Whisky; It Burns

Image from Life in Western Pennsylvania

FIRE CAUSES A PANIC.

EIGHT PERSONS BADLY BURNED IN PITTSBURG.

Employee Unable to Escape from a Big Building — Walls Fall and Crush Adjoining Houses — Many Persons Hurt in the Crowd.

PITTSBURG, Pa., Oct. 28. — The explosion of a barrel of whisky in the big warehouse of the Chautauqua Lake Ice company yesterday afternoon caused the destruction of over $500,000 worth of property and serious injury to eight persons. Several of the injured, it is feared, will die. A score of more of others received slight cuts and bruises or were trampled on by the mob surrounding the burning buildings. Those seriously hurt were:

T.J. HEILMAN, married; dropped from the third floor to the ground; hands and face terribly burned. His injuries are considered fatal.

MARTIN GRIFFITH, married; dangerously burned.

EDWARD SEES, body and head badly burned; may not recover.

WILLIAM COX, dangerously burned about face and body.

W.M. SMITH, painfully burned; will recover.

LIEUT. FRANK McCANN of engine No. 7; struck by falling bricks and left leg broken.

WILLIAM WISMAN, struck by falling timbers and skull fractured.

JOHN REISCHE, badly hurt by falling timbers.

It was just twenty minutes after 1 o’clock when a number of employes on the third floor of the ice company’s buildings were startled by a loud report, and almost instantly the large room was ablaze. The men started for the stairs, but the flames had already cut off their retreat, and the only means of exit left them were the windows, fifty feet from the ground. By this time the heat was so intense that they were forced to creep out upon the window sills and hang by their hands until the fire department arrived. The flames bursting from the windows burned their hands and faces, but they hung their until the firemen placed their ladders in position and brought them down.

To aid to the excitement it was discovered that a large tank of ammonia was located in the cellar of the ice company’s building, and the police, fearing an explosion, quickly ordered the occupants of the houses on Twelfth street to vacate. All the houses in the neighborhood are a cheap class of tenements and crowded to suffocation with Poles and Slavs. When they were told to move out a panic indescribable started among them. House-hold goods store goods, children and everything that could be carried away were rushed to a place of safety.

The walls of the Mulberry alley side fell in with a crash and a few minutes later the eastern wall came down. The debris buried a low row of tenements in the alley and a three-story brick dwelling on Thirteenth street. The tenements were occupied by families, but fortunately they had been deserted some time before the walls fell in. Not one of the families had a chance to save any of their goods and all their furniture was destroyed. The ruins took fire immediately, and for a while the entire tenement district of Penn avenue was threatened with destruction.

When the walls of the big buildings fell the great mob of people made a rush to get out of danger. Many men tripped and fell and were trampled under foot. Several received painful but not dangerous bruises. Sheets of iron were cast from the burning buildings by the fury of the flames and hurled into the crowds. Scores of people received slight injuries, which were dressed in neighboring drug stores.

The Daily Review (Decatur, Illinois) Oct 29, 1893

Another article about the same fire:(I think the above newspaper got the date wrong)
Davenport Daily Leader (Davenport, Iowa) Oct 27, 1893

Again with the whisky barrels? Really?

MAY REACH TWENTY-FIVE DEAD.

Pittsburg. Feb 10. — The lost of life and property by the fire last night in the great cold storage plant of the Chautauqua Lake Ice company, was the greatest in the history of Pittsburg. At least fifteen persons were killed, over a score injured and property valued at a million and one-half destroyed. The loss of life was caused by the explosion of several hundred barrels of whisky in the ware house, knocking out one of the walls.

The dead are: Lieut. of Police John A. Berry, John Dwyer, William Scott, Jr., the son of President Scott of the Chautauqua State Ice Co.; Stanley Seitz, George Loveless, Mrs. Mary Sipe and her mother; Stanley Sipe, Lieut. Josep Johnson, a fireman name unknown; William L. Wallenstein, and three unknown men.

The missing are: Nathaniel Green, accountant of the Dailmerer building, supposed to be in the ruins; Thomas Lynch, iceman in the employ of the Chautaqua company, supposed to be in the ruins; Edward Berry watchman of the storage building.

It is believed that at least ten more bodies are in the ruins, which are still too hot to be moved. The principal losses are: Union Storage company, $775,900; Hoever’s Storage Warehouse and contents, $600,000; Chautauqua Ice company, $150,000.

