Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 81, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 June 1901 — MANY DIE IN FLAMES. [ARTICLE]

MANY DIE IN FLAMES.

EXPLOSION OF FIREWORKS CAUSE DEATH AND INJURY. Blowing Up of a Smalt Store Ignite* a Big Tenement Building Frantic Dweller* Entrapped in Frame Structure Jump from Windows to Escape. In a terrific explosion of fireworks in a Paterson, N. J., store on Friday at least seventeen persons were killed and seveD were injured. Several more are, missing. Twenty-one families were rendered homeless, all their household effects being burned by the fire, which destroyed three large apartment buildings. Many rescues were made and many narrow escapes were recorded. > One woman, whose husband was a helpless invalid, dashed back into the flames to save him, arid joined him in death just as the firemen sent to help her arrived. A bridegroom, by the exercise of great daring, strength and presence of mind, saved his young wife and himself when it seemed as if they must perish. A father and mother dug through heaps of fallen plaster to save their baby, and effected their escape after unsuccessful efforts. Three firemen were buried in the falling building material and were taken out injured hut with a chance of recovery. In the cellar, under the wholesale and retail fireworks store of A. M. Rittenburg, were stored tons of fireworks for the sales preliminary to the Fourth of July. No one knows the origin of the catastrophe, but at 12:30 ©’clock the whole neighborhood was shaken by a terrific explosion which brought down almost immediately the tenement house übove the store and so shook the adjoining buildings of the same kind that they quickly fell into the fire which followed. Rittenburg has been accused of keeping powder in great bulk, but he denies this. Most of the families-were at dinner, and they were so startled by the shock that they did not stop to learn its cause, but ran, pell-mell, into the street. Lhen those who had left little children, or old persons behind had to go back to rescue them, and so rapid was the spread of the flames they had barely time to do so. Many jumped from windows in making their escape. Flames'were leaping through the two houses adjoining long before an alarm had been turned in, and by the time the firemen arrived many casualties had been recorded. No less than thirty-five persons were taken from the,three buildings by firemen and by tenants who retained thedr presence of mind.