Good evening. Welcome to the boston public local history lecture series. As part our program, we want to read the following statement to bring attention to the land we use for our buildings and events, we acknowledge that the Boston Public Librarys Central Library stands on land that was once a water ecosystem, providing sustenance for the indigenous massachusetts people and as a place which has served as a site of meeting an exchange nations, we are to land acknowledgments for all locations which we operate. We reaffirm this commitment to set the context, planning, deliberations and Public Engagement which will take place in the spirit of welcome and respect. Found in our motto free to all tonight. We are very pleased to have Stephanie Schorow here to talk her book, the great boston fire the inferno that nearly incinerated the city Stephanie Schorow is a journalist, writing instructor and, the author of eight nonfiction books, a variety of topics in boston history. They include the Coconut Grove, inside the combat zone, drinking in boston, history of the city and its spirits and recovery for the boston mob guard. Her novel, cat dreaming, will be in 2023. She shares her home in medford with two cats that like to walk on her keyboard. Shes typing. Questions will be taken at the of the lecture and please come up to the mikes if you feel comfortable. The program is being recorded. Thanks for coming and enjoy the lecture. Greetings. Good evening. Good to see everybody here and thanks for coming out to this lecture for the on the great fire the inferno that nearly incinerated the can you tell i worked for the Boston Herald at one point from there had so as as diane first of all i want to thank the Boston Library for having me here. Diane libraries are, great institutions, this one in particular. And you talk a little bit about how my research supported by this Library Things i found here and so i just really want to have a little acknowledgment for the role of libraries in our life but as dan said, ive written a number of books on boston history here. Some of them fires crime, drinking and pornography. Criminals, all the good stuff. In other words you know, ill leave the puritans in the revolution is for other people but i like to write about different aspects of history and the way people live their lives. So let me talk about this book. Ive actually about the this 1872 fire before in one of my previous books but i wanted to return to it in time for the. 150th anniversary of the fire which is today tomorrow and the next day were right at 150 years. So the always becomes every every time i do a lecture, they say, well, why did you get this subject . What is it about it . And ill be very blunt, the scale, the mass scale of this fire, if you look at pictures of it you will see this is Downtown Crossing the way and you recognize filenes or of course, thats long gone. But the point is that the scale this fire was so massive and so extensive that, it amazed me that more people dont know about today we all know about other big fires, but we dont know about this fire. And so i wanted to return to this fire and tell a little bit more its history because i found it and like many historical books, there, many side stories that run off the main story that i was able to cover in this book and. Thats kind of the reason. One of the reasons i wanted to return to it. But heres the thing about this big fire. Basically, a big fire happened 150 years ago. There are lessons that we can extrapolate and learn for today. History is never dead. Its its its not really even the past is never dead as faulkner said, its not even past. We continue to learn from actions that have happened. 100, 150, 200 years ago. And the same is true. This fire to put a little bit in context. Boston had a lot of fires. It was said that boston was built to burn by one other author, as a matter of fact. So we can look at this fire in the context of other fires in the city. Id like to sort of set the stage as well about what boston was like in the in 1872. It was a city of about 250,000 people. It was a port city, very busy commerce activity. Not only had the universities but it was a center for the sale and export of wholesale goods manufacturing. There were factories, many of which were in the downtown area. It the city, of course was very jealous of its we still are about a position as the athens of america that we are the bed of a lot of reforms of liberty and other things important in american history, particularly in the social justice, social such as womens suffrage and animal welfare, which im going to talk about in a bit now, the downtown area. And by that i mean, that area we now call crossing the basically the intersection of winter streets this area prior to 1872 had been kind of a neighborhood big homes, gracious homes. But by this time, starting a little before and then after the civil war, it become became more of a Commercial Area packed with warehouses and small factories and off buildings and merchants and other storage facilities. It those new buildings, even the warehouses were, built to be homages to the forces of capitalism. They didnt just put up buildings, they put up granite impressive granite structures with a lot of embellishment, such as mansard roofs. These particular kind of roofs that were on the top of the building. And they had a lot of architectural frills. So was meant to be a place that showcased boston as a area of and commercialism. Now at the time the Boston Fire Department was considered to be of the best in the country. It was had a mixture of full time employees volunteers part time and well trained. Many of the the men. And they were all men at that time who were in the Fire Department, who had been in the fire service for many years their fathers before them. They had top quality t equipment, which were the fire engines, maybe not the very top, but close to the top of Steam Powered fire engines, like the one pictured here. And that they were horses were used to draw these engines. They would burn wood or coal to generate enough pressure and steam to get water on the tops of buildings. Thats the best way to fight a