Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 June 1875 — The Terrible Calamity at Holyoke, Mass. [ARTICLE]

The Terrible Calamity at Holyoke, Mass.

Brainemu), Mast., May SB. The here of the disaster vu John Lynch, a brave fireman, who was the first to respond to the alarm. He described the scene, when he reached the burning church, as appalling. Wedged tight and immovable In the doorways teas a dense mass of humanity from six to eight feet in height, none of them being able to stand upright from the terrible pressure of the -crowd behind, while upon and over them a sheet of Maine rolled like a "wave, streaming far out into thq open Sir. Without a moment’s pause to consider their danger, Lynch and Chief-Engineer Mullen rushed into the flames, spurred on by the Eiteous cries: “ For God's sake, come and elp us!” and began pulling out the boaies. A moment later and a well-di-rected hydrant t stream from the Mount Holyoke hose struck the brave rescuers, and undoubtedly saved them from being burnt’ alive. The first persons drawn out were burning, but they were passed directly through tlie stream of water and the flames were extinguished.. Some of the poor creatures fell fainting on the long flight of wooden stairs leading down to the street, and a few were able to walk.

By this time the entire fire department had arrived, and worked with such energy and will that when the fire was extinguished the charred wooden walls of the structure were standing and were pulled down by the hook and ladder men, ic order that search for the bodies might be made. Only a very few moments, comparatively, elapsed after the water struck the building before the fire was cut, but the destruction to life during that brief period was terrible. Wald efforts were made by the people to wish pell-mell into the burning building -to rescue their friends, and it was with difficulty that they were kept back. This was particularly the case with parents who had on the first impulse rushed from the. church to save theirown lives, but who, remembering that they had left their children behind to perish, returned impetuously. Actual personal violence had to be u.~ed in several cases to keep the women back. All about-the streets men, women and children were watching and piteously inquiring if their friends had been saved. One woman was ■positive that her husband had perished, and could only be quieted by the assurance from a friend that he had just been walking with him. One of the most touching cases was that of two little girls about twelve years of age, who rushed for the entrance of the building while the fire was at its height, thinking to find their father and mother, who were within. They could only be restrained by an officer, who took them in his arms. The church was erected in 1870, entirely of pine, was about 100 feet long by sixty wide, two stories high, with galleries on the sides and the north end about twenty-five feet wide. There were two doors in the north end and the vestibule, from which two doors opened into the body of the church. The galleries opened into the vestibule. At the rear end was another door, by which a few persons escaped. Immediately upon the breaking out of the flames all the occupants of the galleries rushed to the east door, and, falling upon one another, choked up the doorway with their bodies, piled in all ways, seveh or eight deep. Here most of the lives were lost. From this mass Chief Mullen rescued one young woman, after having taken off 1 two dead bodies from above her. The Chief and others had their clothes almost burned from them, and were badly burned about the hands.

One woman jumped from the highest window down upon the front steps, breaking her arm. A man with two children in his arms jumped from a window and escaped. One poor woman, enveloped in flames, shrieked out: “For God’s sake, save me,” and was dragged out. Some sprang from the gallery windows and were seriously injured, and one person appeared at a window completely wrapped in flames, and after tottering there an instant fell to the ground dead and unrecognizable. Hundreds of men went to the wreck as soon as an opportunity was offered to search for bodies, and a force of police was organized to keep back the large crowd which had gathered. The greater number of bodies were found in .the fatal stairway, burned, some of them, to a crisp. The body of one woman was found in the seat which she had occupied, her clothing entirely burned off. A fleshy woman, weighing about 180 pounds, was dragged screaming from the mass. She was carried a short distance from the church and placed on the grass, while her flesh actuary peeled off her back, and m a moment she fell over dead. The scenes last night and to-day in the school-house basement, where the bodies of the dead were carried, were heartrending in the extreme. In some instances the features were distorted, as though extreme agony had been suffered before death, but many looked as calm as though smothered. All were blackened with smoke; some were burned beyond a possibility of identification, nothing remaining but the trunk. Louis Desjerdin, fifty-four years old, whose wife and daughter were both burned to became insane to-day from grief, amt cried continually in agonizing tones: “Oh, my Julie!mv Julie!” Some were taken out alive who were under others who were dead, and owed to this fact their own salvation.

One of the most protracted cases ass suffering was that of Mary Desjardin, who was burned past all recognition and blinded. She somehow found her way to the hill north of the church and wandered around there about twenty minutes before she was found and taken to her home, where she died about eleven o’clock this morning, having lingered fifteen hours in fearful agony. The fate of Amminie Menaer and her lover was a touching event of the fire., She was the organist for the evening in the absence of the regular one, and was cut off from escape when the church was burned. Her lover escaped, but finding that she was still within turned to rescue her, was overcome with the dames, and perished with her. When a horse breaks its leg it is no longer necessary to shoot it “ in order to save its life,” as the Irishman did with his pig that was hurt by the cars. A veterinary surgeon of ftrecht, Long Island, recently set the broken hind-leg of a horse so successfully that the animal is sound as ever. It took about six weeks to effect the cure. 2f—A eolored man called at a Kentucky Postoffice recently and wanted to know “ Does dis posterns keep stamped antelopes?" He was doubtless convinced that he had the wrong ideer.