DISASTROUS FIRE AT PORT-AUPRINCE.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 290, 17 May 1875, Page 3

DISASTROUS FIRE AT PORT-AU-PRINCE.

According to accounts from Port-au-Prince, received at San Francisco, the fire at that place on January 12th was still more disastrous than the telegraph announced. The entire northern portion of the city was swept by the flames. Four hundred houses have been consumed, and the loss of property is estimated at 2,000,000d01. The property was chiefly owned by foreign residents, composed of English, Hollanders, Germans, Frenchmen, and a few Americans, and was insured'-in companies in European cities, mostly Amsterdam, where the loss falls very heavily. No American company lost anything by the fire. The combustible nature of the structures and the high wind* caused the flames to spread with great rapidity, A dozen separate fires occurred. In seven hours from the time of the breaking out of the fire a space of about half a mile square had been covered by- the flames. By blowing up the .buildings and leaving nothing for the fire to feed upon it was finally stopped. J. P. Hepburn, an American merchant, lost his life. He had rescued his wife and Children, and went back into his bazaar to endeavor to save some of his goods. While there he was surrounded by the flames. His dead body .was found after the fire in a well in the rear of his store. '