Three more bodies were taken from the ruins this forenoon. The dead it is now thought will reach 25. Those taken out this morning were: John Hanna, Bookkeeper and cashier of the Chautauqua Lake Ice Co.; John Scott, another son of President Scott, and an unknown fireman.

_____

Later. — But eight bodies were recovered instead of 14, as first reported. Four are missing, and the firemen believe that a number of others are still under the ruins. The correct list of the identified dead is Lieut. Police Berry; John Dwyer, William Scott, Jr., Stanley Sipe, George Loveless, William A. Wallrobenstein, Josiah Hanna, and William Smith. The missing, Nathaniel Green, Thomas Lynch, John Scott and Edwin Barry.

Davenport Daily Leader (Davenport, Iowa) Feb 10, 1898

*     *     *     *     *

More about the Chautauqua Lake Ice Company:

The Olean Democrat (Olean, New York) Mar 14, 1889

The Olean Democrat (Olean, New York) Jan 15, 1891

James A. Addis – New Castle Nonagenarian

Note: This same photo of Mr. Addis ran in the newspaper several times with various articles.

JAMES A. ADDIS IS PIONEER MERCHANT, OLDEST MASON

James A. Addis enjoys the distinction of being the oldest Mason in Lawrence county and also of being the only man in New Castle who was engaged in business on Washington street an even 60 years ago.

Mr. Addis opened a confectionery and baking establishment in New Castle in April, 1847. His stand was located where the store of Jacob Cosel now stands.

He was the first man who ever packed and sold ice in New Castle and his methods were strikingly different from the ice monopoly-trust combination methods of the present day.

He was the first to open an ice cream parlor in this city and was the first to manufacture candy. His store was not as elaborate as those of the Greeks of the present day, but he didn’t lie awake endeavoring to defeat the purpose of the laws and withal he was better satisfied with his business than are the present day money seekers.

Mr. Addis remembers when Poland was the largest town across the state line and when Youngstown was proud of the number of people who stopped every day at the watering trough on what is now Federal street.

Mr. Addis is only three years short of being in the nonagenarian ranks, having been born in December of 1820.

New Castle News (New Castle, Pennsylvania) Jul 10, 1907

With two such hale and hearty 90-year-old youngsters as Joseph S. White and James A. Addis, New Castle would appear to be a health resort of no mean reputation.

New Castle News (New Castle, Pennsylvania) Dec 30, 1910

 

JAMES A. ADDIS PASSES AWAY IN HIS 91ST YEAR
——-
Oldest Mason in City Ends Busy Life Begun When Republic Was Young.
——-
PIONEER IN CANDY AND BAKERY TRADE
——-
He Opened First Store of Kind in New Castle and Distinctly Remembers Visit of Marquis de La Fayette to Pittsburg in 1825.
——-

James A. Addis, one of the city’s most venerable men, died at the family home, 5 Franklin avenue, very suddenly Monday evening. He was in his 91st year, and was one of the best known men in the city. He was also New Castle’s oldest merchant, as, although he had led a retired life for some years, there was not another man living who was in business in this city at the same time that Mr. Addis was a merchant.

His death was most unexpected. Despite his advanced age, Mr. Addis had been in good health until just the last few days, when he complained of feeling not so well as usual. Monday evening, about 6:30 o’clock, shortly after he had finished his evening meal, he was taken suddenly ill, and expired within a few minutes.

Born on what is now Second avenue, Pittsburg, December 23, 1820, Mr. Addis was able to tell many interesting tales of the early days of that city, and at the time of the sesqui-centennial celebration, he was interviewed by representatives of a number of Pittsburg newspapers, giving many items of interest, and telling of seeing Lafayette enter the city in 1825. When he was in a reminiscent mood, he often told of his boyhood, and retaining his faculties to the last, was a most pleasing conversationalist.

Mr. Addis was the son of Isaac Shea and Susanna Patterson Addis, and was the eldest of six children. His father moved to Pittsburg to take up his permanent residence in 1812, and resided there for many years. He had been born in Philadelphia, and first came to Pittsburg in 1809, returning to Philadelphia in 1811. He and Susanna Patterson were married in 1817. The Addis home was located on Second avenue about an eighth of a mile above Smithfield street.

James Addis’ first recollection of affairs in the early years of Pittsburg occurred when he witnessed the arrival of General Lafayette in that city in June, 1825. Mr. Addis saw the triumphal procession on Wood street, between Second and Third avenues, and stated that each feature of the event was idelibly impressed on his mind.

