The Great Boston Fire.

Cromwell Argus, Volume IV, Issue 167, 21 January 1873, Page 7

The Great Boston Fire.

American papers have now come to hand . containing accounts of the above fearful , calamity. We take the following extract from a telegraphic dispatch sent while the fire was at its height, at 4.30 a.m. on Nov. jlO :—" The heat now became infernal. The | streets ran rivers of water, and every moment , was heard the sound of granite blocks exploding, and entire walls fell into the streets, making them impassable. • The firemen were driven from one station to another, and many an engine was kept nobly at work, while the fiiemen were wet by hand. The engineer could only hold his place while a ■ stream of water was kept playing on him. Blocks of granite weighing tons were split as if by powder, and hurled across wide streets. Planks were Hying through the air like feathers. Women erected barricades and worked behind them, but they were burned almost as soon as erected. An hour had hardly elapsed before it was evident that Beebe's block, the finest business structure in the city, built of granite, five stories high, with that cursed Mansard roof over all, must go within thirty minutes. The flames were coming out in fiery billows from every window, and up the stairway leading to A. T. Stewart's rooms, ran a perfect column of flame. This building served as but fuel to the flames'. Whole pieces of dry goods went whistling across the square, lodging on the windowsills of the magnificent stores on Devonshire street and Beebe's block. Several minutes after the inside fell, but the heat warped it, and two millions soon lay a heap of stone, brick, and mortar. A hurricane of wind now raged, and owing to the intense heat, every building caught like tinder. Four-storey granite blocks caught like shavings, and deafening explosions were constantly heard. A ; new terror was now added to the Babel of j confusion. The tenement houses at the j ui per end of the street were being fast licked in by the flames, and women, crazed and fainting, were rushing to and fro, carrying j children, crockery, clocks, bedding, &c."" ! Another account says :—" Up and down the streets hurried and tumbled a crowd of ! utterly demoralised men and women. There I were among these also, those who, at the tea table yesterday, were worth millions of dollars, but who are beggars to-day. Some j rushed frantic and wild through the streets, I some prayed, some moaned, a few drunken brutes cursed, but all showed by their horrorstricken countenances that they keenly appreciated the horrible and critical position. Merchant princes, who on Saturday locked their doors on immense treasures, now found themselves not only impoverished but threa- j tenet! with being made homeless by the terrible fiend. Almost insane, they flew through the excited masses, but where and what for they could not tell. All, all was consternation. The ruined merchants, the impoverished mechanics, the helpless and homeless shop girls, and the thousands and tens of thou-! sands of other representatives of society, all J united in the general mourning of what had and what might come. But the energetic but exhausted firemen still kept at work, and in the very face of general despair fought the flames more determinedly than ever." The lurid glare of the flames lighted up the entire city, and newspapers could be plainly ! read for miles away. In Providence, which is forty miles distant, an alarm of fire was caused by the Boston conflagration, somebody presuming that the tire was in that city. The tire was also distinctly visible in Stonington Northford, Charleston, Portsmouth, and other places equally distant. About forty persons are known to be killed ; and it is quite possible their number will be : increased fourfold when the excitement is over, and the rolls called. Many of these are firemen, who died wh:le making heroic endeavours to save buildings and stay the ' progress of the fire. " "