Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 October 1897 — HOMES NOW IN RUINS. [ARTICLE]

HOMES NOW IN RUINS.

Five Thousand People of Windsor, N. S., Lose Their All. Historic Windsor, one of the most beautiful towns in the province of Nova Scotia, was devastated by fire Sunday morning. For six hours, beginning shortly before 3 a. m., the fire, fanned by a violent northwest gale, raged so fiercely that the local fire department was absolutely helpless to cope with it and within half an hour after its discovery the Mayor began to call for outside assistance. Long before noon the town had been eaten up almost completely, the area covered by the flames being nearly a mile

square and of the 400 or more buildings occupying the section barely half a dozen escaped. During the past few years many handsome brick structures have been erected, but these were generally contiguous to old wooden buildings and all went together before the furious flames. The origin of the fire is somewhat mysterious. A severe lightning storm passed over the town before the flames burst forth and some think the barn in which the fire started may have been struck by lightning, but many strongly suspect that the conflagration originated through the carelessness of some drunken man. When morning broke the site of Windsor was a scene of desolation, with hundreds of frantic, thinly clad and destitute men and women and children rushing back and forth through the smoky streets. Fortunately no lives were lost, although the streets were perilous with flying bricks and slabs which the fierce hurricane drove like thunderbolts from the roofs. No Nova Scotia town has ever been visited by a conflagration of such dimensions. Of the 3,500 people that inhabited the place few have homes of their own now.