Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 January 1883 — HOLOCAUST. [ARTICLE]

HOLOCAUST.

Milwaukee the Scene of a Fire Horror Never Equaled in the West. The Newhall House, a Six-Story Hotel, Burns in the Darkness. Shocking Loss of Life—Thrilling Expert* ences of Some of Those Who Escaped. About 4 o’clock on the‘morning of the 10th inst flames appeared In the basement of the Newhall House at Milwaukee, and with marvelous rapidity made their way to the roof, giving nearly 300 people the choice of roasting alive or leaping to the icy pavement The stifling smoke drove many to the window sills, where they clung desperately for a time, but were Boon compelled to let go their hold and be crushed on the sidewalk. Three fruitless attempts to save life by holding a canvas beneath the imperiled guests were made by firemen and citizens. The servants were cut off from the stairways, but a fireman with a ladderbridge rescued eight girls by taking them across the alley. One man slid down a rope of sheets tied to a sewing-machine. A din-ing-room girl rushed down the blazing stairways to the office. In ninety minutes the walls fell in with a deafening crash. The loss of life will probably reach 100, while there are twenty-two missing. The pecuniary loss will probably aggregate #500,00(1 A correspondent at the' scene of the holocaust furnishes the following details of the dreadful calamity: The fire was said to have caught in the basement, shot with lightning rapidity up the elevator-shaft, and burst forth in terrific volume from the roof. The flames spread out in the different stories as they were reached, and, in a few minutes after the first alarm, the floors on the south end of the building were a sea of Are, all burning at once. Guests, awakened from their sleep by the beat or the bursting of the flames into their rooms, were forced to the windows, where their heartrending cries rang in the ears of the va-t concourse of people gathered in the street, powerless to render aid. Men who in the daily walks of life have been accounted heartless and unfeeling wrung their hands in despair, running about utterly bewildered, exclaiming: “My God! my God, this is horrible!” Then a black object would appear on the outside of the window, driven out by the smoke and flame, a piercing scream rend the morning air, and a heavy thud would announce that a human being had dropped from the dizzy height to meet death on the pavement below. At one time therd were six persons hanging from six window-sills at tne fifth story at the same time, crying in agonizing tones for the help that could not be rendered them, and one after another loosened their grip and met their fate. One man,by letting himself down at arms’ length from 'a iifth-story window, put his feet through the window below and reached the fourth floor in safety. The operation was repeated until the third floor was reached, each point in his perilous descent being greeted with encouraging cheers from the bystanders. As he was putting his feet through the top of the second-story window his hand dipped from the sill above, and with a wild shriek of despair he fell backward. turning over several times and striking the pavement on his head, and was mangled beyond recognition. Another man jumped from the fifth-story window, struck the telegraph wires on Michigan street, bounded up, and came down a mangled mass of flesh and bones. A niluxber of people dropped out of the different stories on to the jumping-canvas, but, in a majority of cases, they were killed outright or " sustained injuries from which there is little hope of recovery. During the progress of the lire two men appeared at a window in an upper story, and, as they looked down upon the scene below, the'floor of the room gave way, and, with an agonizing shriek, they fell backward into the vortex of flames. Mr. Allen Johnson and his wife sprang from a fifth-story window. He was caught in tlie jumping' canvas, but sustained injuries from which he died. HLs wife struck on the i elegraph wires, bounded over, and was also caught, but was so badly injure i that she only survived her husband about an hour. In three-quarters of an hour after the discovery of the fire the building was a total loss. At .5:30 o’clock the Broadway front of the building, unsupported by rafters from within, gave out, and came thundering to the pavement Shortly after that the tottering walls Qf the soiitheast corner of the building followed, tearing a heavy telegraph pole to the ground, which felled Ben Van Haag, a truckman of Hook and Ladder Company No. 2, beneath its weight Poor Ben. a favorite in the department, received fatal injuries. He died in a few hours later, faithful to his post unto death. While these scenes are being enacted on the Broadway and Michigan sides of the illfated building, one of still-greater horror was being enacted in the alley in the rear. The servants’ quarters were in the northwest quarter of the building, remote from the place in which the fire was raging, but all means of escape by the stairways was cut off by the flames. As the terrible' roaring and crackling of the flames struck upon their ears they became panic-stricken, and eight of them'followed each other in leaping from the dizzy height to the ground in the alley. The jumping-canvas was on hand, but it was powerless in the conflict with death, and was clotted over with the victims’ blood. At this juncture the cool-headed hero of the day appeared upon the top of the buildirfg, opposite the servants’ quarters with a ladder in his hand For a moment the long, unwieldy thing poised in mid air and then descended, with a crash, through the window of the hoteL It framed a bridge across the alley, however, and before it became steady in its position the man had crossed over into the hoteL Then, amid the cheers of the multitude below, the man dragged the helpless creatures across .the slender bridge until fully a dozen were rescued. They were all of them in their night-clothes, and many were badly frozen they could be taken to shelter. A woman In a dead faint, and unable to help herself in any particular, was dragged across in safety, but at one time the whole of her body was hanging over clear of the ladder, while the brave man held her by one of her ankles. The crowd below held their breath in suspense, expecting every moment to see the ladder turn over or break beneath the terrible strain. The man, however, was equal to the emergency, and, by a herculean effort, {lulled her upon the slender bridge and finaly placed her out of danger, while the crowd, which had endured the most painful suspense for fully ten minutes, burst forth with round after round of applause.

