Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 December 1881 — HEARTRENDING ACCIDENT. [ARTICLE]

HEARTRENDING ACCIDENT.

Twelve Men Burned to DnUk in • Hoarding-Mouse. A terrible accident occurred on the line or the Lake Erie railroad, seven miles from Pittsburgh. A laborers’ boarding-house was set on fire by the explosion of a lamp, and of forty persons known to be sleeping only twenty-eight escaped alive, and even they were more or less burned. Not one of them succeeded in seeming his clothes, so rapid was the progress of the flames. The others were literally roasted to death, withont the possibility of an effort being made to rescue them. The victims wero railroad laborers, and were working at the place indicated. The building was a one-story frame structure, with an attic orlofC The lower part was used for a dining-room and kitchen. Into this loft forty-three stalwart men retired to sleep after finishing the day’s work. It was reached by a flight of stairs which started from near the kitchen door. There were no windows, bnt, in lieu of them, there were two small holes in the roof to admit light and air. Tnese were closed at night by a sliding door, to keep out the cold. In the morning the keeper of the board-ing-house, Hugh McCune, got up to build a fire in the kitchen stove, carrying with him an ordinary kerosene lamp, which be placed open a table while he went for kindling-wood. It is supposed that, during his absence, the lamp chimney burst and by some means threw the lamp upon the floor, allowing the oil to rim out. The stairway was composed of light, dry pine boards. and they were soon ablaze. The flames quickly spread to the loft, where the unfortunate men were sleeping, all unconscious of the terrible fate winch awaited them. The floor of the loft was covered with straw-beds and bedding. The flames made rapid progress, and soon reached this mass of inflammable material. About this time the sleepers were aroused by the cries of the females employed about the place, and they at ouce made a rush for the stairs, but they were confronted by a wall of fire which forced them back in dismay. A rush was then made for the openings in the roof by the half-crazed men, and a struggle for fife took place, each trving to crowd the other out of the way, as only one at a time could be forced through the apertures on account of their small size. Some of the poor fellows, seeing that all could not escape in this way, caught at anv shadow of hope that offered, and tried to dash down the stairs and through the flames, only to meet a horrible death. The men had not time to clothe themselves, so sudden was the alarm, and so quickly did the fire make headway. Those who made their escape, however, seemed so bewildered by the sudden outburst of the flames, and the cries of their companions, that they rushed back into the burning building, attempting to save their little property. At this moment the crash came. The frail walls, weakened by the attacks of the flames, crashed in upon the unfortunates, and their cries for help wero drowned in the roar of the flames. The scene at this moment cannot be described. Shrieks and groans went up on overy side from the poor unfortunates, who had been burned aud scorched in a sickening manner. Strong men, with great patches of skin and flesh peeled from their bodies by the touch of the fire, rolled upon the ground iu their agony.