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 Wales, Pp. 676.
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 Wales, Pp. 727-8.
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 Wales, Pp. 775.
While Wales has been extremely fortunate in the matter of loss by fire, losing only three buildings in that way since it was incorporated as a town, and two of these in the past five years, Monmouth has been as extremely unfortunate. It is safe to assert that Monmouth has had, on an average, a conflagration for each two years of its existence as an incorporated town; and since 1860 this rate has nearly doubled. If we count each separate stand that has gone up in flames since that date, the average would be something above one for each of the thirty-five years. And yet Monmouth has not so much as a single ladder or fire-bucket that could be brought into service in case of fire, without borrowing. The fallacy of thus toying with the fates was exemplified, in a most thorough manner, on the 19th of April, 1888. When the entire business portion of Monmouth Center was leveled to the ground.
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 Lewiston fire department received a telegram from Monmouth which read: "The town's on fire. Send immediate help." One hour and five minutes from that time, a special train, consisting of two flats and a passenger car, dashed into the village bearing the L. C. Peck, Lewiston's largest steamer, and a crowd of willing helpers.
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 Main and Maple streets quickly followed it. On the opposite side of Maple street wet blankets and a liberal distribution of water on the buildings of R. G. King saved that stand and the Congregational church, which almost joined it. Turning the corner at Maple street, the flames followed down the ell and stable connected with the hotel and leaped across a narrow driveway to a harness shop occupied by W. A. Smith, with a tenement above. The Cochnewagan stream flowed between this and the next building, and here, by a tremendous effort the fire was turned.
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 Boston trade.
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 Wales, Pp. 839-844.