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CHAPTER V.
SPREADING NORTHWARD. FROM
Summer Street,
through all the avenues which enter it
from the north, including High, Devonshire, Otis, Arch, and Hawley
Streets, the
great destroyer bent its course towards State Street. The flames
presented an
impassable wall of fire from Washington Street to the bay, a distance
of about
half a mile. Throughout the whole extent it was pushed forward with
fearful
rapidity, and was soon into Federal, High, Franklin, Congress, Pearl,
Purchase,
and Broad Streets, consuming with resistless fury. After
taking Hawley
Street, which runs near to Washington Street, and parallel with it, the
fire
attacked the rear of those fine structures between Summer and Franklin
Streets
which had for so long adorned Washington Street, that most frequented
promenade
of the capital, and soon after crossed northward into the buildings
then
standing between Franklin and Milk Streets. Large
clothing-establishments, with
their work-rooms filled daily with thousands of sewing-girls;
jewelry-stores;
photographers’ saloons; cigar-shops; confectioners’ stalls;
eating-houses;
barbers’ saloons; carpet-halls engravers’ chambers; hat and fur stores;
salesrooms for cutlery, millinery, and furniture; wholesale
apothecary-shops;
warehouses for toys, books, and furnishing-goods; and, lastly, the new
and
ornamental building occupied by “The Boston Daily Transcript,” next to
the
corner of Milk Street, near which stood the old South Church, — all
vanished before
the deadly magician, leaving only toppling sections of front walls and
unseemly
masses of rubbish. In Hawley
Street
the fire found, as it crept in from Arch Street, carpenters’ and
painters’
shops, printing-offices, paper-stores, manufacturers of straw-goods and
printers’ materials, together with private apartments; and, like a
hurricane,
it whistled about doors and windows Until the narrow avenue was
everywhere
choked with fire. In Arch
Street were
dry-goods, furs, paper-collars, straw-goods, and small wares, worth an
enormous
sum, and which were nearly all destroyed. In Bussey Place, that opened
into
Arch Street, there were vacant dwellings, dealers in woollens,
sewing-silks,
and furnishing-goods; but they only served to kindle brighter fires,
and to
make a few more men poorer. Otis
Street, on the
corner of which was the second building destroyed, and which at one
extremity
forms one side of Winthrop Square, was occupied by dealers in woollens,
furnishing-goods, and hats, and by manufacturers of paper-collars and
trimmings. Devonshire
Street
was crowded throughout its entire length with wholesale dry-goods and
wholesale
furnishing and fancy goods. Millions of dollars had been invested in
these
large stocks, and but little was saved from the stores contiguous to
Summer
Street or Winthrop Square; and the heavens grew red and the clouds of
smoke
shone as silver above the ruin of so much wealth. Franklin
Street,
which, in crooked, hap-hazard Boston, was the widest and best business
highway
in the city, with the exception of State Street, was the mart of the
wholesale
woollen trade, which had become of so much importance in the commerce
of the
city. There it was confidently hoped that the flames might be stayed.
Alas!
they were far more powerful than mortals; and they swept over and
through the
street with unhesitating rapidity. Can Mauna Loa be extinguished with
buckets
of water, or Popocatapetl be smothered with turf? Yet neither of those
volcanoes
appears more terrible than did the acres about Franklin Street at two
o’clock
on Sunday morning. The air was loaded with fire-brands; great sheets of
fire
were lifted skyward; and rings of flame curled away into space like
great
smoke-puffs of a starting locomotive. Every thing melted; and men would
have
melted in the by-streets if they had not fled. The tall staff which had
so
often supported the nation’s flag, and which was placed there. amid
patriotic
prayers for the safety of our common country, was wrapped about with
ribbons of
glittering red; and fiery serpents ran lightly up, and shot away into
the air
from its smoking ball. But over all. through all. and in all, glided
the gloomy
volumes of smoke, hiding from view much that was sublime, suffocating
into
defeat such as thought to battle longer. The din was terrific. Enormous
bowlders fell incessantly; wide walls rumbled into the streets, making
the
earth tremble; the wind shrieked in the broken and ragged towers left
standing;
while men yelled, steam fire-engines buzzed and whistled, and
heavily-loaded
teams rumbled by in their flight from the searing heat. Water from a
score of
nozzles hissed through the air; while crystal streams gurgled along in
the
paved gutters, contrasting strangely with the tumult and glare about
them. Even
Franklin Street, with its high walls of stone, cemented like a
fortress, and
solid as the walls of Nineveh, bowed before the fire-king. If such be
its
power, there is no hope for any. Federal
Street, the
next below Devonshire, was practically the dividing-line between the
great
marts of the wholesale dry-goods trade and the markets of the boot,
shoe, and
leather trade: so that it held some of both branches, together with
many
important wholesale storehouses of hardware, carriages, crockery, steel
and
iron, patent medicines, saws, locks, cutlery, plated ware, glass,
