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Individuals desiring to use this material in their own research may do so. ========================================================================= Formatted by U.S. Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott All of the above information must remain when copied or downloaded. =========================================================================== CHAPTER VIII Northern Wisconsin's Great Fires MEMORABLE dates on which great havoc was wrought by fires in Wisconsin include the following: At Peshtigo and surrounding country, embracing several counties, October 8, 1871 At Oshkosh, April 28, 1875 At Marshfield, June 27, 1887 At Iron River, July 27, 1892 At Fifield, July 27, 1893 At Phillips, July 27, 1894 The great drought of the summer and fall of 1871 will long be remembered by the people of Northern Wisconsin. With the exception of slight showers of only an hour or two in duration in the month of September, no rain fell between the 8th of July and the 9th of October - some three months. The streams and swamps and wells dried up. The fallen leaves and underbrush which covered the ground in the forests became so dry as to become ignitible al- most as powder, and the ground itself, especially in the cases of alluvial or bottom lands, was so utterly parched as to permit of being burned to the depth of a foot or more. The expression, "The sky was as brass and the earth ashes," became a reality. For weeked preceding the culmination of this state of things in the terrible conflagration of the 8th and 9th of October, fires were sweeping through the timbered country, and in some instances the prairies and "openings" of all that part of Wisconsin lying northward of Page 208 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES Lake Horicon, or "Winnebago Marsh," which was itself on fire. Farmers, sawmill owners, railroad men, indeed all interested in exposed property, were called upon for constant and exhausting labor, day and night, in contending against the advancing fires. The sawmills in the pine regions of Brown, Shawano, Oconto, Manitowoc, Kewaunee and Door counties were, many of them, located in the very midst of the pine forests ans surrounded with a debris of slabs, edgings, shingle refuse, etc., forming a ready conductor for the undermining fires in the adjacent forests to the mills and houses around them. The work of protecting these mills was long, harassing and exhausting, the ground being so dry that water could not be obtained from the wells, and the means of defense were mainly by circumvallating the property with ditches. These were, in the main, effectual, so long as the fire preserved the ordinary character of previous forest fires, not fanned with gales or supplemented by a long-heated and ignitible condition of the atmosphere, which followed later on. In this labor of fighting fire the mill men, farmers and others were engaged through October, the exhausting work going on with good cheer, in the constant hope that either the welcome rain would come, or that, finally, the ground would be wholly burned over and leave nothing further for the flames to feed upon. Here and there mills and houses were burned; fences, haystacks and outlying property were swept off; but no great disaster had yet occurred. Still no rain came, and for many days previous to the great disaster a general gloom and fear seemed to have come upon the threatened region. Page 209 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES The long-continued labor of fighting the fire exhausted all energies, and an overhanging smoke permeated the atmosphere, sometimes so dense as to prevent seeing objects a few rods dis- tant, seriously affecting the eyes and lungs. This was not alone the case in the forests, but in towns and in largely cleared settlements. In Green Bay, Depere, Appleton, Oconto, Menominee, Kewaunee, and other places, the smoke was frequently so dense that buildings at the distance of a square were invisible, and on the lake and bay the smoke assumed the dimensions of an immense fog, obscuring the shores and rendering navigation difficult. The fires also made travel on the roads difficult and often dangerous. Trees, fallen and burning, obstructed the highways, and bridges in every direction were burned; where bridges were gone the streams had dried up, thus allowing them to be passed without much difficulty. The Chicago and Northwestern Railway ran for fifty miles through this burning region - between Oshkosh and Green Bay - and it was only by the services of a large forece of men, stationed along the line, that it was kept in passable condition. The fires approached the track so closely in many places that trains had to be run at increased speed to prevent their taking fire. As an illustration of the narrow es- capes on that fatal Sunday of the eighth of October, may be mentioned that of Older's circus - a long and heavy caravan, composed of upward of eighty horses and some twenty wagons - passed safely, during that day, over the bridges between Green Bay and Manitowoc, some of which were burning at the time, and Page 210 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES nearly all of which were