According to Mr. Addis there was but one iron plant, known as the Douglas mill, in active operation in Pittsburg about 1825. The locality of the plant was then called Pipetown, and was near what is now Second avenue.

Image from Wikipedia entry: Great Fire of Pittsburgh

An interesting tale of the great fire, which wiped out a portion of the business section of Pittsburg in 1846, was told by Mr. Addis. The burned territory embraced more than 50 acres and covered what is now the district bounded by Second, Ferry, Smithfiled and Diamond streets. The only building left standing in that entire territory was the one owned by George Weyman.

Mr. Addis did not retain an active impression of the government of the early days of Pittsburg, as he left the city shortly after he became of age. He remembered clearly when the famous canal was opened in 1829 between Johnstown and Pittsburg. It was an extension of the famous Juniata canal and greatly stimulated commerce in the Pittsburg district. It was in constant use until its absorption by the Pennsylvania railroad about 1855. An interesting story of a stage coach ride over the Alleghenies in 1850 as far east as Altoona was recalled. He took the stage at the old St. Charles hotel at 7 o’clock in the morning and was at Altoona at 8 the next morning, a distance of considerably more than 100 miles.

Mr. Addis was apprenticed to Robert Knox, a candymaker on Fourth street, when but a boy, and worked at that trade for some time. He attended night school in the old First ward building on the present site of the big Wabash depot. Here he obtained the rudiments of his education.

Mr. Addis stated that the coal business about 1830 was but in its infancy. Nearly all Pittsburgers burned wood. He distinctly remembered being on an Ohio river steamboat when but a child and states that there were many other passenger packets in operation at that time.

Mr. Addis came to New Castle in the year 1846, and had been a resident here much of the time since that date. He established the first confectionery store and bakery ever in the city, his place of business being located on the south side of what is now Washington street, near the Knox block. Later, he moved to the north side of the street, about the location of Mathers’ store. He was the first man in this city to open and ice cream parlor and also the first to sell oysters cooked. In those days, the supply was brought overland from Enon Valley, in the winter time, when the boats were not running.

Mr. Addis was thrice married. His first wife was Sarah Reed, a daughter of John Reed. Their children, who survive to mourn the father’s death, are Mrs. David Osborne of Buckeye, Tex.; Mrs. Sue Johnson of Covington, Ind., and Mrs. Jean A. Jones of St. Louis, Mo.

1850 census shows James A. Addis with wife, Sarah, a small child, and perhaps a sister (Reed). Occupation: Confectioner

1860 Census shows Mr. Addis, wife, Sarah, several children and his father, Isaac Addis. Occupation: Confectioner

 

During the Civil war, the family moved to Kansas, and there Mrs. Addis died. Some time later, Mr. Addis married again, his second wife’s death occurring in this city, after he had again taken up his residence here. His third wife was Mrs. Eliza McCandless, who survives him.

1870 census shows wife Jane (2nd wife?) and some children. Occupation: Clerk in Store

1880 census show wife Jane. Mr. Addis is working as a clerk in a hardware store.

1900 census. Mr. Addis is now married to 3rd wife, Eliza and working as a tax collector.

Mr. Addis voted for Abraham Lincoln, both times in this city. He had always retained an active interest in current happenings, and was able to give a valued opinion on many subjects.

For many years, he was a tax collector in the city, but was compelled to give up active work on account of his advancing years.

He was one of the oldest Masons in this part of the state, having been initiated into Mahoning lodge 243, F.&A.M., in 1859. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his initiation into the lodge, he was honored by fellow members in being presented with a handsome gift. He had always been greatly interested in Masonry, and was highly esteemed by his fellow members.

Image from Ballou’s Pictorial — More on the church at Wood St. on the City of Pittsburg website

In Pittsburg, Mr. Addis was a member of the old First Presbyterian church on Wood street. For many years, he had been a member of the First Christian church of this city. He was a man of many splendid traits of character, and his passing from the scenes of his long life brings sorrow to many.

The funeral services will be held Wednesday afternoon at 2:30 o’clock at the residence in Franklin avenue, and will be in charge of Mahoning lodge, No. 243, F.&A.M. Interment will be made in Greenwood cemetery.

New Castle News (New Castle, Pennsylvania) Jul 12, 1911