THE MILWAUKEE HOTEL FIRE.

Kumara Times, Issue 2015, 13 February 1883, Page 2

THE MILWAUKEE HOTEL FIRE.

FURTHER PARTICULARS. From papers to hand by the mail we glean some further particulars of the fire at the Trevalla New Hall Hotel, Milwaukee, The alarm of fire was given at 3 o’clock in the morning of the 9th January. There were about 200 guests in the hotel at the time, so that with servants and waitresses the actual number of persons who slept in the building would be about 270. Canvases were stretched out to receive those of the despairing inmates of the burning pyre who chose to risk the leap down to the stone side-walk, 100 (?) feet below. At first only Lieut. Rockwood, Detectives Reim and M'Manus, Officers O’Brien and Campbell,, and a few sentinel men stretched the heavy canvas, which required fully 30 strong men to handle successfully. A poor fellow stood on the cornice of the fifth-story corner window for twenty long minutes, not daring to take the fearful leap; finally he became bewildered, and, to judge by his actions, dumbfounded by the smoke, he slid off his perch to the canvas below. The few who held it could not give the necessary resistance, and the body fell unhindered by the canvas with a dull thud which sent a shudder through every witness. The shattered body was carried into an office close by. While hundreds of people had been looking on nobody responded to the demands of the officers for aid. Everybody seemed spell-bound. A man and woman appeared at a window of the third story, and were recognised as Allen Johnson and his wife. The canvas was stretched below the windows of their apartment, and a thousand voices called beseeching them to jump. Mr Johnson kissed his wife, leaped into the air, and shot downwards into the canvas, but his weight was such that the canvas was pulled out of the hands of the few who held it, and he alighted on the ground with deadly force. His wife followed, and the body struck the verandah and fell to the ground lifeless. Johnson died shortly after in the Express office, and the dead body was laid beside that of his wife until they were borne away. About a dozen people jumped from the Michigan street front. Each leap meant death or shattered limbs, and not fewer than four unfortunates at one time lay upon the icy sidewalk in front of the Chamber of Commerce, clad only in their night clothes, with blood and brains oozing from wounds through which bones protruded. The scene in the alley west of the burning building was sickening. As early as seven o’clock bodies of seven unfortunate waiter girls were stretched upon the ice with broken limbs, writhing in agony, until death ended their sufferings. The maze of telegraph wires encircling the south

and east sides played sad havoc with the unfortunates in their frightful leaps for life. Several of the bodies were cut deep into by the wires, and their torn and bleeding bodies would drop to the ground. Others would hit the wires crosswise, rebound, and be hurled to the ground with a dreadful crash. The waiter girls all lodged in the sixth story and attic, and to them the saddest lot has fallen. Of 60 young girls, only eleven have been discovered alive. Hot long after the flames had broken out in the interior, Miss Chillis, dressmaker, was seen at a window on the fourth floor and was recognised by those below and implored to make a leap upon the canvas, but she remairaed standing at the window of the burning room until the flames enveloped her. Shortly after the tottering walls of the south-east corner of the building fell, bearing a heavy telegraph pole to the ground, which felled Benjamin Vanhoag of the Hook and Ladder Company, beneath its weight. A deed of heroism is recorded worthy of unqualified praise. Edward Rymer and Herman Strauss appeared on the roof of the Bank building at the critical juncture directly opposite the servants’ quarters with a ladder in their hands. For a moment the unwieldly thing hung poised in mid-air, and then descended with a crash through the window of the hotel. It formed a bridge across the alley, and before it became steady in position the men had crossed into the hotel, and then amid the cheers of the multitude below, they dragged the helpless creatures across the slender bridge until fully a dozen had been rescued. All were in their nightclothes, and many were badly frozen before being taken to shelter. A woman in a faint, unable to help herself, was dragged across safely, but at one time the whole of her body was hanging over the clear of the ladder, while one of the brave men held her by one of her ankles. The crowd below held its breath in suspense, expecting every moment to see the ladder turn over or break beneath the terrible strain. The man, however, was equal to the emergency, and by an herculean effort pulled her upon the bridge, and placed her out of danger. This painful suspense lasted for fully ten minutes, when the crowd burst forth in a round of applause. Twelve poor waitresses were rescued by these brave men. Two brothers, named Clayton, rescued four women, carrying them bodily out. The police rescued a dozen persons. The fire is believed to be the result of incendiarism.