destroyed before night. If any one of the bridges which spanned the deep and impassable ravines on that road had been burned in advance of the progress of the caravan it would have been hemmed in and destroyed. Many devices were resorted to for the protection of life. Excavations were made in the earth, with earth-covered roofs, in which persons sought refuge. Many resorted to wells, which from the long drought had become dry. Much property, which had been taken from houses and placed in the open fields for safety, was destroyed, while the houses themselves frequently escaped. But time drew on, the ground was burned over, and the long-harassed people began to take breath, believing that the worst had passed. This was the condition of things up to Sunday, the eighth of Oct- ober. The air was dense with smoke and fitful blasts of hot air - so stifling that at times it was difficult to breathe. All these northern towns had kept ready, as well as they could, for the emergency. In Green Bay the fire engines had been kept at work wetting the buildings, and an extra police force was detailed to keep watch. The buildings were so dry that a spark would have set them on fire; flakes of ashes from the smouldering timbers fell in the streets like a snowstorm, and the citizens were anxious as if in the face of some impending calamity. A hot, southerly gale was blowing, and in the midst of it, on Sunday afternoon, a house took fire in the central part of the city. The interior was only slightly burned, however, and the fire was extinguished before it reached the outer air. Had it ob- Page 211 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES tained headway the imagination fails to comprehend the result. The country, on three sides of the city, was on fire, and on the fourth, where lay the only apparent outlet, were the waters of the bay, into which must have swarmed the population to a death only preferable to that which followed at their backs. It was the same gale which swept over Chicago. That city was then burning, and that day and night the deadly blast was sweeping through the country northward, filling the land with death and destruction. But northward from Green Bay, in Oconto County, and for some distance into Menominee County, on the west shore of the bay, and throughout the whole length and breadth of the peninsula, which includes the whole of Door County, and parts of Brown, Kewaunee and Manitowoc counties, the fires reached their greatest devastation. What is known as the Sugar Bush settlement lies between Oconto and Peshtigo, extending six or eight miles from north to south, and two or three miles in width. It is one of those oases of hard- wood timber land, which are frequent among the pine forests and are superior farming lands. It was settled by a thrifty, indus- trious and prosperous community of farmers, who owned their land and prided themselves on the beauty of their farms. A few miles to the northeast was the village of Peshtigo. It was a village of about 1,200 inhabitants, mainly engaged in the lumber operations of the Peshtigo Company, which had its headquarters there. The village stood on the banks of the Peshtigo River, about eight Page 212 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES miles from its mouth, and was, for that region, a place of some age, sawmills having been operated there for upward of twenty-five years. Among the features was a woodenware factory, which had been only recently completed at a cost of $125,000, which was in full operation, manufacturing pails, tubs, churns, and other wooden hollow ware. It was the most extensive one of the kind in the United States. There were also a sawmill, a sash and door factory, a grist mill, a machine shop, boarding houses, an ex- tensive store, upward of one hundred dwelling houses, several hotels, two churches, two schoolhouses, etc. A railway connected it with the "Lower Village," at the mouth of the river, some eight miles distant. It was a hive of industry, and had not, probably, an unemployed person within the precincts. It is estimated that on the night of the fire it had a population of 1,500 or 1,600 inhabitants within its borders, as some 300 lab- orers were at work, in the immediate vicinity, on the new exten- sion of the Chicago and Northwestern Railway, and a company of fifty Scandinavians had arrived there the day previous to the fire. Of these 1,500 or more people less than a thousand were accounted for after the fire, while all over the desolate plain and in the forests, and in the river bed, human bones attested to the fearful loss of life. With the southerly gale, the fire first struck the Sugar Bush. The testimony is singularly unanimous here, as well as in the cases of other places burned, as to the dreadful premonition and the final burst of flame. An Page 213 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES unusual and strangely ominous sound; a gradual roaring and rumbling approach. It has been likened to the approach of a railraod train - to the roar of a waterfall, to the sound of a battle, with artillery, going on at a distance. The people, worn out with the long harassing by fire for weeks before, quailed at this new feature, and when the flames did make