Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 May 1884 — A HUMAN HOLOCAUST. [ARTICLE]

A HUMAN HOLOCAUST.

Shocking Occurrence by the Burning of a Michigan County Almshouse. Fourteen of the Pauper Inmiates Caught in Their Beds and Entirely . . - . Consumed. - . . [Hartford (Mich.) Telegram.] The Van Buren County Poorhouse, situated two and one-half miles east of this village, was burned to the ground this morning. Fourteen paupers were burned-to death, and many others narrowly escaped with their lives. The cause of the fire Is unknown. It originated in the inmates’ sitting-room on the first floor, and when discovered was beyond control. The county farm lies midway between the villages of Hartford and Lawrence, three miles form each, and beyond assistance from firemen, but when the flames were discovered the buildings were already so involved that help would have been useless. The buildings comprised a large two-story frame upright, wdth a wing extending east and' a two-story addition projecting south from the rear of the main building. The latter was occuJ pied by Superintendent Cash, his family, and the hired help. One of the latter named Halsey) was aroused by the cries of the inmates. Going, down the hall he opened the door to the two-) story addition, when he was almost overpowered; by a volume of flame and smoke that burst, out.. He had barely time to give the alarm in the Superintendent’s quarters. The paupers in the addition were already past help. The occupants of the front building only es--'.ped with their lives, nothing else being saved out two or three articles of furniture. The following are the names of those who perished: Jimmie Johnson, from Covert; Henry Bankes, trom Waver!y; Benjamin Bogardus, from BreedsviUe; Thomas Sawyer, colored, from the Kalamazoo asylum; Jonathan Sargent, from Antwerp; Fred EkenbUrger, from Decatur; - Myers, from Waverly; Peter -Golden, from Keeler; Caroline Lang, from Covert; Caroline Saerer, from Covert; Mrs. Curtis, from Breedsville; Mrs. Wilson and her 8-year-old daughter; Ann Marla and Debby Cravet, of Bangor. When morning came the ruins presented a sickening sight. The victims of the conflagration, when taken from the ashes and half-con-sumed timbers of the building, were so burned as to be unrecognizable, horrible masses of flesh and bone, impossible to identify, being viewed by hundreds of visitors. The addition contained sleeping accommodations for about twenty, and the only ones who escaped were a boy named Parker, who jumped from the second window, and two little boys of Mrs. Wilson. Their mother and sister perished in the flames. The remainder of the inmates were in a detached building known as “the jail.” .They comprised the idiotic, violently insane, etc. Between that and the main structure there was another detached building, the distance separating the two being, perhaps, forty feet, which delayed the progress of the flames till the inmates of “the jail” could be saved. One ot the occupants of the Superintendent’s quarters was his daughter, just recovering from an attack of typhoid fever. She was saved. The inmates who were lost comprise the better class of paupers, those in a comfortable condition and able to assist about the premises. The county authorities have made provisions in the neighborhood for the temporary care of the remaining inmates. '1 here were about sixty occupants of the burned buildings. The loss to the county on building and contents is about SIO,OOO, on which there is $5,000 insurance. Mr. Cash the overseer, lost all his goods, to the value of about S3OO, on which there was no insurance.