Hardley a wall left standing in the Heart of Chelsea.
Huge
building stones crumbled to dust.
Great fissures torn in streets by the heat.
It is impossible to describe the scene of total devastation and utter
desolation that came within the notice of a Boston American reporter
as he travelled miles and miles of streets in Chelsea last evening
after the fire had mowed to the ground the whole heart of Chelsea.
Not a single house in the vast district was saved. In fact, in the
great majority of cases, nothing is left but the stone foundations of
the buildings.
For hours the reporter travelled amid such scenes. The intense heat
had crumbled thousands of houses to dust within the space of a few
short hours. The streets are filled with debris, telegraph poles,
trees and wires twisted and turned into every shape. The streets
where upturned granite curb stones crumbled to dust and brick
structures in most instances tumbled to the ground without leaving
even a portion of the walls standing.
How the thousands of persons who occupied these homes ever got away
with their lives is hard to understand, for on every side, one met
with evidences showing that houses were leveled to the ground within
a few minutes. The flames spread so rapidily through these miles of
streets that the residents evidently made no attempt to save their
household furniture, for aside from the telegraph poles, trees and
walls of the building, the reporter didn’t find a single bit of
household effects in the streets on Bellingham Hill.
The heat was so intense that it baked the earth in countless places
and tore great fissures in it as if by an earthquake. Telegraph poles
and trees were eaten off at their base and tumbled into the street.
Flagstones which had been eighteen inches thick crumbled into dust in
many places and in hundreds of instances were cracked as straight as
if drilled.
In hundreds of instances there wasn’t even a sign of a timber
standing that held together a frame house. The heat was so intense
everything crumbled to dust. Few, if any, of the walls of the brick
buildings remained standing. They just crumbled and fell.
An instance of the rapidity with which the flames swept through the
district is shown by an abandoned fire engine which stood at the
corner of Central Avenue and Highland Street. Every valve was opened
showing that the machine was running at its capacity when the flames
suddenly burst upon the engineer, who fled for his life without
heeding to his charge.
An expert engineer, who got by the Militia by some subterfuge, was
examining the machine when the Boston American reporter came along.
He gave it as his opinion that the flames were so intense and making
such progress that the engineer abandoned his engine while it was
pumping at capacity.
In the two score or more streets that the reporter travelled he met
but a dozen people, and they were sightseers who had stolen by the
Militia lines. For fully one half hour the reporter walked amid these
scenes of devastation, with the roaring of the flames along the
waterfront on the east side and on the west side plainly heard, but
not a human sole in sight.
Suddenly from out of what appeared to be a smoldering mass of debris,
a cat appeared. The animal darted accross the street and in an
instant was lost.
Working his way through the tangled mass of wires and debris, the
reporter reached Central Avenue at a point about 200 yards from the
site of the City Hall. A thick smoke filled the air and in the
darkness the writer had to literally creep along pace by pace.
Suddenely a soft object in the water came into contact with the
reporter’s foot. Almost simultaneously a human voice came to the
writer’s ear and the next instant a small boy was picking himself up
from the parched street. Before the reporter could speak the
youngster reached over and shook a second form that now appeared
saying, “Arthur, get up.”
The lads proved to be Arthur and Tommy Regan. Exhausted by their
hours of travel through the burned district, searching for their
parents, these homeless boys, both under ten years of age, made their
way back to the site of their home, and although the atmosphere was
filled with smoke that made one’s eyes smart, and choked one, yet
these lads lay down on the hot earth and fell asleep.
“My mamma and papa are alive, but in the crowd we lost
them,” said the youngest lad, seven years old. “We walked
around for hours but couldn’t find them. Mamma will think we are dead
and will cry, I wish I could find her.” The youngsters, upon the
advise of the reporter, started towards police headquarters to locate
their parents.
Looking up Highland Street from Central Avenue, on an elevation, are
the remains of what had been a beautiful schoolhouse. Nothing but the
four ghastly walls remain. On every side were smoldering ruins. As
the reporter passed on, he noticed the foundation of a building. Save
for a foot of smoldering debris there wasn’t another thing in site.
The foundation was as clearly outlined as if it had been built
yesterday. The debris that lay at the bottom could be carted away in
one load of an average size dumpcart. The building simply crumbled
into dust when the flames hit it.
At the further end of Central Avenue within 200 feet of the bridge
leading to East Boaton, an ancient handtub was lying on the edge of
the street. The machine had evidently been stored in a building in
that vicinity, and when the flames began to sweep towards that
section some volunteers started with the tub to aid in attempting to
check the progress of the flames.
From all appearance it would seem that in the interval of getting out
the tub and running it up Central Avenue about 200 feet, the flames
had made such progress that the volunteers realized the hopeless task
and abandoned it. Rather than have it block up the street, they ran
it up onto the sidewalk and started it down over the embankment.
Just over the west of Central Avenue a varnish factory was being
eaten up by the flames. The highly combustible material fed the
flames that leaped a hundred feet into the air. The Boston and Albany
bridge, which is almost to the left of Central Avenue, was ablaze and
was rapidly becoming a mass of charred timbers.
In some manner not explained, the draw of the foot bridge leading to
East Boston had been opened. Between the bridges were two steam
yachts tied up and housed for the winter. At eight o’clock when the
American reporter was driven from the scene by the intense heat and
fumes from the fire in the oil works to the east of the bridge, the
smaller yacht had burned to its water edge.
With its cabins housed over, a ninety foot steam yacht not
twenty-five feet away lay uninjured. This is only one of the 100
freak incidents that came to the reporters notice. To the east of
Central Avenue, along the front of Chelsea River was a score of small
oil tanks that had been consumed by the fire. The oil had evidently
been burned up, for the crumpled metal of the tanks was all that were
left. Two hundred yards from this point, the flames were so intense
that a human being could not stand.
By a circuitous route the reporter reached Central Avenue at the site
of City Hall and Shurtleff School. Only the walls fronting on Central
Avenue were standing while directly across the street portions of the
walls of the Baptist Church were standing. At Bellingham Station and
Broadway devastation ruled. All along both sides of Broadway houses
were levelled. Going up Broadway toward the railroad bridge, the
walls of the Public Library, the new Armory and St. Rose’s Catholic
Church were all that stood above the ground. A few feet west of the
church ended the path of the fire. The deep cut of fifty feet in
which the Boston and Maine railroad ran saved Prattville and the
westerly sections of the city from being destroyed.
Just below the railroad bridge, on Washington Avenue, to the east,
were houses that were unscorched. These were the only two houses
directly in the path of the flames that were not destroyed. From the
railroad tracks to Second Street it was the same story. Everything
was swept away. In this section, which were inhabited by the poorer
class, frantic efforts were made to save household effects, but they
were obliged to abandon them in the streets, where everything was consumed.