fire from water from the top down. And so it was considered a very well equipped, very welltrained ah service. However, however there were a number of infrastructure flaws. For example in this downtown area. The system that supported the, the fire system was aging, the water mains had been put in installed when it was at roosevelt area of one or two story buildings. But now there are 4 to 5, six story buildings and the water couldnt just get enough water into machines to get a stream high enough, get on top of those new buildings. Plus the water mains were aging. They were rusting, so they were corroding. There were smaller and smaller. There were not as many fires. Stations in the downtown area as you would think, given the amount of wealth that was concentrated in this area. And i mentioned those mansard roofs, there were wood and they were very flammable in the fire chief called them elevated lumber yards. And so see how that played out in the fire. There was also some issue with fire hydrants and that they were not updated as they could have been. So there were a number structural problems and the thing is the city knew about it or should known about it thanks to the work. This gentleman, john stammers, who is the chief engineer and thats what they called him, the engineer, the Boston Fire Department. It was an elected position. Hed been elected to it some years earlier, and he was determined to. Boston, one of the best and most safest cities from fire of he could possibly do he very much involved with building he was a builder himself he was carpenter. Hed been a volunteer firefighter. So he knew how to build buildings and he knew how they could burn down. So was determined to talk the city over the years about how the city could be made safer. So in his annual reports of 1867, 1868, 1869. He continually complained that needed more water better mains in the area, more firehouses. Those mansard roofs should go and that were many other problems that should be taken care of in the city to make it safe. But what happened . He found out he was he was found out that city officials considered him someone to not bring them, but simply do what they told him to do. And in fact, when he brought up his concerns about the lack of water he was told point blank, do not try to magnify wants of your department or of your office. So much. In other words, we now we know, but you just want more money. You dont need it. Its well well be fine. Now, this is the problem, though. While the city was very proud, their Fire Department and they they just couldnt bring it upon themselves to spend for the department an editorial in a newspaper in fact said what does it matter if one fire engine gets there before another fire engine. It doesnt matter it will be put out one way or the other. This was the kind of attitude daniel was constantly railing against Something Else to keep in context. In the 19th century around this time, there were many urban conflagrations or big fires. But the American Cities were really, in a sense, burning down. Thats because theyd been built very quickly. The civil war, many of the buildings were built very close together, very high. There wasnt a lot of attention to zoning, to Safe Building materials. So there are major fires in many cities around the country, including chicago. Now, you know about the chicago fire, dont you . We all know that mrs. Olearys cow. And late last night, when i was, you know, you sang at a camp, didnt you . Well i did. I grew up in chicago, so we sang and we all knew about mrs. Olearys cow. But what when this fire happened in. 71, october 1871, it sent a chill through urban firefighters all around the united states. They were concerned that what happened in chicago maybe it could happen in their city. In fact daniel a few days after fire took a train to chicago to deliver money that was raised by his department for chicago firefighter but also to find out what happened and what he found chilled him. He looked at chicago and he said to himself and he said later the boston city, what happened there could happen here. We really to take new measures to protect the and again the city listened to them and said yes, yes, course, of course. But nothing was done. The only thing that did get was a fire boat. He wanted to get a new fire boat that would take water from the wharfs, from the ocean right outside the city and use it to put it on fire. And he got it went into service a month after. The fire. So there was this feeling about the great boston fire that it was a feeling among the city, a big fire could just not here that this city was too well served by its firefighters and didnt need to spend a lot of money. Now, let me tell you one other story, which i think is interesting, again, this is a side story off the main story about this fire. And that is about the great course epizootics a pandemic for equines. Now, i was always interested this this event, if you will, this this this pandemic. But i was writing this book during, our pandemic. So i was very interested in to look at whats happening back in 1872. So as you know, at that time, no cars there were trains, horses pulled everything. Horses were the main source of transportation from trolleys in the city to pulling wagons to pulling carriages. And so when mr. Priestly in october of 1872, they falling sick horse of the Transportation System the of north america began to grind to a halt. What happened is flu and we now know a flu. At the time it was very mysterious, didnt know what was going on. The flu started in canada and started to spread to city to city and finally came to boston. And what is when the horses fell sick, they didnt necessarily die, but they were too sick to work and for horse not to able to work. They had to be pretty sick indeed. And the reason this was mysterious is because the horses seemed to be very and then a few days later they would get sick. And we now know how viruses are transmitted and passed from horse. The horse a horse could be infectious without showing any symptoms. And this may sound familiar, but they didnt know that at the time. So as the horses sick in cities, men moved in to take their