles is badly hurt. Holdreid took his wife to the roof, and then went down stairs, where he was caught by the flames and burned, probably fatally. Mrs. Holdreid’s body, charred beyond recognition, was found on the roof. Charles Holdreid, the son, is at the hospital, internally injured from jumping to the ground, and with an arm broken.