their appearance - not along the ground, as they had been accustomed to meet them, but consuming the tree-tops, and filling the air with a whirlwind of flame - the stoutest hearts quailed before it. There have been many opinions in explanation of this apparent fire-storm in the sky. It has been attributed to electrical causes and to the formation of gas from the long-heated pine forests of that region. The following explanation seems most plausible: The same wind storm and condition of the atmosphere, had they occurred on the ocean, would have produced waterspouts. There the water is drawn up by a powerful attraction above, and the clouds descend to meet it, accompanied by a violent whirl- wind. Here there were, doubtless, whirlwinds, having a tremen- dous circular velocity, and moving from north to south at a more moderate speed of from six to ten miles an hour. The pine tree tops were twisted off and set on fire, and the burning debris of the ground was caught up and whirled through the air in a literal cloud of fire. To use an anomalous expression: it was a waterspout of fire. No wonder that the stoutest hearts were appalled before such an unheard-of presence, which could not be attacked nor resisted with any appliance in human grasp, and no wonder that the af- Page 214 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES flicted people abandoned every thought but that of seeking safety. A writer in the London "Spectator," referring to the peculiar character of these fires, suggests that they may have been caused by a condition of the atmosphere, "sim- ilar to the well-known Foen wind of Switzerland," and quotes the following passage from an eminent naturalist respecting this wind: "It is the terror of the country. Fires are immediately extinguished on every hearth and in every oven, and in many valleys watchmen go about to make sure that this precaution is observed, as a single careless spark might cause a disastrous conflagration in the dried up state of the at- mosphere." At Peshtigo hundreds were saved by throwing themselves into the river. In the Sugar Bush there was no stream deep enough for such a refuge; men, women and children, horses, oxen, cows, dogs, swine - everything that had life, was seized with pain and ran, without method, to escape the impending destruction. The smoke was suffocating and blinding, the roar of the tem- pest was deafening, the atmosphere scorching; children were separated from their parents and were trampled upon by the crazed beasts; husbands and wives were calling wildly for each other, and rushing in wild dismay, they knew not where, while others, believing that the Day of Judgment was surely come, fell upon the ground and abandoned themselves to its terrors. Indeed, this apprehension that the last day was at hand pervaded even the strongest and most mature minds. All the conditions of the prophecies seemed to be fulfilled. The hot Page 215 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES atmosphere, filled with smoke, supplied the "signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars"; the sound of the whirlwind was as "the sea and the waves roaring," and everywhere there were "men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth; for the powers of heaven shall be shaken." Near the town of Robinsonville, on the opposite side of the bay, is a conventual school, around which hangs a superstitious air from some circumstances con- nected with its establishment. It is said that the affrighted people of that vicinity thronged to it in the belief that the world was being consumed, and falling upon their faces, crawled round and round it with long-continued prayers. Multitudes of other instances are related of similar superstitions. The Sugar Bush was almost wholly burned away. Four dwelling houses and one or two barns were saved. The people were all either killed or driven out. Some were burned near the build- ings; some were caught in the fields and woods by the descending fires; others fled to the woods and were caught there, and some found their way to Peshtigo, either to death or ultimate escape. Of the village of Peshtigo there was not a vestige left stand- ing, except one unfurnished house, which stood apart from others, and escaped. The fire burned with such fury that but little effort was made to save any property. It had been before assailed by fire during the drought, and had been saved by great efforts, and this time its courageous people called forth again to renew the fight; but a few minutes sufficed to show that Page 216 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES the enemy this time was irresistable. The men essayed a fight against it, but sent the women and children to the rear and shortly followed themselves. Most of them ran into the river, where they contested for room with the horses, cows and swine. Some of them drowned outright; some sank after long exhaustion, and others lived the night through. Many ran, terror-stricken and without thought, into places where was the least chance of safety, and there perished. In the great boarding-house occu- pied by mill workers, inflammable in its every part, it is supposed that large numbers were burned. In the mills and factories, in