Article
from The Chelsea Gazette April 18, 1908
The Chelsea
Gazette was a Home Town Newspaper located at 126 Winnisimmet Street
in Chelsea. It was published every Saturday by John E. Beck who was,
coincidentally, the mayor of the city at the time of the fire. It is
amazing to think that even though the fire destroyed the building
housing The Chelsea Gazette, the paper published on time, the
Saturday after the fire.
Dear
Old Chelsea
I’ve
just been back in Chelsea,
Bill,
I’ve
seen a city new,
The
place has changed so greatly.
Its
made me fearfully blue.
Familiar
scenes are missing, Bill,
The
fire, don’t you know,
It
altered almost everything,
Some
twenty years ago.
-Walter
Merriam Pratt 1928
It is ten a.m.,
Palm Sunday morning, April 12, 1908. A fire has begun to stir on
Second Street near the Everett line. Before this fire meets its
death, it will have destroyed hundreds of acres of land, thousands of
residences and taken with it Chelsea as we know it. The statistics
are appalling: 2,822 buildings, 492 acres of land, 19 deaths and
sixteen thousand Chelsea residents left homeless.
The fire began
when workmen had spread out rags to dry on Second Street and in some
way, whether a careless match or intentional act, the rags ignited.
The high, galeforce winds carried these ignited rags 200 feet to the
McKay Wax Shop, which is part of the Boston Blacking Company. As the
firemen were dousing this blaze, a second fire of suspicious origin
began in Levitsky’s Rag Shop in the Third, Elm and Maple Street
block. This building was soon a mass of flames and the fire, fed by
the 40-mile-an-hour winds, promised to be a fire of epic proportions.
The fire raged up
Everett Avenue through West Third Street, Walnut and all the adjacent
streets. Within minutes, the business block on Broadway was a
seething mass of flames.
The fire is
described in the Chelsea Gazette as “Volcanic.”Not only was
the fire swift in its destruction, but it was overwhelming in its
size and fury. The smoke, the burning embers and the confusion
scattered Chesea residents in all directions. The April 18, 1908
edition of The Chelsea Gazette recounts this catastrophic event.
“It was a sight to touch the hearts of the most hardened: words
cannot begin to express the sorrow and suffering of those whose homes
laid in the path of the flames. Families were separated; men, like
women, frantic. Many had left their homes in the East Side to watch
the progress of the conflagration in the West Side and seeing the
fire was sweeping through the heart of the city, returned home only
to find their own homes in flames”
The most
interesting account of the fire comes from Walter Merriam Pratt in
his book, “Seven Generations: A Story of Prattville and
Chelsea.” Walter lived this catastrophe. His version of the fire
gives it a vividness that we just don’t get from the statistics and
bland accounts.
Walter tells us
that the strength of the fire was mindboggling. You would look at a
building one moment and it was fine. The next moment, it would
“burst into flames and melt away.”
People went crazy.
One man went into Union Park, pressed a revolver to his head and
committed suicide. Another man of extremely disheveled appearance
stood on the Washington Avenue bridge and screamed at the passers by
that Chelsea needs help. Women, as white as ghosts, were seen walking
around clutching things of little value such as a frying pan or a
tin-dipper. One man threw 22 pieces of cut glass in a dirty old sheet
and carried it for miles. Amazingly enough, nothing was broken. A
woman was seen running from the flames with a marble bust in one arm
and the family dog in the other. She carried the dog so tightly that
the poor creature couldn’t walk for days.
The most eerie
account of all is the one involving the player-piano. Two men tried
to rescue this piano from the flames, when the cloth in the back of
the instrument caught on fire. Weirdly, the piano began to play,
“There’ll Be A Hot time in the Old Town Tonight.” The piano
continued to play this tune as all the surrounding buildings were
engulfed in flames.
The scary thing
about the fire is the fact that people didn’t know where to go.
Everything seemed to be consumed by the flames. Running to safety
often meant greeting another phalanges of the blaze. Walter Pratt
tells us that some of the people huddled in the Garden Cemetery. They
crouched low to the ground only to be strangled by the smoke and
bitten by the hot, burning embers. Other people ran to the marshlands
in hope that the water would provide them refuge from the blaze.
Walter Pratt joined these people and recounts: We fled down the hill
(Mount Bellingham) in the direction of Orient Heights. Hundreds were
going the same way; poor and rich were on equal terms. The wind blew
with such force that women were blown into fences and trees or lost
thier balance and fell. Great pieces of furniture went bounding end
over end down the hill, blown by the wind. Horses were runnmg away,
and the scene was one of terrifying confusion. Escape was possible
only by enduring the hostile breath of flames, running, tripping over
abandoned furniture in the blinding, sickening smoke, toward the
marshes to the northeast; there, although safe from flames, the
refugees suffered from the hailstorm of stones and showers of blazing
embers that fell upon them, burning holes in their clothes and
starting grass fires in every direction. The many horses set loose on
the marsh endangered lives. The wails of the frantic parents vainly
searching for their children added to the excitement.
Before dusk the
fire was over. Within its short hours, it had eaten up three-quarters
of the city. Brick buildings, thought to be invincible, were gone.
Elegant mansions with opulent furnishings were taken by the flames
and were never to be seen again. Churches, synagogues and storefronts
were reduced to heaps and heaps of smoldering rubble. The beautiful
shade trees, full of spring’s new leaves, were now charred, black
fingers reaching up into the smoky air.
The tragedy of
this fire was not only the nineteen lives it took but that it
destroyed a city that took hundreds of years to build. Imposing,
irreplaceable architecture was reduced to charred ruins. Of the
sixteen thousand people rendered homeless by the fire, many decided
to leave Chelsea altogether. Hence, the old neighborhoods were to be
replaced by new ones peopled with strangers from other towns.
This fire claimed
to be the third largest in the country in terms of area. 2822
buildings were destroyed. 708 shade trees were engulfed in flames. A
total of 492 acres were ravaged by this horrible fire. The loss was
appalling. 17 million dollars in property was destroyed. 19 people
were killed while 16 thousand Chelsea residents were left homeless.
75 people were listed as missing or left unaccounted for. This fire
changed the face of Chelsea forever,
In its vicious and
unrelenting grasp, it laid waste to three-quarters of this precious
city. Lavish homes, lush parks and booming businesses were reduced to
dust and ashes. Sixteen thousand Chelsea residents found their lives
in limbo, rendered homeless by the blaze. Only with fierce
determination and abounding spirit would Chelsea rebuild.