place. And you can see that with the being used to pull wagons, pull trolleys and in some cases the horses did get sick enough to die, which was a terrible blow to people who depended on horses to make a living. Whats very interesting about this particular among horses was how it spread and some a number of people have looked including a professor in canada who i interviewed who charted the of this this flu with any mapped to the railroads. So you can see the railroad roads that go across. Work forget it see how the railroads spread the disease. And thats because the horses seemed to be healthy. They were loaded on trains. They were taken to another city, bingo. They get sick. And by that time theyd already infected other horses. So the horse moved across the country. It was it was dead. It was over with in about year. And heres the thing we still dont know to this day what actually it we know it was some kind of virus, some kind of flu. But it is never reappeared. Never reappeared. Couple of reasons. Horses developed immunity to it or we stopped horses. But one thing it did do was raise some issues about protection, animal safety and in fact, in my in the course of my doing my research on this, i found a lot of material from angel roger angel, who eventually angel hospital, the veterinarian hospital, he had a newsletter that he put out and i found a lot of accounts in that about horses and how people were trying very hard to protect these horses and get them. Well and this illustration, which i believe is by thomas nast, not signed, but thomas nast, ill show you another cartoon of his later on. But he was a very famous cartoonist at the time. Now, heres the deal. The problem with the horse flu was not just in transportation getting around the city, but it had a real impact on public safety. And that that the fire engines of the day were pulled by horses. They were quite heavy and specially trained horses had to be mobilized, had to be trained and then used to pull them around. Now, these horses would would not run away in a fire. They would they would not away when theres sparks or loud noises. But they knew when the bell rang in the fire station to go to their station, the harnesses would fall, would drop on them. And the firefighters take off. So when the horses became sick, it was not it was not a simple task to simply replace them with, well, horses that first of all, there werent any. Well, horses. And second of all, those horses werent trained. So the Fire Fighters and dam john daniel gathered his firefighters and said, okay, weve got to have a plan. So we are going to go back to an old of pulling the fire engines by hand. That had been the custom for just a few like a generation earlier before when they were hand pumps they werent as heavy but now that they were heavy they were using horses. But guess what . Were going to go back to pulling them by hand. So he set up an elaborate system in which men be used to pull the fire engines. If there were problems, he had system where not every engine would out with a alarm. In other words, you try to keep some in reserve so everybody in the city would would be protected and so forth and. For a few months it seemed few weeks, i should say. It seemed to there were no major fires, seemed to be going okay and the horses began to recover by november. So were going up, lets talk now about start of this fire and people always ask me. Someone asked me tonight what was the cause of this fire and a good question, but its not the right. So there were many in this point of time. American cities are fires happening all the time. What was different about fire was how hot it got, how quickly it spread and how how much it got out of control before firefighters could really rein it in. So we cant look at it as a simple car, as one simple cause and effect, simple spark. It was a systems failure and one aspect of fires that i find very useful to employ for this fire is idea of a system failure or systems response to fire. The National Fire protection has actually come up with a life fire and life safety ecosphere. And i when, i first heard about this. I said this explains the great boston fire because was a series of different events caused that it wasnt one single thing. It was a complete encyclopedia of, different causes. So on the night of saturday, november 9th, around 7 p. M. , a fire was first seen in the basement of a building. This building here, this representation of it about 7 00, somebody knows there was a fire in the basement of this building. Now, this was a merchants building. There was a small factory. It was filled with wholesale wholesale materials, close hoop skirts from women, leather goods. And when fire was seen in the basement. There was, of course, consternation, but there werent a lot of people around. Remember, was now a Commercial Area . It was saturday night. It was dark. So most of the area was deserted. But people did see the fire and try get help. But there was a delay in sending out the message at this time in the area, the city was served by a series of alarm boxes, fire alarm telegraph boxes. And these are boxes we still have them today. Theres a fire boxes that you see. They probably have some in here where at the time. You open it and you crank it and it would send a message to telegraph to a central headquarters for for the alarm to fire alarm headquarter. The fire alarm would see where the boxes is because they got the signal. Then they would ring bells in the city to indicate number of the box. For example, if box two was triggered, the fire alarm headquarters would ring out five rings and two rings. Five rings and two rings and represent two. And many of the firefighters, including john dream, really knew where every box in the city was. He knew where 52 was. He knew where 51 was. He knew where all these were. So there was one problem with the system. It worked pretty well because the fire alarm headquarters would not only send out a signal the where the fire was, it also send a signal to the individual houses. You know, this is your work. Youre responsible. Box 52, get out there. But happened there was a delay and that was because ther