outhouses, in cellars, covered by inflammable buildings, on the bridge, and in the open streets they were caught by the inexorable fate and consumed. The next morn- ing the sad remnants of the Peshtigo people, tired and maimed, found their way, on foot and in wagons, to Marinette and to the mills at the mouth of the river. A warm welcome, with a great and generous opening of doors and hearts, met them, and their needs were ministered to. If there never before was such a fire, there was also never before such a healing of its scars. Northward, from Peshtigo, the hurricane seems to have divided into two columns or wings. The easterly one scorched the edge of the village of Marinette and swept over the village of Minekaunee, lying on the south bank of the Menominee River, at its mouth. Here there were about fifty buildings burned, three stores, an extensive new sawmill, a flouring mill, two hotels, and thirty- five dwelling houses. Several scows, nearly a Page 217 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES million feet of lumber, and a number of horses, cows and other animals, were burned. Clouds of burning cinders were driven across the river, and it was a marvelous es- cape for the village of Menominee, immediately opposite. A mill was burned there, however. The violence of the gale may be judged from the fact that burning cinders were show- ered upon the decks of vessels seven miles distant on the bay. The western column of fire also gave Marinette a narrow escape, burning some buildings on its western border. Crossing the Menominee, it swept through the forests to the northward and struck the settlement of Birch Creek, north of Menominee. It had a population of about 100, who were mainly a farming people, having about fifteen farms. Here nineteen people were burned to death, and many were badly injured. The loss of life in the town- ship was twenty-seven. The Birch Creek settlement ex- tended from five to nine miles north of Menominee. The current of fire seemed to take a north-westerly course from here, and did not extend to the bay shore. A sur- veying party of men - eight or ten persons - who were running out a line for the northern extension of the Chicago and Northwestern Railway, were in the woods near the shore, northwardly from Birch Creek, on that night, and slept soundly through it, not knowing of the awful havoc which was going on not far from them. This describes only what took place in towns and set- tlements. What occurred in the dense and lonely for- ests, which extend north and west for long distances, Page 218 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES no one can tell. As these are penetrated by loggers and hunters, charred corpses are found from time to time, and the scathed trees only tell the story of the dreadful fires through which they passed. Maps will show the portion of the long peninsula which divides the waters of Green Bay from those of Lake Michigan. The county of Door is wholly, and those of Kewaunee and Brown partly, situated within its borders. The population, in the interior townships, is still a farming one, composed mainly of Belgians and Bohemians. The country was heavily timbered with hard wood and pine, and sawmills were scattered along the two shores. The Belgium population began to arrive there many years ago, and from almost utter destitution had sur- rounded themselves with comfortable circumstances, with sub- stantial dwellings and barns, and a moderate outfit of horses and cattle. This was the largest region swept by the fire, and here was the greatest loss in Northern Wisconsin. The fiery tempest may be said to have swept over its whole length and breadth, though some portions of it escaped actual devasta- tion. The villages of Kewaunee, Ahnepee and Sturgeon Bay were sorely pressed, but were saved. So were also the lower villages of Dykesville, Little Sturgeon, and Jacksonport. These are all on the shores, and were more or less protected by open spaces around them. But the farms and clearings, hewn out of the forests and strewn with fallen timber, were illy fitted to resist the approach of the fire. The outstanding haystacks, the heavy log fences, the piles of cord-wood, hemlock bark, fence posts, and other Page 219 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES products of the forests, which the hard-working people get out ready to haul to the shore with the first snows, were prompt conductors to carry the fire across these cleared plains. The most intense havoc occurred in the towns of Humbolt and Green Bay, in the county of Brown; Casco, Red River, Lincoln and Ahnepee, in the county of Kewaunee, and Brussels, Forestville, Nasewaupee, Clay Banks, Union and Sturgeon Bay, in the county of Door - an area of five hundred square miles. The population of these towns, in 1870, was 7,857. A large part of the population suffered by fire. Many lost every- thing - houses, barnes, fences, wagons, hay and grain, and, in numerous instances, cattle. Others lost a part of their property, and there was scarcely a family, which wholly es- caped, that did not divide, from its own scanty items, with its destitute neighbors. Here and there were country stores and grist mills. Their doors were