Forest Fires in America

Cromwell Argus, Volume III, Issue 112, 2 January 1872, Page 7

Forest Fires in America

—o— Oct. 20. This letter, to give it a local habitation and a name, is dated where Peshtego was. Calcined fragments are all that remain df imposing edifice and hundreds of peaceful homes. T lis ominous clearing is in the centre of a tamarack, with a swift river—the Peshtego —gliding silently through the centre from ! north-east to south-west. Situated seven miles from the Green Bay, on the Peshtego River, the town commanded all the lumber trade of the northern peninsula, and grow rapidly into imoortance as a frontier mart of Chicago. Little heed was at first given to the bush fires, for the first rain would inevitably quemh the flames. Bit the raid never came, and finally a valiant battle was waged far and | near against the sioudy-increasing fires. The sharp air of early October had sent the j people in from the Sunday evening services | | more pro aiptly than usual, although numbers ! i delayed to speculate on a great noise which i I set in ominously from the west. The house-1 I wives looked tremblingly at the fires auci | I lights within, and the men took a last look at the possibilities without ; for many it was | truly a last glimpse. The noise grew in ! volume, and came nearer and nearer, with terrific crackling and detonations. A dea- ; fening roar, mingled with blasts of electric flame, filled the air. There was no beginning to the work of ruin ; the flaming whirl- | wind swirled in an instant through the town ; all heard the first inexplicable roar ; moved \ by a common instinct, for all knew the woods that encircled the town were impenetrable, | every habitation was deserted, and the gaspi ing multitude flocked to the river. Three i hundred people wedged themselves in between the rolling booms, swayed to and fro i by the current, where they vvere roasted in. I I the hot breath of flame that hovered above | them, and singed the hair on each head momentarily exposed above the water. Here j despairing men and women held their chil- i | dren till the cold water came as an ally to i > the flames, and deprived them of strength. | Meantime the eastern bank was densely; \ crowded by the dying and the dead. Rushling to the river from this direction, the swirling blast met the victims full in the! j face, and mowed a swath through the fleeing i j throng. Scores fell before the first blast, i J A. few were able to cawl to the pebbly flats, j but so dreadfully disfigured that death must ! have been preferable. All that could break j j through the stifling simoon had come to the I river. In the red glare they could see the i sloping bank covered with the bodies of those! who fell by the way. Few living in the bad: j streets succeeded in reaching the river. But j now a new danger befel those who did ream i it. The cattle, terv'lie.l by the dames and ■ smoke, rushed in a great lowing drove to the! river brink. Women and children were, trampled under foot by the frightened brutes, and many, losing their hold on the friendly i logs, were swept under the water. Although the onslaught of fire an 1 wind bad been instantaneous, and the destruction almost! simultaneous, the fierce, stifling currents of, heat Were more fatal than the flames of the | burning village. Ignorant of the extent of j the fire, many of the company's workmen, I some with wives and children, shut them-; selves up in the great brick building audi perished in the raging heats of the succeed- i ing half-hour. Others, in the remote streets, i made for the clearing beyond the woods, but few ever passed the burning barrier. The I fiats were covered with prone figures, with I their backs all ablaze and their fares pressed ■ rigidly into the cool, m list earth. TiiO flames j plaved about and above all with an incessant i deafening roar. When the hanless dwellers j in the remote streets saw themselves cut off, from the river, groups broke in all directions j in a wild panic of fright and terror. A few I, took refuge in a cleared held, bordering our the town. Here, flat upon the ground, with , faces pressed in the sv.nl, the hebless suf- ■ ferers lav and roasted. But few survived the dreadful agony. The next dav revealed ; a picture exceeding in horror any battle-field. Mothers, with children hugged closely, lay in rigid groups, the clothes burned off, and !' the poor flesh seared to a crisp. One mother, j solicitous only for her babe, embalms her unutterable love in the t arible picture left j on these woeful sands. With her bare fingers she had scraped out a pit, as the soldiers had done before Petersburg!!, and pressing the little one into this, she put her body .above 1 it as a shield, and when the daylight came, both were dead—the little baby face uu-h scarred, but the mother burnt almost to cinders. No vestige of human habitation remained, ' andjbhe steaming, freezing, wretched group, crazed by the Unutterable terror of despair, ' pleaded with each other to restore the lost! ones. The hot blasts o c tho night had blinded j , them, and they could but vaguely recogn-se!' one another in the murky light of tho new ' day. I, On Sunday night something ove- 20O9;: people were assembled within the confines of; this industrious, prosperous city : tho dr sad-;; ful morning Ihjht came un<vi a haggird, ii marr ical multitude of loss than 700. the work o c reseu n b n gan it vas found that a j great number has! escarted bv the V-el o* t l ' - river .and the northern r<nn to *b« n >rt and ' as the day advanced, half-naked stragglers,' 1 unkempt and blnckpned, began to stream ' into the sparse settlement Fatuous tradesmen had thrrfvp uables into wells for security : every -veil n the city was turned into a flairrin g nit, and ; f\ie very waters vere half evaporated bv the ■ heat. Survivors itttest that women and chil-1 dren, cut off fro--! the river, were put into I ,t]vi wells and ocw'rt'sd with lr«ddiil&.. I Iwe

11 J • j looked into ever'- well in the ash-oovered clearing, and there is tfo possibility that a living thing could have endured the flames that boiled and seethed in them. The next night the Idng-prayed-for raiii came, graLuiully to the living, and kindlv to the floating ashes of the dead. The great ' dread that hovered over the bay cities and towns was allayed, and the th7*<lp ''finpd I nearly gone. By Tnesdav the swooning railed I of fire had been quenched by Monday night's rain. A slight drizzle still further aided' the work of rescue. The ravages of the end night's tornado left unmistakable traces on every hand; A clean swath of blackened stumps marked the course of the fiery tempest. The roads were encumbered with roasted cattle, and frequently with the carcases of bears and deer, while the ditches and cleared fields were strewn with smaller game and wild birds. Save where the houses were built with cellars, which was very rare, 1 there is no trace of a former habitation. The material loss is estimated at three ; million dollars, the greater portion of which I falls on 'Tilliain B. Ogden, who suffered I simultaneously greater loss-s in Chicago. J But undaunted by his accumulating misforj tunes, that energetic man instantly sent an ; agent on to rebuild the mills and shops, and j gather a few people in the place if possible. There are 400 dead fully ascertained ; there ' are beside half as many missing who cannot j be accounted for, and probably never will be.