RACE FOR LIFE WITH FLAMES.
How Engineer Root Brought the Limited to a Place of Safety.
ST. PAUL, Minn., Sept. 2—The town of Hinckley, Minn., seventy-five miles from St. Paul, on the St. Paul and Duluth Road, with a population of from 1,000 to 1,200, was wiped out of existence last night by a raging forest fire which swept down upon the doomed village. The smaller town of Mission Creek, a station about five miles from Hinckley, was also wiped out. The loss of life is variously estimated at from 100 to 400, and it is almost certain that the loss will equal 200. It will be several days before the full extent of the disaster can be known. All is confusion and excitement among the surviving parents who are searching for their children and children searching for their parents. The death list increases every hour.
The walls of the railroad roundhouse and of the schoolhouse are the only parts of buildings in Hinckley which remain.
One of the most thrilling events was the experience of the train which left Duluth at 2 P. M. Saturday for St. Paul. It was the limited passenger, the best train on the road, and was crowded with passengers. The smoke from the forest fires was so dense that lamps were lighted in the cars. When the train came within about a mile of Hinckley, the engineer found that he could proceed no further, as the people were already fleeing for their lives from the town. Dr. W. H. Crary of this city, who was on board, tells of the backward run of the train for seven miles, until a small lake was reached. His story is as follows:
“The woods on either side were lashed by a fierce wind blowing at the rate of eighty miles an hour. On through this weird scene the limited sped, the situation growing more alarming at every mile. As the train neared Hinckley it was discovered that the fire had reached the railroad, but on we sped, the engineer hoping to pass Hinckley in time to escape the danger. It was not until the train had come within a mile of Hinckley that the engineer discovered the train was burning, and that it would be impossible to pass.
“The bridge had already been consumed, together with the mills and homes of Hinckley. Here the train was met by a hundred or more fugitives from the burning town. Mothers carried in their arms small children, others hanging to the mothers’ skirts. Some carried a few household goods, and others were crying and moaning on account of losses already sustained. Many were so nearly exhausted that they could scarcely climb on the train. Nearer and nearer the flames were approaching, and finally the engineer was compelled to reverse his lever and run back, leaving behind scores of unfortunate ones who had not been able to reach the train, their only means of escape.
“Those on board could see many of them sink to the ground, exhausted and overcome by the terrible heat, never again to rise. Many came running across the fields from small settlements, hoping to escape on the train, but only disappointment and death awaited them. On rushed the train through the fiery, hot breath of the pursuing flames, for a stop would have been fatal to all on board. As the weary passengers retraced their steps Sunday morning, some afoot and others on handcars, they found along the side of the track and in the fields the charred remains of those poor, unfortunate wrenches. In four miles some thirty-four bodies were found, some burned beyond recognition and others unscarred, having died from suffocation. It was a four or five mile run back to Skunk Lake, which is little more than a mudhole, the mud and water covering not more than an acre. The train had gone but a short distance before it was surrounded by the devouring flames, hot blasts of flame struck the coaches, setting them on fore in places and breaking the windows on both sides.
“The baggage car was soon a mass of flames, which streamed back over the tender and engine, setting fire to the engineer’s clothes and scorching his face and hands. On either side of the engine there was a stream of flame, but never for an instant did Engineer Root flinch. To remain was apparently certain death for him, but could he hold out for four miles the passengers might possibly escape. To have deserted his post would have been death for all on board. Back of him stood his trusty fireman, who occasionally poured water on him.
“When the heat became unendurable for the fireman, he took a dip in the water tank, from which he drew a supply for the engineer’s shower bath. At Skunk Lake the engineer had scarcely strength to shut off the steam. As he pulled the lever he sank to the floor exhausted, burned, and bleeding, the broken glass in the cab having cut him in a number of places. Quickly two men rushed to the cab and bore the form of the brave engineer to the water below the embankment. Here he lay all night, covered with mud and dirty water, and dying, as most of his passengers believed.
“A mile or two from the lake the coaches were burning above and beneath. On board, the passengers became panic-stricken, and it was only by force that many of the weaker ones were prevented from springing through broken windows or rushing out of the doors. To prevent this, men guarded the doors. Scarcely a soul on board had any hope of escape, not knowing at what moment the burning train would jump from its track of fire into a bed of hot coals.
