Jasper County Democrat, Volume 16, Number 87, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 January 1914 — BIG FIRE IS FATAL [ARTICLE]

BIG FIRE IS FATAL

FIREMAN KILLED AND FIVE HURT AT MANCHESTER, N. H. Retail District Swept by $700,000 Blaze— Women May Die as Result of Tenement Fire In New York. Manchester, N. H., Jan. 30.—One fireman was killed, five others were badly Injured by falling ladders, and a property loss of $700,000 was caused by a fire which swept through an entire block of the retail district and threatened the entire business section of this city. 'The fire was the most disastrous here in thirty years. The stores destroyed were L. C. Nelson department store. Barton's department store. Merchants’ National Bank building, branch office of the Boston American, Western Union Telegraph office, Boston store annex, Planted caffe, Silber’s tailor shop. The walls of the new $500,000 Amoskeag National Bank building, located next to the Molson store, were cracked by the heat. The fire was marked by several explosions. New York, Jan. 30. —A woman probably was fatally burned and the lives of fifty persons in the apartment house at 1938 Lexington avenue were imperiled by an unusual fire. Mrs. Mary Mooney, a tenant, after lighting the gas in the kitchen range, returned to bed, not noticing that part of the flaming head of the match had lodged in her night clothing. The bed was soon ablaze and when other tenants, aroused by the smoke, broke into the burning apartments, they found Mrs. Rooney and her twelve-year-old son unconscious from smoke. The woman was taken to the hospital in a critical condition.