Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 March 1884 — A HORRIBLE DEATH. [ARTICLE]

A HORRIBLE DEATH.

An Entire Family Cremated in a New York Tenement House. [New York Dispatch.] Afl re which broke out in the three-story frame building, 326 Stanton street, caused the death of Cornelius Van Riper and his family, consisting of his wife and three children. Mr. Van Riper and his three children were suffocated and burned to death. His wife, Rebecca, jumped from the third-story window to the sidewalk and was instantly killed. The cause of the fire is unknown. The Are wag discovered by a policeman, who, after calling for assistance, kicked in the door and made a rush for the stairs, shouting at the top of his voice to rouse the sleeping tenants. A confused jumble of shrieks and stamping Overhead. answered him. But the dense smoke drove him back just as the door on the second floor was opened, and a young woman ran past him in her nightclothes. The policeman was compelled to seek the open air to save his own life. As he reached the street in a half-dozen desperate jumps he sprang over the prostrate body of Mrs. Rebecca Van Riper. The Are was extinguished after two hours. When the firemen made their way to the rooms of the Van Ripers, after the fire had been extinguished, a sickening sight awaited them. They found the entire family, save the mother, burned to death. The family had evidently been half suffocated before they were aroused to find escape from an awful death cut off. The bodies were all found in different places, showing that the unfortunates rushed wildly and blindly around the rooms In their efforts to escape. In the rear room was found Jennie, aged 19, with her night-clothes burned off. Her arms and hands were terribly burned. The skin from the hands and arms of the boy, Albert, aged. 7, hung In shreds, and his left arm was raised across his face. He was found doubled up in a corner, and one side of his body was very badly burned. Frankey, aged 2, charred and blackened, was found near his father’s body In the front room. The face and head of Van Riper presented a shocking appearance, the features being scarcely recognizable.