“At Skunk Lake, sixty more women, children, and men found refuge in the shallow water and dirty mud, the women walking out in the water until it reached their waists. With their hands they bathed their burned faces in mud and water. Many of them were seriously burned on the train. Many lay in the mud, covering themselves with it, and ad often as this became baked a fresh coat had to be added. Many on leaving the train rushed off toward a marsh, and others ran further along the track. It is thought that many of these are lost. Some few died of suffocation within a few rods of the pond. Many women had their clothes partially burned and torn from their bodies.
“One mother was found nursing her suckling child to prevent it from being suffocated. This place was reached some time near 6 o’clock in the evening, and it was not until morning that the men ventured on a journey to Hinckley, some five or six miles distant. The rails had been so badly warped that nothing but a handcar could be run over them. Two handcars were lashed together, and on these some of the St. Paul passengers were carried to Hinckley. Between Skunk Lake and Hinckley 29 bodies were counted, and several more were found near the lake. One man is reported to have found 115 bodies along the old Territorial road leading into Hinckley. The train, after having been abandoned, was completely consumed.”
C. A. Vandever of Davenport, Iowa, was on the ill-fated train. A part of his story is as follows:
“Again the train plunged into a superheated atmosphere, and this time the cars took fire in dead earnest. There was no chance for life now except to commence a personal battle with the flames outside—every fellow for himself. At this point I witnessed scenes that will leave their impression on my mind to my dying day. Men and women were driven perfectly frantic by the heat, together with the fear of an impending horrible death. One man deserted his wife and child upon the burning train, and could not, or at any rate did not, return for their rescue, and they owe their lives to the fortitude of strangers. The conductor lost his head entirely, and seemed to be raging in a perfect fever of insanity.
“Speaking of myself, I may say frankly that when I stepped from the burning train I did not know what to do or which way to turn. I had taken the precaution before leaving the cars to soak my night shirt in the ice water of the water tank. This I wrapped around my head and shoulders. I believe that night shirt saved two lives—my own and that of the wife of the Auditor of the Great Western Road, a lady whose name I have forgotten. I was standing by the side of the truck, hesitating which way to go for safety, the flames rolling up from both sides of the track and meeting above the doomed train, when I heard a woman shriek out the cry: ‘Help me! Help me! I am burning!'
“Through the murky midnight of flame and smoke I saw a lady, her long hair on fire, running directly toward the burning woods at the side of the track. I sprang forward and caught her, saying, ‘Madame, for God’s sake, be calm. The only possible chance of saving your life is to remain upon the track. Come with me. If I can save my own life, I can save yours. If we have to die, we can die together.’ This seemed to recall all her faculties. I took my wet night shirt from my head and wrapped it around hers. From that moment that little woman showed more nerve and presence of mind than almost any man in the party, myself included.”
His account of scenes witnessed along the weary line of march was most pathetic. “I myself counted twenty-seven bodies, evidently the bodies of settlers and people living in that vicinity, who died wile striving to escape from the flames. One man was kneeling, with hands raised in the attitude of prayer. At another place a middle-aged woman sat leaning against a stump, with five children seated around her, all gasping at the mother, with their dead eyes wide open, as if in pathetic wonder why this dread calamity had been visited upon them.”
T. Levine, Duluth, one of the passengers on the fated train, said: “It was the most awful sight I have ever witnessed. Where the St. Paul and Duluth and the Eastern Railway of Minnesota cross, near Hinckley, I saw a heap of half-roasted bodies. I should think there were from twenty to twenty-five in the group—men, women, and children. Their clothing was nearly all burned off, but many of them still had shoes on their feet. It appeared as though these unfortunate persons had tried to get away from the flames, and that they all became overcome with the heat at the railroad crossing and that the fire fiend found them easy victims. Their faces were all badly bloated; still I think their friends could readily recognize them. I should think, from all the reports, that there were probably 500 that perished in the timber near Hinckley. I saw from seventy to seventy-five lying dead on the ground at Hinckley myself.”
St. Paul was quick to respond to the needs of the stricken people. Hardly had the news been read this morning before the sympathy was aroused and took a practical turn. The P. Kelly Mercantile Company, the Hackett Hardware Company, and Finch, Van Slyok, Young & Co. responded in a practical way to the wall of distress, and they were followed by a score of others. In an incredibly short space of time $4,000 worth of provisions and supplies were raised. Horejs Brothers performed yeoman service at their bakery. Beginning at noon, their furnaces were aglow and their great ovens filled. This firm alone turned out 2,300 loaves. Five barrels of pork, large quantities of hams and bacon, great bales of blankets, quantities of crackers, canned beef, coffee, sugar, kerosene, lamp wicks, ten large sacks of beans, and other supplies were speedily hauled to the station to be carried out in special trains to the stricken people.
