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(authors icon)1918


INCIDENTS OF THE FIRE


Curious Freaks of the Tornado.

Below Peshtigo there is a camp where two or three men were stopping. Hearing the roaring of the approaching conflagration, they seized what few personal effects they could carry and ran up the road for several miles. The fire overtook them and they were severely burned, but escaped with their lives. On returning to the camp a day or two after the fire, they found everything safe and intact; everything burned around, and the camp left unharmed!

Up by the upper dam at Marinette there are patches of June grass burnt out clean by the roots and brush-heaps lying within a few feet untouched.

The Union school house that every one supposed was demolished--the fire having consumed everything around it--is left comparatively unhurt.

On the site of Peshtigo village, at one point, the remains of what was evidently once three adult human beings, were found so thoroughly consumed that the ashes could be all placed in a two quart measure.

At another place, the remains of one person was found--a slate pencil, a knife and some metalic trinkets, a few teeth, pieces of a skull &c., all of which could be held in the palm of the hand.

A little white pig followed Mr. Coon and family down to the river and plunged in with them, just keeping its nose out of water for breath. The smoke came so thick that Mr. C. and family were obliged to change quarters and lost track of the pig. Two days after, the pig was found rooting around among the ruins all right. His pig sense, saved him.

The Stockholders and directors of the Sturgeon Bay Canal Company met persuant to notice at the Advocate Office in Green Bay on the 12th inst. By resolution the number of directors for the ensuing year was reduced to seven. The following gentlemen were elected for the ensuing year:--Wm. B. Ogden. Chas. D. Robinson, Thos. H. Beebee, Joseph Harris, Jesse Spaulding, Isaac Stephenson, and F. B. Gardner. It is the intention of the present board to prosecute the work as rapidly as possible.

The Eagle, as will be perceived by our readers, is somewhat curtailed in its proportions this week. The publishing house and auxiliary printing establishment of A. N. Kellogg & Co. of Chicago, from whence we draw our supply of paper, was destroyed in the conflagration at that fated city last Sunday night, and we were left short for this week. We shall try and make arrangements for the EAGLE to appear hereafter as usual.

Correction.--Little Sturgeon, that was reported here to have been burned, turns out to be safe. Williamsonville, a little hamlet five or six miles from Little Sturgeon was burned, and over fifty lives out of a population of about seventy-five were lost.

Our Peshtigo Subscribers will please report to us where they wish their paper sent in future, as fast as convenient, so that we can correct our books accordingly.


PESHTIGO








Our Peshtigo department is swept out of existence, for the time being, by the firey tornado. Peshtigo village is a serene and blackened ruin--words are too feeble to convey any adequate idea of the disaster and we insert the above as faintly emblematic of the utter desolation of the scene.


The First Newspaper Story of the Great Peshtigo Fire, October 8, 1871. Peshtigo, Wis.: The Peshtigo Times, [1951]
From the State Historical Society of Wisconsin: Pam 57-1251.