People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 May 1894 — RUIN IN BOSTON. [ARTICLE]

RUIN IN BOSTON.

Hundreds of Buildings Destroyed by Fire. Starting In the Baseball Ground* It Da. vastates a Big Area Thousand* Without Shelter—Several Hurt —Loss of Life Feared. DAMAGE ESTIMATED AT $500,000. Boston, May 16.—A cigarette butt thrown into a pile of waste paper under the “bleachers,” or twenty-flve-cent seats, in the Boston baseball grounds Tuesday afternoon started a fire which destroyed more than 140 buildings occupying about sixteen acres of land in the crowded tenement house section of the south end. The money loss is $500,000, and m all other respects the conflagration is the most terrible that Boston has seen since fifty acres were burned over in 1872, for more than 600 families are homeless, and they are the kind of families who seldom indulge in tha luxury of fire insurance. The injured are: Michael Welch, jumped 39 feet from a roof and was internally injured; John Rowley, overcome by smoke, will die; William H. Ahern, jumped from a roof, ankle broken: William Gatecain, apoplexy; Lieut Sawyer, engine company No. 23, struck by falling wall, may die; John T. Kane, internally injured; Amy Lapp, badly burned; James T. Fitzgerald, fireman, badly cut. A peculiar odor pervades the burned district, and it is feared there has been loss of life, but up to midnight no bodies had been recovered.

The third inning of the game had been half finished and Baltimore was just going to the bat when the fire was discovered. Immediately there was a scattering of the 8,500 spectators, and while a few men ripped up seats and tried to stamp out the flames, the rest made a rush for the gates. A few buckets of water would at this stage have quenched the tire and prevented the disaster which followed, but there was no water within reach. The flames leaped fiercely up the scantlings and through the rows of seats, which were dry as tinder, owing to the absence of rain for a couple of weeks, and fanned by a strong southeast wind, they consumed fence and bleachers and presently the grand stand was fired and burned in a furious manner. Almost adjoining the baseball grounds was a populous section devoted to tenements and homes of the poorer class and many small stores of a similar character. After burning all the buildings on Berlin street between Walpole and the end of Columbus avenue, three blocks, the fire swept west to the grand stand of the baseball grounds, leveled that to the ground, went south to a large apartment hotel on Walpole street and east toward Treinont street. The latter was occupied by brick and wooden buildings, a magnificent public schoolhouse standing on the corner of Walpole and Tremont streets. The brick buildings were as little able to withstand the fierce flames as the wooden buildings had proved to be, and soon sank to the ground. East of Tremont street and parallel with it is Cabot street The flames went on toward this, sweeping down every building before it, and then spread toward the south along Tremont street, licking up a number of magnificent new apartment hotels. The district burned out extends from Burke street on the north to barsfield street on the south, the New York, New Haven & Hartford tracks on the west to Warwick street on the east All the buildings on the following entire streets are in ashes: Burke, Coventry, Walpole. Sarsfield, all parallel; Berlin street, four blocks on each side of Tremont street, three blocks on each side of Cabot street, three blocks on the west side of Warwick street and two blocks on the north side of Newburn street. Besides the Hotel Walpole two apartment houses on Sterling street were burned, three on Western street, two on Hammond park, two on Windsor street and all of those on Yeudiay place. This district was one of the most thickly populated in the city and most ✓of the families are in very poor circumstances. At the best estimate there are 3,500 persons without homes and their household effects are in ashes. The financial loss is hard to estimate, but will reach probably $500,000. This small amount is accounted for by the fact that dozens of the wooden tenements were of little value. The baseball grand stand was valued at $75,000; the insurance is $40,000. The Walpole schoolhouse was valued at $30,000; insured. The Hotel Walpole and most of the brick apartment houses burned were insured and were worth from SB,000 to $30,000 each.. A special meeting of the board of aldermen was held Tuesday evening to make provision for the care of the people made homeless by the fire. The several armories were thrown open and several halls in Roxbury were hired to accommodate many more. Besides this the people iD the vicinity whose homes had been saved threw wide open their doors and all were cared for. The trustees of the Johnstown flood fund, at the request of the board of aldermen, voted to apply the unexpended balance on hand, amounting to several thousand dollars to the relief of the homeless and destitute. During the fire three fire engines were abandoned and ruined.