Early Fires in Monmouth
Daniel Folsom's house, which stood on the spot where George Hutchinson's house
now stands, at East Monmouth, was burned in the spring of 1826.
Cochrane, Harry Hayman, History of Monmouth and
On the fourth day of April, 1841,
North Monmouth was visited by a conflagration which temporarily blasted all
manufacturing industries. The fire caught accidentally in a shingle-mill owned
by Tinkham, Blaisdell and Pettingill and soon spread to a saw-mill owned by the same
parties and a webbing-mill owned by Thomas Stanton. Although but few operatives
were employed in these mills, the loss was severely felt by the community. Many
a long face watched the falling timbers, and perhaps none was longer than that
of Thomas Stanton, who was then a young man of only twenty years. He had worked
hard from his boyhood, had since the death of his father, six years before,
been the main support of his mother, and now, in one short hour, looms, stock
and all his prospects of gaining a livelihood were
swept away before his eyes. It is doubtful if he watched the falling timbers as
calmly as did Mr. Tinkham, who, when an excited young
man ran up to him with the interrogation, "Say, Mr. Tinkham,
are you goin' to build this mill up again":
slowly replied, "I think we shall let it burn down first."
Cochrane, Harry Hayman, History of Monmouth and
About the middle of June, 1850, the Ichabod Baker
house, one of the first framed buildings in town, was burned. It had caught
fire twice before, and had been saved by considerable effort. On one of these
occasions, as the men were working with all possible haste to head off the
flames, Mrs. Baker came to the door with her dish-pan in hand, and, with the
utmost coolness, asked the man who was drawing water with her slow-working
well-sweep if he would not spare her enough to finish rinsing her dishes.
Cochrane, Harry Hayman, History of Monmouth and
While
It was Fast day when this awful catastrophe occurred, and everything was moving
lazily. The afternoon mail had arrived and was distributed and mostly
delivered. A few loafers were hanging about the post-office, which was located
in a new three-floored store owned by Edwards & Flaherty. This store had
been built only two years before, to take the place of one which was destroyed
by fire on the same site in the fall of 1885, and was the most pretentious
building ever erected in Monmouth. The first floor was used by the proprietors
as a dry goods and drug store, the second, as a
dwelling flat and the third, as an entertainment hall. The basement was filled
with such articles of commerce as are generally found in a country store,
including barrels of kerosene, cans of turpentine, oil and varnish and casks of
rosin and other inflammable substances. All at once a puff of smoke came from
beneath, and in an instant the building was in flames. The loafers rushed to
the street for their lives, and the proprietors followed them, not getting time
to secure the remnant of the mail, the postage stamps, money drawer, or even to
lock their safe. Fifteen minutes later the chief of the
In the meantime the fire had made sad havoc. An alarm from the church bells had
brought the villagers to the scene with water-pails and home-made ladders, and
many of them worked heroically to save the surrounding buildings, while the
flames mocked their energy. Curling its red tongue toward the north, the fire
fiend lapped up a small building occupied by E. L. Harlow as a cobbler's shop,
and then sprang to the roof of a shoe-store owned by O. S. Edwards. Still
working northward, it devoured a large building owned by S. O. & R. G. King
and occupied, on the first floor, by Gilman & Beale as a hardware store and
above, by Frank Whitney as a dwelling. Next it made its way to the dry goods
and grocery store of E. A. Dudley, and a moment later was fastening its greedy
jaws on the ell of a fine stand owned by H. A. Williams. This house was
occupied by Mr. Williams and his father-in-law, Nelson P. Barker. The aged wife
of the latter was sick, and was removed with considerable difficulty to a house
beyond the fire track. The stand flanked the railroad crossing, and was the
last building on the east side of the street for quite a distance. Consequently
the flames were stopped at that point without difficulty, although constant
watchfulness was required to prevent the lodgment of brands and cinders on the
M. E. church and parsonage beyond.
While buildings on the north were rapidly falling, the paint on those on the
south began to blister and smoke. Next to the store where the fire originated,
on the same side, was the dwelling-house of M. O. Edwards, the senior partner
of the firm of Edwards & Flaherty. This was soon in ashes, and the hotel at
the corner of
Across the street from the Edwards & Flaherty store was a block containing
two stores, one occupied as a grain store by Mr. Jewett, and the other, as a
marble shop by H. S. Hooper, and two tenements above. The flames and sparks
were blowing in the opposite direction, but the heat was so intense that this
block was soon in flames. A livery stable which adjoined it on the west was the
next to fall, and a large store separated from it by a narrow alley was not
long in following. This store was occupied by W. W. Woodbury, in the sale of
boots and shoes and ready made clothing, and the upper floor was furnished for
the manufacture of coats for the
At the rear of the King store was a large house containing three tenements, the
principal one of which was occupied by Mrs. Getchell
as a boarding house; and in the rear of the Dudley store was a small
dwelling-house occupied by John A. Wilcox and a large one owned by Simon
Clough. This last was the finest dwelling-house in the village. Sad as was the
spectacle of an entire village falling into ashes a yet sadder one followed,
for the goods that had been carried into the street for safety caught from the
excessive heat, and, like a line of tinder, the accumulations of years, and
mementos that no years of toil could replace flashed up for a moment, and then
fell in a bed of sparkling coals.
The weird appearance of the village streets that night could be described by no
one but Charles Dickens. Eighteen homeless families turned from the hospitable
doors that were opened to them and wandered, with strange fascination, among
the debris, their melancholy faces lit up by the intermittent flashes of the
now dying flames; tall black chimneys and skeletons of trees stood like giant
demons in every direction; heaps of rubbish, so mixed that they looked as if
they would hardly pay for sorting, were scattered here and there. In one place
a homeless man cooked his supper over a smoldering nail keg; in another, groups
of women with shawls over their heads were hysterically exchanging experiences.
Men who ought to have been praying were swearing vociferously, women were
weeping and children ran about with excited faces, enjoying the novelty as
keenly as they lamented the misfortune. Busy reporters flying around in anxious
haste to secure every particular collided with elephantine coffee-pots borne by
dispensers of both sexes flying around in as anxious haste to secure, and fill
to the chin, every brave fireman who had rendered such valuable service. Such a
spectacle is seen but once in a life time, and it can
not be afforded oftener, for it cost, at least, $40.000.
It would seem as if an experience like this would lead to the immediate
purchase of something in the line of fire-extinguishing apparatus, but nothing
has yet been done. {1895, ed.} A special town-meeting
was called, it is true, to discuss the expediency of providing for future
emergencies, but whatever plans were developed, like the village, went up in
smoke. And because nothing was done thousands of dollars in valuable buildings
have since gone up in smoke. Less than a year passed before the cheese factory
at the Center was a heap of ashes. Then followed the Hackett place on Monmouth
Ridge; the residence of William Palmer at No. Monmouth; the Lindsay &
Sanborn store in the same village, stacked with valuable general merchandise,
and the adjacent residence of Charles Sanborn; the Blake Sinclair stand in the
Lyon district; the valuable residence of Frank H. Beale at the Center, and the
home of D. H. Dearborn in the Warren district. All of this property could not
have been saved by hand tubs located at the Center and North Monmouth, but the
most valuable of it certainly could have. An assessment of one per cent of the
real estate valuation of the town would purchase two good second-hand
extinguishers; but in this case, at least, the burned child does not fear the
fire.
Cochrane, Harry Hayman, History of Monmouth and