Witness Wrote Graphic Tale of Ontonagon Fire of 1896

Conflagration Hit Lumbering Village 58 Years Ago Today

The following article is taken from the Cleveland Press of September 2, 1896, describing the Ontonagon fire of August 26, 1896, by an eye-witness who was spending the summer in Ontonagon, a Martha Chase of Akron, Ohio.  The paper from which this article is taken is in the possession of Mrs. Mae Jeffs Regan of Chicago, a former resident of Rockland.

Of the many accounts written about the great Ontonagon fire, this is one of the most graphic and accurate, according to old timers who witnessed the fire.

"ONTONAGON HORROR"

"A Vivid Description of the Great Conflagration"

"Two Murderers Released From a Burning Jail -- They Show Their Gratitude by Saving Their Rescuer -- a Frantic Mother Places the Body of Her Child in a Church, Only to Be Cremated -- Some Pan Pictures of the Terrible Scene."

"The following account of the burning of Ontonagon, Mich., a town in which Akron and Cleveland interests are especially large, was written for "The Press" by Miss Martha Chase, of Akron, who spent the summer in Ontonagon, and was among those who passed Tuesday night on the shores of Lake Superior while the town was burning:

"Small fires had been smouldering around Ontonagon for several weeks.  They were so common that people paid little attention to them.

"On Tuesday morning I started for a walk into the woods across the river.  A fire was burning there, though it did not seem large enough to warrant worry.  At about 11 o'clock the smoke began to be troublesome.

"A terrific southwest wind had begun to blow, carrying the smoke from across the Ontonagon river to the sawmills of the Diamond Match Co., and the 60,000,000 feet of lumber piled up in the yards.  By 1 o'clock the ____ wind carried the blaze from the woods to some frame houses, occupied by mill hands, on the farther side of the river.  Then alarm was taken.

"John Cameron, superintendent of the mills, ordered all hands to leave work and help fight the fire.  The large and well-equipped fire department of the Diamond Match Co., was summoned and the fight began in desperate earnest.  But it was too late.

"Soon a sad procession was ............ (this part missing) ... sharp sand which cut into their tender flesh.

"Many strange and sad sights were witnessed down there on the beach, with old Lake Superior lashed into a fury in front and the town wrapped in its fiery winding sheet behind.  I saw a poor Swedish woman carrying tenderly in her arms the coffin in which lay her little child, dead.  Another mother, with agonized face, was bending over a daughter who had been seized with a fit brought on by fright.  A little further on a sick woman lay upon the bed which had been hastily improvised for her on the sand.

"There were other scenes being enacted at the same time in which the grotesque and pathetic were about equally mingled.

"One of the most intensely dramatic incidents took place at the jail.  Two men, Redpath and Beveridge were confined there waiting trial on the charge of murder.  When the fire began they were forgotten. It was each man for himself.  Sheriff Corbett was out of town and none of the deputies were on hand.  Mrs. Corbett was in the house, but could not find the key to the cells.  The men became frantic.  'My God, are you going to let us die like beasts in a cage?  Let us out!' Redpath cried wildly.  They shook the doors, they seized the iron bars and strove to tear them apart.  They yelled with rage and fear.  The fire was drawing steadily nearer.  Suddenly there appeared before Mrs. Corbett, who was hunting for the keys, a little woman, fair-haired and blue-eyed, with a white set face.  'Are you going to let my husband out, or must he be burned to death?' she asked.  It was Mrs. Beveridge, wife of one of the prisoners.  Together the two women searched until they found a key which fitted the lock.

"By this time the walls of the jail were hot and the houses in the next street were burning.  The liberated men hastened across country to the hills.  Mrs. Corbett with her aged mother and young children started to follow, but in their haste and fright, instead of taking the free road, they entered the swamp, which was all on fire.  Terror and confusion took possession of them.  The red wall of flame towered up behind, while blinding smoke and falling cinders told of equal danger ahead.  Suddenly they were seized by strong hands and a voice said, 'Don't be alarmed, Mrs. Corbett; we'll see that you get through it safely.'  It was the escaped murder, Beveridge.  While he assisted the young woman, Redpath took the aged mother in his arms and half carried, half dragged her to a place of safety.

"The next morning in driving over the ruins, I came upon these two men again.  They had no place to go and had evidently stopped by the roadside to rest.  The slender, black-haired Redpath had thrown himself down upon the ground beside a trunk, on which sat the broad-shouldered, handsome Beveridge with his pretty life wife beside him.

"Of the handsome block occupied by the large general store of the Diamond Match Co., nothing was left but a heap of blackened bricks.  Over the ruins of the saw mills and lumber yard, the two immense iron stacks of the vast furnaces look mournfully down --all that remained of property worth a million.

"In the fields children were digging potatoes to roast for their breakfast.  One family had set up a cook stove in a hay field and had already started housekeeping.  Others were preparing to put up shanties for their temporary accommodation.

"Mr. J.H. Comstock, at the head of the Diamond Match Co. interests in Ontonagon was in Chicago at the time of the calamity.  His wife could hardly be prevailed upon to leave and abandon her beautiful home, filled with costly furniture and bric-a-brac.  Nor would she go until she had superintended the removal of cases containing her husband's collection of coins, valued at $30,000.

"In the large house and barns of Mr. John Mercer, about 200 people were accommodated on the evening of the fire and about the same number at the poor farm.  Of course, it was impossible to provide shelter for all, and provisions were at a premium.  The lumber barge Huron City, which was in the dock at the time, fed a large number.  Food and tents arrived on the relief trains, the next day.

"Some men from the Halliwell copper mine, situated 20 miles from town, and which is controlled by Cleveland capital, arrived in Ontonagon on the night of the fire, having become alarmed by the dense clouds of smoke seen in the distance.  They found bridges burned down two miles from Ontonagon, and had to build rails or swim across the rivers.

"The accounts published in the newspapers have not begun to depict the awfulness of the calamity and the destitution which has fallen upon the 2500 people in one of the most prosperous and thriving towns in the upper lake regions.

MARTHA CHASE.