Fire has always been a concern
for Chicago, due, in large part, to construction materials used since earliest
times. Wood was an inexpensive and
readily available source. As the city
grew, brick and stone buildings became common; however, wood was still an
integral part of most structures. Even
“fire-proof” buildings
constructed of iron and steel, had tar paper roofs,
wooden windows, and interiors containing wood partitions, wood floors, and wooden
furniture. Wood cornices and decorations
were common because they were lighter and easier to work with. By 1871, the year of the fire, many of the
major buildings in the business district were constructed using this “heavier”
construction; yet, they were still interspersed with wood frame structures.1
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| Cook County Courthouse 1865 (see footnotes) |
Chicago did have a professional
fire department and a newly renovated alarm system based on a telegraphic
network of 171 alarm boxes scattered throughout the city. However,
the fire department was greatly understaffed.
Less than 200 firefighters organized into seventeen steam fire engine
companies, six hose companies, four hook-and-ladder companies, and two hose
elevator companies protected a city of over 330,000 people.3
Many excellent books and websites
describe the fire and its aftermath. It
is not the intention to detail that information here, but, only to identify how
the Brown family was directly affected by the fire. In order to understand what happened to them,
some specific information pertaining to the family and events is helpful.
The Brown family lived in various
locations in Chicago as described in the previous post. At the time of the fire, they were living at the
rear of 219 Jackson Street, located at the southwest corner of
Jackson and
Franklin Streets4 in
the South District of Chicago.5 It appears that several members of the
extended Brown family and two additional families totaling over twenty
individuals were living at this property.6 Jackson
and Franklin Streets, was located in Conley’s Patch, just a block south from
the Armory, (at Adams and Franklin). The
Armory was used as a police court and temporary prison, and was located in a
high crime area. The Chicago Gas Works
at Adams and Franklin was across the street from the Armory.7
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| Armory and Gas Works |
The youngest daughter of Hannah
and Timothy Brown, Johanna Brown Roach, and her family were living at 63 W.
Jackson Street located just a few blocks away on the west side of the South Branch
between Canal and Clinton Street. See map on the left and click to see detail.8 I am
also enclosing another map, shown below right, that
presents a birds-eye view of the region, and, perhaps, gives a better spatial
view of the area where the Brown family lived and what the houses were like.9
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| Chicago, 1871 (Click to enlarge) |
The summer and fall of 1871 had
been abnormally hot and dry. Several
fires were reported in Chicago during the first week of October. The worst of these was a fire that started on
Saturday
night, October 7 in “The Red Flash” area10 and was by far the largest to hit Chicago
before the “great” fire of the next day. The fire started in the Lull and Holmes
Planing Mill at 209 S. Canal Street near Van Buren. The fire had gotten a good start before it
was reported and quickly spread to nearby homes and businesses in front of a “brisk
wind.” More alarms were sounded. Thousands of onlookers gathered to watch the
event, congregating in nearby streets and on rooftops. “The roof of a shed at Clinton and Jackson
Streets collapsed under the weight of about a hundred and fifty spectators . .
.”11
This was exactly
the location where Johanna Roach was living and could have been at the same
property, or very near. Before the fire
was under control at 3:30 A.M. the next day, Sunday, every working fire engine in
the city was at the scene, and the fire had consumed a four block area bounded
by Adams Street to the north, Van Buren Street on the south, Clinton Street on
the west and the river on the east, the area shown in the orange square on the
map.
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| Birds-eye view of Brown residences (Click to enlarge) |
The Roach lodgings were consumed in
this fire. Logically, the Roach family
would have gone to the house of Johanna’s mother at Jackson and Franklin to get
away from the fire. David Brown also
states this in his letter on page six when giving information about Johanna
Brown Roach. He says, “. . . Johanna
Roach was sick at this time. Her home
was burned out, apparently and they took her to the home of her Mother. . .”12 Little did they know what was to come.
The men were exhausted from
fighting the Saturday fire and equipment had sustained major damage; some
was destroyed. Fires don’t respect the
frailties of man, or machine. Fire started again around 8:30 in the evening
of Sunday, October 8, this time in the barn of the O’Leary family on De Koven
Street between Clinton and Jefferson Streets in the southern part of the West
District, about ten blocks south of the Saturday night fire. There was supposedly an alarm sounded about
9:15 by a fire company further south on Blue Island Avenue; however, no alarm
was received by the central office until 9:40.
