Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 April 1893 — FIVE BURNED TO DEATH. [ARTICLE]

FIVE BURNED TO DEATH.

“iPatal Fire in a Hotel at Bradford. Pa.— “Crow's Nest” Destroyed. Five lives were lost and twenty-two people injured by the burning of the Higgins House, Sunday morning, at Bradford, Pa. The dead are: Mias Georgia Bond, Bradford; Thomas Cullen, Bradford; F. Havelin, Sanberry; George Parks, Bradford; Baby Tucker, ' aged 3, drowned in the creek. The pre- ; vious night 125 persons went to sleep in | the Higgins Hotel, a frame structure three "stories high on the bank of the I Tuna, a small creek. At 4:30 a vigI orous ringing of the big bell on the ! hill aroused the whole town. A brisk wind was blowing at the rime, and it fanned the flames in the hotel and gave them strength and vigor. When the firemen leached the s<eae the whole hotel was enveloped in lire. It was of wood and burned like a vast heap of straw. There was an awful panic in the hotel when the guests were aroused. The men and women rushed from their j rooms into the hallways, filled already with smoke and flame, and jumped from the windows. The jump was a bad one to take. From the upper story it was thirty feet on the west side, with a plank bottom so strike on. On the east ; side was the creek and the distance was | forty feet, but several persons made the | leap fop life into the stream and were , rescued. | Ax Buzzard's Bay, Mass,, Joe Jefferson’s beautiful villa, Crow's Nest, was destroyed by fire which started in the cellar, caused by a gas explosion. So rapidly did the flames progress that it i was with much difficulty that Mrs. Jefferson and the family made their escape. Several of the servants were severely burned, and the cook, Helen McGrath, lost her life, being suffocated in the basement The house cost $30,000, and the pictures, furniture and bric-a-brac represent d an outlay of over SIOO,OOO, though prized far more for their associations.