Copyright USGenNet Inc., 2014 All Rights Reserved USGenNet Data Repository Please read USGenNet Copyright Statement on this page: Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott for the USGenNet Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ =========================================================================== Formatted by USGenNet Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott All of the above information must remain when copied or downloaded. =========================================================================== EAST SHORE NEWS PENTWATER, OCEANA Co., MICH. VOL. I, NO. 41 Friday, 27 October 1871 THE FIRE IN WISCONSIN. ---------------------- Details of the Burning of Peshtigo. From the Fon du Lac Commonwealth. The first news of a great disaster is generally exaggerated, but the first reports of the recent fire in the northeastern part of this state fell far short of the truth. When we heard that Peshtigo was burned and sixty lives lost, every one said it must be an exaggera- tion. They could not understand how, in a village, so many lives could be lost; but a recent visit to the fields of desolation and death made us wonder how any were saved. From Oconto, twenty-five miles north of Green Bay, we went by teams through the burnt district to the Sugar Bush, Peshtigo and Mari- nette. The fire came close to Oconto, the people having to work hero- ically to save the city. For the first eight miles north of the city the country was burned over, destroying immense quantities of timber and some houses. Scarcely an acre of ground excaped unburned. If the owners could cut the pine which was burned so badly as to kill it, and get it manufactured into lumber this year, the loss would not be so fearful; but it is impossible to cut so much in one year. Eight miles north of Oconto the tornado began its terrible work of destruction. From this point to Peshtigo, a distance of twelve miles, the timber was very heavy. Where the tornado began, the timber was mostly pine, and farther on it consisted of oak, beach and maple, many trees running up eighty feet to the first limbs. It is probable that the tornado carried the fire along with it with wonderful rapidity. For mile after mile not a tree of any size was left standing, only a sapling here and there bending to the blast withstood the storm. The trees were blown down, the roots, in many instances after the trees had fallen, standing twelve to fifteen feet high, with rocks and dirt among them, were left. The underbrush, the small limbs of the trees, the bark, the leaves, were all burned. It seems impossible that a week ago it was a forest of evergreen pines. Wherever there was a culvert in the road built of logs, and cover- ed with ground, it was burned; also the logs in the corduroy road, leaving the ground hollow. There was no sign of life, either animal or vegetable. Deer and partridges were lying along the road burned to death. About fifteen miles north of Oconto is the lower Sugar Bush settlement. The road through the bush runs east and west. The land is cleared back and cultivated about three-quarters of a mile on each side of the road. The farm houses were scattered along this road for a distance of five miles. Not a building nor a fence is left. The clover fields were burnt over as if stubble. Every stump was burnt black, and in many instances in plowed fields the stumps were burnt entirely up, leaving holes in the ground where the roots had been. The heat must have been intense. We saw the iron-work of a wagon by the roadside, and there were no evidences of any combustible material near the wagon, and yet not a splinter of woodwork of the wagon was left. The skeins had dropped in their proper places, with the tires lying around them. The chain used to fasten oxen to the wagon was stretched out from where the forward axle would have been, and at the other end of the chain lay the irons of the end of the tongue. Near by where every farm house had stood, were lying dead horses, cattle and hogs. Some of the horses were harnessed and bridled. Through this settlement runs a small stream of water; the fish in it were dead. In this district but one family was saved. They ran down into a creek behind a small mound of earth; others went into the stream, but were found dead. None of the inhabitants were burned in their houses. They were found scattered in the fields. Twenty-six bodies were found in one field. A Mr. RAY was found three-quarters of a mile northwest of his house, his wife about the same distance north, and his little boy four years old, the same distance northeast. The NEWBERRY families, con- sisting of seventeen persons, were all lost. They lived near each other. They owned a mill and three farms. Old Mr. NEWBERRY was not found. CHARLES NEWBERRY ran about half a mile and fell, and his two little boys, running hand in hand, were found a little beyond the father, lying side by side, while wife and mother was found on the road near a bridge, she, forgetful of her own suffering, tried to save her babe. Her charred hand was pressing the head of her child upon the ground, so that it might not breathe the fire. The child's face was all that was uninjured. One of the NEWBERRYS was found dead in the water under the bridge. WARREN CHURCH, probably to escape a worse death, cut his throat with a jack-knife. CHARLES LAMP took his wife and four children in a wagon when the fire began; the horses became unmanageable and ran away; the children thrown out one by one; finally Mrs. LAMP was thrown out. Mr. LAMP was dragged into