As early as 6 o'clock the bodies of seven unfortunate waiter-girls, once blooming in youth, were stretched upon the snow and ice, with broken limbs, writhing in agony until death ended their sufferings After almost superhuman efforts ladders were stretched from the roof of the bank-building across the alley to the sixth story of the hotel, and the brave fire-laddies carried ten girls across the frail bridge, four of them dead. The maze of telegraph-wires encircling the building on tke south and east sides played sad • havoc with the unfortunates who made the frightful leap Several of the bodies were fairly cut deep into by the wires, and then the torn and bleeding forms would g r °nnd Others would hit the the ground with a dreadful cr ish. To the poor unfortunate waiter-girls (all lodged in the sixth story and the attics) the saddest lot bad fallen. Of the sixty young girls only eleven were heard from as alive as late as evening. The dead and a portion of the wounded were conveyed to the American Express office. The wounded were cared for at the Kirby House and the stores on East Wat er street John F. Antisdel, the principal proprietor, was, driven crazy over the terrible affair. He ran up and down Michigan street, moaning and crying: “Oh! Oh! Mv God, who set that afire?” Over his head was a black cloth. He held his hands heavenward as if invoking divine aid. When he came to the mangled body of one of his guests his ravings were pitiful in the extreme All efforts to BootUe aim failed. His son and partner. Jumes Antisdel, stood on the street, sileni and undemonstrative, as if paralysed by the

horror. All of the landlord’s family escaped. Mr. Nash too, Is almost wild with grief, and can only say repeatedly: “Oh, my God! If these lives were not fost! I don't care anything about the loss of the building, if these people had only been saved.” He was a one-third. owner of the building and contents. Miss Libbie Chellis, for ten years in charge of the dressmaking department in T. A Chapman's store, occupied a room in one of tiie upper stories, fronting on Michigan treet Surrounded by flames, she appeared at one of the windows, and for an Instant looked Imploringly down at the throng below, and then fell back into the vortex of fire and perished. There was a fire escape within her reach, but the poor woman was so completely overcome by the horror of her situation that she was powerless to act Judson J. Hough, of Peoria, Hi, who had both legs broken and received other internal injuries by jumping from a fifth-story window into the canvas held by the firemen, died at the < entral Police Station. Mr. Hough was visiting the family of Alien Johnson. He was a special agent of the Northwestern National Fire Insurance Com- . panv of the city, and leaves a wife and four children. He was abont 40 years of age. There was a touching scene when he tried to tell the bystanders where he lived He spelled out the words “P-e-o-r-i-a, w-i-f-e, b-a-b-y!” One' of the saddest facts in connection with this awful catastrophe is the fate of Mr. and Mra John Gilbert* Mr. Gilbert is connected with the Minnie Palmer Company. playing the part of the gambler ih “Mv Sweetheart” Monday, in Chicago, just before leaving for Milwaukee, Mr. Gilbert married a young lady to whom he was devotedly attached, and who reciprocated the love bestowed upon her. Wednesday morning the fair young wife lay in the morgue dead, and at the Plankinton House, writhing in agony. Jay the husband, but a step from death's door. There was a strange incident when Mrs. Gilbert’s body reached the morgue. An Irishman identified the corpse as that of his daughter. He at once proceeded to strip from the fingers of the dead woman her sparkling rings and to wrench the ornaments from her earn At that moment old Mra Donahue reached the morgue, and, with a passionate burst of grief, recognized the body as that of her daughter-in-law. “It’s my child,” cried the alleged father, still stripping the jewelry from the dead woman’s person. The grief-stricken old lady ahd the robber confronted each other, and the painful scene amid the ghastly surroundings created the greatest confusion. The multitude by this time had swelled to thousands, who stood In perfect awe, but few having self-possession and resolution enough to lend a helping hand on the canvases stretched out to receive those of the despairing inmates of the burning pyre who risked the leap down to the stone sidewalk 100 feet below. At first there were .only Lieut Rockwood, Detectives Rieman and McManus, Officers O’Brien and Campbell, and a few Sentinel men stretching the heavy canvas, which required fully thirty strong men to handle successfully. A poor fellow stood on the cornice of the fifthstory corner window for twenty long minutes not daring the fearful leap. Finally he became bewildered, to judge by his actions, or dumbfounded