Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 July 1874 — The Syracuse Horror. [ARTICLE]

The Syracuse Horror.

A Syracuse (N. Y.) dispatch of June 24 gives the following particulars of tlie recent accident in that place caused by the giving way of tlie Central Baptist Church building, in which a festival was being held: The list of killed numbers thirteen. The number of wounded foots up 100; of whom twenty are serioiydly injured. The occasion of the gathering last night was a festival given by the ladies of the church, and a concert by “ The Little Old Folks.” At the rear of tlie "church are Sunday-school rooms, occupying the first floor, and the church parlors, occupying tlie second floor. This part of the edifice was in use for the festival and concert. At tlie time of the accident supper was bciqg served in the central parlor, which had been prepared for the occasion -with tables, etc. This room, which was forty feet square, xvas filled with people, the session-room below being deserted save by a few persons. The number in the supper-room is variously estimated at from 250 to 500, mostly grown persons. At the time the floor gave way tlie children of the congregation were in one of the ante-rooms, being prepared for the “Ancient Concert.” But for this fact the list of dead must have been very much larger, as many of Hie helpless little ones would have been crushed to death in the mass of humanity crowded into the “V” shaped vortex formed by the fulling timbers. At the moment of the falling of the floor the scene within the parlors was one of happy enjoyment, While all were pleasantly engaged, without a single sign of warning, the floor suddenly sank beneath them, and in an instant all were buried in a mass of struggling humanity, intermixed with falling timbers, furniture, etc., and in utter darkness, the gas having been extinguished by the breaking of tlie gas pipes. An instant after the fearful descent liad been made, all was silent as the grave, but immediately after heartrending appeals for help were to be heard from hundreds of those who were in agony. Immediately after persons were seen issuing from the doors and windows, which were smashed out by frightened people, and an alarm was sounded. The uninjured within tlie church who were able to free themselves from the mass began at once to assist in rescuing others. The firemen and police were quickly at hand, and labored nobly in tlie work of rescue. The scene within the building was terrible in its details, and that without the edifice heart-rending indeed. Fathers and mothers searching for tlicit children, husbands looking for wives, wives inquiring for husbands, brothers for sisters, and children for their parents, of whose fate all w'ere uncertain and in dread. Quickly and rapidly the work of extricating the people was carried on by aid of lanterns. As fast as the living and dead were rescued they were passed out through tlie windows apd doors, where ready hands assisted to convey the dangerously injured and dead to thq physicians’ offices and neighboring houses. The excitement -without the church was terrible, and as the bodies were being carried to adjoining houses tlie mass surged back and forth, all terribly anxious to ascertain who they were an(i whether dead or alive. At the height of the excitement not less than 10,000 people were crowded into Montgomery and Jefferson streets and in adjoining premises. The floor which fell was suspended by iron rods from a wooden truss under the roof. These rods went through the lower, but not through the upper chord of the truss. The lower chord had been spliced the wrong side up, and that side was the first to give way. The floor, having no props beneath it, sunk in the form of a letter V. The most of the deaths werre efttwed by falling timbers of the truss; some, however, were smothered by plastering. Tlie floors of tlie church were supported originally by the pillars. A short time ago the Church Building Committee, with the consent, as they say, of tlie architect, removed tlie iron pillars. The truss was very* imperfectly constructed, besides being spliced. The most prominent builders in the city declare that it was rotten. It was put in green, and has the dry rot.