the corner of a field, and was the only one of that family saved. Mrs. CAROLINE ENGLAND, expecting to be confined every hour, rode four and a half miles to Peshtigo, stood in the water five hours, saved three out of five of her sister's children, and gave birth to a daughter the day after. In the middle of Sugar Bush, a boy jumped into a barrel of rain water that stood near the house, but seeing his father and mother in a green turnip patch, started to go to them; but getting badly burned as he tried to climb the fence, he went back and got into the barrel again. The father and mother were burned. The boy was found there, two days after, alive. The DAVIS family sought refuge in a well. The curbing burned, and the whole family of six persons were lost. They were not found for three days. One woman with a babe tend days old and four other small children, displayed more bravery than many a general on the battle-field. She gathered her children around her, and picked the coals off her family as they fell. She was badly burned, and one of her children has since died; but the babe escaped. Mr. TANNER, son-in-law of A. H. HART, of Calument county, tried to save his wife and two children; when his wife fell dead, he took a child under each arm, and started on a run. His children died in his arms, and then he drew a knife and tried to take his own life. After stabbing himself twice, and before he could accomplish his design, a limb of a tree knocked him insensible, and thus his life was saved. Passing on to Peshtigo we found the reports published had given but a faint idea of the loss. Not a stick of timber was left of the houses, and on the south side of the river the only evidences left that there was once a town there, were the posts of the garden fences, which were not burned so close to the ground but that we could trace the outline of the fence. It was reported that one house was left unburned. This house was not completed - only rough boards enclosed it - and yet it did not es- cape without one side being burned black. It would be useless to at- tempt a description. You can imagine a beautiful and thriving village with its immense manufactories and busy life, now a waste of sand, deserted. The carcasses of fifty horses lay in regular rows as they had stood in their stalls, with scarcely a vestige of the building remaining. The people only had ten minutes warning of the hurricane of fire, and no time to comprehend the situation. They rushed into the streets and started for the river, but were overtaken by the storm of fire, and fell in the middle of the streets. One man, carrying his wife, approached the river, but the blast drove him over some obstruc- tion, and falling, he was separated from her. He picked up a woman, supposing her to be his wife, carried her into the river, and saved her. It proved to be another man's wife, and his own was lost. One man was sick with the typhoid fever; a young man stopping with him took the sick man out back of the house, and buried him in the sand. He was saved, and is rapidly gaining his health. The half has not been told; the whole will never be known. The loss of life increases every hour. On Friday last twenty-six dead bodies were found in the woods, and on Saturday, thirty-six. The woods and fields are literally full of dead bodies, and many were burned entirely up. We found some teeth, a jack-knife and a slate pencil. It must have been all that remained of a promising boy. Truly in this case the darkness preceded the light. On Sunday night, October 9th, just after the churches were closed, there reigned for half an hour the stillness of death. The smoke settled down so thick- ly that the darkness, like Egyptian, could be felt. Then came light gusts of wind, and in the south was seen through the smoke and dark- ness faint glimmers of light. The earth trembled, and the roar of the approaching tornado and the shock of the falling trees broke the awful stillness. No one could realize the approaching danger, when in al- most a moment the holocaust was upon them. The fire, in its madden- ing rage, could not keep pace with the wind, and trees and houses and men were blown down that they might be more rapidly consumed. Men, women and children rose again to rush like spectres through the flames, and fell separated from each other. In this terrible moment, when men thought the final day had come, when the earth should be burnt, they bowed themselves to offer their last prayer. More might have been saved if this conviction had not seized them. One man gathered his family in his store, and resignedly walked to and fro in the room, awaiting the awful consequences, and if they believed pro- phecy, had they not reason for this belief? A day of darkness and of gloominess, and day of clouds and thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains. A fire devoureth before them, and behind them a flame burneth; the land is as the Garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them. The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses, and as horsemen, so shall they run. The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble; the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. The best data gave the loss in the Sugar Bush and Peshtigo at eight hundred. On the east shore forty bodies were found in one field. They had fled to the field, hoping to escape, and they run into the worst place possible. Small clearings were more safe than large fields. J. H. Hauser ===========================================================================