Further delay was caused by the watchman in the courthouse tower who
dismissed a possible sighting of the fire as the reflection of the embers from
the Saturday night fire.13
As additional alarms came in, the
firefighters were sent to erroneous addresses.
Needless to say, the fire was raging by the time the tired men could
really respond to the fire.
The fire kept gaining strength
devouring building after building as it marched in front of a now very strong
wind from the south west blowing everything towards the city. After three hours, it had traveled seven
blocks and was near the burned out area of the Saturday night fire. Most hoped that the previously burned area
and the width of the South Branch of the river would halt the progression of
the fire. That was not to be.
Cinders had been carried across
the river most of the night by the high winds; however, by 11:30, a large fire
brand landed on the Parmelee building, (the Parmelee Omnibus and Stage
Company), on the south east corner of Jackson and Franklin, directly across the
street from the Brown residence. The three-story Parmelee building, which
covered much of the block, burned quickly. It was the first building to burn in the South
District. The Gas Works, Armory, and
Powell roofing company just a block north of the Brown residence also caught
fire about the same time. The night
superintendent and assistant superintendent of the Gas Works, Thomas Ockerby
and Thomas Burtis, earlier in the evening had transferred gas from the tanks at
Adams Street to reservoirs on the North Side thereby preventing an explosion at
that location. Residents around the
Armory were not so lucky. The Armory was
a storage area for munitions, and, about 12:45 the magazine exploded destroying
the building and extending fire in the area.14
It is hard to figure how the
family managed to escape the fire. Perhaps they were part of the spectators out
to see the spectacle of the fire, or, at least part of them. Were they able to stay together as a group,
or, were they split up? A policeman,
Henry
Ulrich, in the area did try to rouse neighborhood residents and alert
them to the danger. David Brown mentions
in his letter that, “my cousin, Mrs. Sarah Taylor . . . says that Mrs. Brown
was burned in that fire. How seriously I
do not know, but probably it was not serious . . .”15 Cromie states
that, “the ragged inhabitants of Conley’s Patch poured through the streets in a
frantic rush for safety” and that they , “came swarming from their dismal
homes” heading for the West Side.16
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| Chicago at the Randolph Street Bridge |
The fire continued to burn north
and east. It reached the Courthouse by
1:00 A.M. Monday morning, October 9th completely destroying the building
and its contents. By 2:30 A.M. the fire
had crossed the river to the North Division.
By 3:00 A.M., the water works were on fire. The fire
continued to spread into the more
prosperous and predominantly residential North Division and on into the more
sparsely populated areas still further north.
Finally, a cold rain started falling around 11:00 P.M. on Monday,
October 9th. Aided by the
rain, the fire finally burned itself out but not before annihilating an area ¾
mile wide and four miles long, killing approximately 300 people, and leaving
over 100,000 residents homeless.17
Hannah Brown and the rest of the
family survived the immediate dangers of the fire. In talking to another Chicago researcher,
people felt the effects of the fire for many years after. It continued to claim
the lives of immediate survivors because of smoke inhalation and other illnesses
and injuries received as a result of exposure to the fire.
In the next post, we will follow
Hannah in the aftermath of the fire.
Image
Fassett, S.M., Lincoln lying in state, Library of
Congress, available online at: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3a14020/. Photograph is of the funeral processing of
Abraham Lincoln entering the Cook County
Courthouse in 1865. By 1870 three
story additions had been added to both the east and the west side of the
courthouse. All was destroyed in the
fire of October 8, 1871. In 1858,
Alexander Hesler shot eleven photographs from the roof of the Cook County
Courthouse and give an excellent idea of what the city looked like at that time. The photographs have been “stitched” together
to present a panoramic view. A link is
available here: http://www.greatchicagofire.org/view-pano/1113/?v=1113 .
Place your cursor in the center of the picture and move it right or left
to see the complete 360o view as if you were standing on top of the courthouse
yourself.
1.
Cromie,
Robert, The Great Chicago Fire,
McGraw-Hill, New York, New York, 1958, pp. 14 – 21
2.
Ibid.
3.
Chicago
Historical Society and Northwestern University, website of The Great Chicago
Fire & The Web of Memory, available online at https://www.greatchicagofire.org/great-conflagration/eve-of-disaster/. When activated, an alarm was sent an alert to
a central office in the courthouse. It
was then relayed to the appropriate fire station located near the fire. There was also a watchman stationed in the
courthouse tower who had a view of most of the city.