Gen. Wesley Merritt, in command of the Department of Dakota, United States Army, issued orders for hospital supplies, tents, &o., for the relief of the survivors. The special relief train left her at 3:30 o’clock in charge of D. H. Moon and Jule H. Burrell, prominent merchants.
Wires northward are still in a bad state of demoralization from Hinckley to Duluth, and there is but little communication in that direction. The roads leading through the burned district—the St. Paul and Duluth, the Omaha, and the Eastern Railway of Minnesota—did not attempt to send out their regular trains to-night. One Omaha conductor stated that near Baronette, Wis., he saw twenty-five human bodies, victims of the fire.
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn., Sept 2.—The first train over the St. Paul and Duluth Road directly from the scene of the great fire reached Minneapolis at 12:45 this afternoon. There were about a dozen persons on board, including Mrs. Lawrence, the only one of the passengers on the “limited,” which started Saturday afternoon from Duluth who has yet reached Minneapolis. The other passengers were those who went up on the “limited” yesterday afternoon from this end of the line and, finding that they could go no further, stopped at Pine City and returned to Minneapolis on the first train.
Mrs. Lawrence says the first evidence of the fire was noticeable about ten miles north of Hinckley, when the air became almost suffocating. One mile north of Hinckley a number of persons (Mrs. Lawrence estimates the number at fifty) rushed toward the train, screaming frantically. The engineer, seeing the danger they were in if they remained, stopped the train to let them aboard. The heat became intense, and the whole volcano of fire seemed to burst out in a mighty effort to wipe the train and its occupants off the face of the earth. Mrs. Lawrence, describing the scene, said:
“At the first rush of the flames toward the cars the window panes went out with a crash and the train began slowly to return toward Skunk Lake. People screamed and men jumped through the car windows. The wild panic was horrible. There was not humanity in it. Every fear-crazed person was for himself, and they did not care how they got out of the swirling, rushing avalanche of flame. My dress caught fire, but I extinguished the flames.
“I saw two Chinamen. I can remember the scene as if it were before me. They were paralyzed by fright and made no effort to get away, but simply hid their heads under the seats and were burned to death. I stood it as long as I could, and then I rushed out of the car, jumping over one or two persons that were lying on the ground injured. Some of the people jumped into Skunk Lake, but I simply ran along the ties. The fire had burned many of them away, and, after running until my strength gave out, I fell down between the rails. I expected every minute that my dress would be burned from my body. I put out flames on my dress half a dozen times, and I had to hold my hands over the baby’s face in order to keep it from suffocating.”
This morning Mrs. Lawrence was picked up in the middle of the track, about two miles north of Hinckley, by a relief party from Duluth, who made the trip on a handcar.
The site of Hinckley, says Mrs. Lawrence, is nothing but a blackened waste, with the bodies of dead and injured persons lying everywhere. There were fully 125 persons aboard the ‘limited,’ but only two were burned outright. These were the Chinamen mentioned. About a dozen persons, according to her story, were injured in the panic which resulted when the people tried to escape from the car. Some rushed to the platform and jumped off while the train was moving, while others fought their way through the struggling, frantic mass of passengers in an effort to get away from the scene. In this way many persons suffered severe injuries, such as broken bones and limbs.
Mayor Eustis received a telegram from a citizens’ committee at Bush City, Minn., this afternoon, stating that 150 lives had been lost at Hinckley, and the situation was horrifying. A carload of provisions was procured, but no engine could be secured to take it to the sufferers. It will go out in the morning, however, and to-morrow meetings of the business men of Minneapolis and St. Paul will be held to provide relief.
A story was circulated during the afternoon that J. M. Root, the engineer on the ill-fated “limited,” had died from his wounds. The story was denied by the officials of the road, who reported that Root would recover. The reported reached this city late this afternoon that Sullivan, the conductor of the “limited” of which Root was the engineer, had reached Duluth. His home is in this city. It was reported that he had gone crazy from the effects of the intense heat, and it is doubtful whether he will ever recover.