groceries,
clothing, and several founderies and manufactories. The fire reached
Federal
Street through the blocks which ran from street to street connecting it
with
Devonshire Street, and also by way of High Street, which was one of the
first
destroyed: consequently it gleamed into the rear-windows, and ignited
the roofs
of many buildings on the west side almost at the same moment. Soon the
great
avalanche rolled over it, burying it in clouds and fire: and those
whose
business-home had been there for many years, and who had learned to
love its
dull buildings and worn sidewalks, fled from them all with their arms
full of
valuables; and the Federal Street they knew and revered passed out of
being. Congress
Street,
from Milk Street to the bay, was practically the headquarters of the
leather
trade of Boston, and contained a great number of solid, plain stone
buildings,
built far more for business than for ornament, but which were,
nevertheless,
very costly and spacious structures. Into that street the terrific tide
surged;
and the first wave overleaped the buildings along almost the whole
length of
the street. It was ingulfed in fire for a long distance within a few
minutes of
the time when it first caught. It was sad
to
think, as we saw the lurid reflections of internal fires shimmering
with such
ghastly reflections through the doors and windows, of the happy ones,
who, but
a few hours before, counted the huge piles of hides which would be
needed the
next week to fill the fast incoming orders from their widespread
agencies. Even
then, when the heat of an earthly hell was crisping their all, they
might be
sleeping that sleep of peace which only plenty can give. Hundreds of
thousands
of men were directly or indirectly dependent upon this trade. Tanneries
had
been sustained for months to make that stock of leather; and many, many
weary
hours of toil had been spent in shipping and in storing: yet there in a
few
minutes it disappeared forever in the ruin of the walls which enclosed
it. The breeze
had
increased to a whirlwind. All was calm on the bay, and scarcely a
breath
awakened the rustles of suburban leaves: but the intense heat, and what
the
philosophers term “the consumption of oxygen “in the air about the
fire, set
all the currents in active motion; and so fiercely did the wind blow,
that it
was difficult at times to stand erect. Timbers were detached while
blazing, and
carried out into the streets; roof-boards were pulled from burning
rafters, and
sent sailing and smoking away towards the harbor, great quantities of
dust,
ashes, and rubbish, flew upward with the smoke, or clashed around the
corners
with impetuous haste. Spectators saw, between the puffs of dust, fire
in buildings,
fire in the air, and sparks all about them; while the roaring grew
louder, and
the cannon-like bursting of heated rocks became more frequent and more
terrible. Wilder and higher streamed the flames as they crossed the
fated
Federal Street, and bellowed into the solid structures which bordered
on Pearl
Street. There
they revelled with but little opposition. Crumbling and crashing as
ever,
melting safes, and pulverizing slate, granite, and marble, they
clutched the
high stacks of boot-and-shoe cases, and, with whiffs of their scathing
breath,
blew them in ashes away into the outer tempest like lung-vapors in the
frosty
air. “By Heaven! it is a
splendid sight to see,
For one who hath no friend, no brother, there.” Men
prophesied
then, and with good show of reason, that the greatest boot-and-shoe
market in
the world was destroyed beyond recovery. So much wealth, so much stock,
so many
extensive warehouses destroyed, and so much probable delay in getting
new
supplies to meet the great demands, would have disheartened many. But
Boston’s
courage and zeal and hope were fire-proof; and; though there was nought
but
ashes to be found in the market, there was the best part of the
shoe-dealer’s
capital — viz., his energy — left to start with again. So great
was the
heat upon the west side of Pearl Street when the flames from High
Street
reached the corner, that it actually baked the inner finish of stores
over the
way, until they smoked and blazed into bonfires. Then the east side of
Pearl
Street joined in the general conflagration, and soon streamed through
into
Oliver Street, where at last the fire halted, because of the wide
unoccupied
territory just brought to the level by the removal of Fort Hill, the
unfinished
buildings, and the skilful efforts of the firemen. Northward,
and
still against the wind, pressed the fire, until Milk Street was
destroyed, from
the Old South Church, on the corner of Washington Street, to Oliver
Street,
with the exception of the new United-States treasury and post-office
building,
on the corner of Devonshire Street. There were clothing-houses,
saddle-makers,
thread-dealers, stationers, plumbers, printers, boot, shoe, and leather
merchants, clock-makers, book-publishers, plated-ware manufacturers,
wholesale
millinery establishments, rubber-stores, paper-storehouses, wool
venders,
wholesale drug-shops, and salesrooms for crockery, hardware, chemicals,
steam-engines, and many other important branches of internal traffic.
Yet the
fire paused not, but ran riot with demoniacal glee, as it scorched
through the
windows, and drove the excited owners away from their own doors. |