opened, and the hungry and destitute sufferers were invited to come and take freely of whatever there was to eat and to wear. It was fortunate that the weather was warm, so that there was no immediate distress from exposure, and the houseless people either huddled into the dwellings and barns, which were saved, or slept out upon their burned fields. Little enough was saved. There was no place of safety. Some attempt was made to carry out bedding and such valuables as were most prized, but the terrible gale and rain of fire sought out every hiding place. Stoves, furniture and bedding were frequently taken to Page 219 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES the open fields, and these were, almost without exception, consumed - in some cases the houses from which they had been taken escaping. Houses were burned, while adjoining barns were saved. Fences, pumps and outhouses were burned, while dwelling houses, within a few yards, escaped. By mere in- stinct the horses and cattle mainly made their own way to places of safety. Many were burned, but it is remarkable that by far the largest number saved themselves. As to the loss of human life on the peninsula, there are, of course, no accurate statistics; the estimates were that several hun- dred persons perished - some as high as five or six hundred. Most of the bodies found were lying on their faces, without mark of fire, which shows that death was caused by suffoca- tion. The news of the great disaster came swiftly enough to the towns and villages which had been saved, along the borders of the great conflagration. It was impossible to reach the inland burned region with wagons, for the bridges were gone and the roads blockaded with fallen timber; but relief or- ganizations were promptly formed at Green Bay, Milwaukee, Sturgeon Bay, Kewaunee, Ahnepee, etc.; boat loads of supplies were sent along the shores, discharging parts of their cargoes at every place where a landing could be made, and messengers were despatched overland to announce to the sufferers where they could go for food. These messengers went on foot, and on what are called in that country "buckboards," a light wagon, which could be lifted over obstructions. Some of the messengers were physicians, Page 220 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES who carried stocks of medicines and liniments, and who did the double duty of ministering to the sick and burned and announcing to all where they could find supplies. Flour, in bags of a convenient size to be carried on men's backs, bacon and salt meats, and cooked provisions of all kinds, constituted the re- lief in the first days after the fire, and, in proof of the energy with which the service was performed, it should be stated that before the week was past there was probably not a hungry person in all that stricken and almost impenetrable region. Perhaps a calamity so terrible may be partly or even more than compensated for by the outburst of generosity and the unsealing of the fountains of humanity. Men who had spent their lives in pursuit of money turned short in their career and opened their hearts and their purses to their suffering brethren; women who fancied they could do little else than the finer labors of needle- work entered boldly into the field and found themselves expert in the manufacture of clothing; and corporations, which had the proverbial reputation of having no souls, achieved the possession of large and warms ones. Towns and cities gathered into the great charity and sent forward cartloads, and sometimes train- loads of provisions, clothing and bedding. Before the smoke had blown away relief associations were formed in all the towns adjoining the burned regions - at Green Bay, Menominee and Marinette, Sturgeon Bay, Kewaunee, etc. Collections of money and provisions were made and sent forward. The followed, as the news of the disaster spread, similar organizations in other parts of the State. Page 222 WISCONSIN IN THREE CENTURIES And then began to flow in an avalanche of supplies. From every county, and nearly every city, village and neighborhood of Wis- consin came carloads of food and clothing. The manufacturers of almost all kinds of staple goods came forward with liberal con- tributions of their specialties. The cotton and woolen mills of New England, the clothing and boot and shoe houses, the factories of flannels, hosiery, underwear, bedding, house furnishings, farm- ing implements and tools, indeed almost every industrial branch in the whole country, sent liberally, each of its kind. The Government at Washington, infected in its turn by the bounteous charity all around, gave liberally of its army stores, and all supplies were brought free over the railways, which, with the telegraph and express lines, from ocean to ocean, did this vast work without charge. ========================================================================== SOURCE: Wisconsin in three centuries, 1634-1905 : narrative of three centuries in the making of an American commonwealth, illustrated with numerous engravings of historic scenes and landmarks, portraits and facsimiles of rare prints, documents and old maps. Alex W Randall; George E Bryany New York: Century History Co., 1906, Volume 4