by smoke, and slid off his perch to the canvas below. The few who held it could not Live it the necessary resistance. The body fell, unhindered by the canvas, with a crash which sent a shudder through every witnesa The shattered body was carried'into the American Express office. All the while hundreds of people had been looking on, nobody responding lo the demands of the officers for aid Everybody seemed to be spellbound The terrible spectacle seemed to have paralyzed every bit of willpower. In the Hixth-stor'y window, right over this unfortunate, sat the figure of a man, crouched upon the window-till, gazing like one absent-minded into the fiery abyss below, motionless, but from time to time sending up a heartrending shriek. Steadily the flames encroached upon him. He did not seem to mind it. Then the flames singed his hair, licked his night clothes. One despairing look he gave to the crowd below, and then tumbled back into the sea of fire. A man and woman appealed at a window of the third story. They were recognized as Allen Johnson and his wife. A- canvas was stretched below the windows of their apartments, formerly occupied by Prof. Haskins and lady, and a thousand voices called, beseeching them to jump. Mr. Johnson kissed his wife, then leaped into the air and shot downward into the canvas, but his weight was such . that the canvas was pulled out of the hands of the few who held it, and he landed on the ground with deathly force. His wife followed Her body struck the veranda and fell to the ground lifelesa Mr. Allen died shortly afterward in the express office, and his dead body was laid beside that of his' wife until they were borne away. About a dozen jumped from the Michigan street front Each leap meant death or shattered limbs, and not less than four unfortunates at one time lay upon the icy sidexvalk i i front of the Chamber of Commerce, clad only in night-shirts, blood and brains oozing from the wounds through which the bones protruded Some were carried to the express office and ‘others to the ground floor of the Mitchell Building, where cots had been hastily arranged, and from there they were carried off to the houses of kindhearted people. 'Gen. Tom Thumb and wife, who were stopping at the hotel, had a narrow escape. They were awakened by a policeman, and hurriedly made their exit through a window and down a long ladder, Mra Thumb making the descent in the an'.b of the officer. They lost all their baggage Hon. William E. Craino-. editor of the Evening Whtconxin, and wife,’ who had rooms on the second floor, received serious but not fatal injuries, and he is now under medical care at the Plankinton. Mr. Cramer was badly about the hands and head. Mrs. Cramer’s' hair' was badly burned, as weie also her hands and feet Sixteen of the victims have been positively identified, as follows: Allen Johnson, commission man, Milwaukee; Mm Allen Johnson, Milwaukee; D. G. Powers, inventor, Milwaukee; J. H. Hough, traveling man, Peoria, III.; Mm John Gilbei-t, wife of the actor; Miss Libbie Chellis, dressmaker, Milwaukee; Mr. Huff, insurance agent, Iowa; Mrs. Kelly, servant; Miss O’Neil, servant; Bessie Brown, chambermaid; Thomas E. Van Loon, capitalist, formerly of Albany, N. Y., later of Milwaukee; Maggie Owens, servant. Milwaukee; Kate Linehan, servant, Milwaukee: Maggie Sullivan, servant, Milwaukee; Augusta Gesa, servant, Milwaukee; Mary McDade, servant, Milwaukee; Mitchell Hallan, servant, Milwaukee; C. -Hewey, conductor Wisconsin Central, Milwaukee; Marv McMahon, Milwaukee; Charles Kelsey, Tom Thumb's servant; Marv Conroy, laundress, Milwaukee; Ottillie WaJtersdorf, kitchen girl, agtfct 18; Catharine Monahan, pantry-waiter, Bridget O’Donnell, hall-girl, Sun Prairie, Wis. The Newhall House was built by Daniel Newhall and his associates in 1857. The original cost qf the structure, including the lot and fixrniture, was #‘370,000. It was situated on the southeast corner of Br> ad way and Michigan street; was built of Milwaukee brick; the dimensions were 120x180 feet. It was six stories high aud had 3IU rooms. The hqtel was a tinder-box, a fire-trap. Instead of brick partition walls, trestle-woxk of twelve-inch pine timber formed the main support and constituted the principal divisions of the entire building above the ground floor. A Milwaukee dispatch of the 12th inst says: There were 110 guests and sixty-seven employes in the building. Of these twenty have been so far identified among the dead, forty-eight are missing and sixty-seven are known to be saved, leaving fortv-two unaccounted for and supposed to be in the ruins. The tottering walls were torn down yesterday by a force of 100 men employed by the Board of Public Works. The Common Council indulged in a squabble as to tbe expense of rescuimr the bodies, three Alder--iaoxr opposing the prOfrecntlOtt’oT tne search. A week will be required to remove the debris.