4.
Contemporary
city directories show the address of 219 Jackson at the intersection of Jackson
and Franklin. Odd numbers are on the
south side of the street.
5.
The Chicago
River defines the area of Chicago. Before
1900, the North Branch of the river (flowing south), and the South Branch of
the river (flowing north), met to form the Chicago River (Main Stem) which
flowed into Lake Michigan. Anything north
of the Chicago River and east of the North Branch was identified as North
Chicago; south of the Chicago River and east of the South Branch was identified
as South Chicago; west of the North and South branches was identified as the
West Division. The central business
district was located in the South District just south of the Chicago River and
east of the South Branch. Note that
about 1900, the river was “engineered” to reverse the flow of the Main Stem and
South Branch of the river. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_River for an explanation.
6.
Chicago Census Report; and Statistical
Review, embracing a Complete Directory of the City, showing the Number of
Persons in Each Family. Available online at the Newberry Library, http://chicagoancestors.org/downloads/1871%20intro%20page.pdf. The 1871
Chicago City Directory lists several Brown families, (Ellen, Honora, James,
Michael, and Thomas), totaling eleven individuals. Two other families were also listed at this
address – Anderson totaling seven persons, and Cheevers totaling five persons.
7.
Sheahan,
James W., Chicago Illustrated, volume
11, Armory and Gas Works, Jevene &
Alimini, Chicago, 1866. “The location of
the building is in the very center of the abodes of crime, degradation and vice
of every form, which, by some strange impulse, have gathered under the very
walls of the tribunal ...”
8.
Charles
Shober & Co., Guide Map of Chicago,
Charles Shober & Co., Chicago, 1868, website of The University of Chicago
Library. Available online at: http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/1595338. The map
shown is an enlargement of a section of the Guide Map of Chicago. I have identified several places key to the
Brown family. The blue box in the upper
portion of the map identifies the courthouse where the watchman was located in
the tower. The small green box in the
center of the map is the location of the Armory. The
yellow box on the south east corner of Jackson and Franklin is the site of the
newly finished Parmelee Omnibus Company which was scheduled to open on
Wednesday, October 11. The red X shows
the location of Hannah Brown’s residence.
The purple Y is where Johanna Roach was living. The large orange box identifies the extent of
the Saturday night fire and the darker orange circle with a “Z” inside (ground
zero) shows the location where the Sunday night fire started – the O’Leary’s
barn on DeKoven Street.
9.
Ruger, A.,
Map of Chicago in 1868 from Schiller Street north side to 12th
Street south side, Chicago Lithographing Co., available online at the Library
of Congress, https://www.loc.giv/item/73693350/ . The image is
an enlargement of a very small segment of the map. While it is oriented differently, the same
notations apply – The red oval shows where Hannah Brown was living; the purple
oval shows where Johanna Roach was living; and, the green square shows the
location of the Armory. The Courthouse
is the large building in the lower right corner of the image.
10.
Cromie, op.
cit., p. 22. This was “a neighborhood of
lumberyards, a few cheap frame houses, and many saloons. Among the nearby combustibles (aside from the
saloons) were a paper-box factory, two lumberyards – which also contained large
coal piles – and the timber depot of an express company.”
11.
Cromie, op.
cit., p. 25.
12.
Brown,
David Earl, Kewanee, IL, 11 May 1943, Letter
to Esther ______, Columbus, OH. P. 6.
The letter written in 1943 contains detailed information about the Brown
family as known by the author at that time.
13.
Check the
map. The Saturday night fire, identified
by the orange box, is directly in the line of sight from the Courthouse Tower
to the fire on De Koven Street.
14.
Cromie, op.
cit., p. 63.
15.
Brown, op.
cit., p.3. Sarah Taylor is the
granddaughter of Hannah and Timothy Brown.
She is a daughter of Patrick Brown, the eldest son of Hannah and
Timothy.
16.
Cromie, op.
cit., p.63
Image
Currier
& Ives, Chicago in flames: Scene at
Randolph Street Bridge, New York 1872-1874, Library of Congress. Image available online at: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3a00324/
.
17.
Wikipedia, Great Chicago Fire, available online at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chicago_Fire
Image
R.P.
Studley Co. Map
showing the burnt district in Chicago: published for the benefit of the Relief
Fund. [Saint Louis: R. P. Studley, 187-?] Map. Retrieved from the
Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2010592712/.
