SOME OF THE DEAD.
Names of a Few of Those Who Perished in the Fire.
ST. PAUL, Minn., Sept 3.—The names of all those who perished in the fire will never be known. It is the exception when a body is identified.
The Dead.
Among those known to be dead are:
BLANCHARD, Mrs. —; Hinckley.
CURRIE, —, a young man; Hinckley.
COSTIGAN, Mrs. —, and son; Hinckley.
DUNNE, THOMAS; Hinckley.
ERICKSON, ALECK; Shell Lake, Wis.
GINDER, Mrs. WILLIAM; Hinckley.
HANSON, AXEL, wife and children; Hinckley.
HATHEN, Mrs. —, and her three children; Hinckley.
MOLANDER, FRED; Brood Park, Minn.
MOLANDER, Mrs. FRED, and three children; Brood Park, Minn.
MARNTST, CHARLES; Hinckley.
MARTINSON, Mrs. —; Hinckley.
THREE children of Mrs. Martinson.
NELSON, OLE; Hinckley.
OLSEN, Miss NORA: Brood Park, Minn.
RILEY, DENNIS; Hinckley.
STROMBER, Mrs. OTTO; Hinckley.
STROMBERG, ALBERT; Hinckley.
STROMBERG, MARY; Hinckley.
STROMBERG, AUGUSTA; Hinckley.
SHERMAN, Mrs. —; and her two children; Hinckley.
WENDLUND, JOHN; Hinckley.
Missing.
ALLEN, DENNIS; Hinckley.
BENGONIE, JOSEPH; Brood Park, Minn.; hands and feet burned.
CLEARY, THOMAS; Hinckley.
FOSS, HENRY; Hinckley.
GARVEY, PATRICK; Hinckley.
KILTY, JOHN; Hinckley.
KELSEY, —. Brood Park, Minn.; hands and legs burned.
MURPHY, STEPHEN; Hinckley.
McPIKE, CHARLES, Hinckley.
McDONALD, ARCHIE; Hinckley.
PETERSON, CARL J.; Hinckley.
STAPLES, HENRY; Hinckley.
SARGENT, ROBERT; Hinckley.
Injured.
Following is a list of the injured:
ANDERSON, CHARLES; Brood Park, Minn.
ANDERSON, Mrs. CHARLES, and three children; Brood Park, Minn.
BREMAN, BARNES; Brood Park, Minn.
BREMAN, J. B.; Brood Park, Minn.
GOODSELL, DAVID; Brood Park, Minn.
LARSEN, OSCAR; Brood Park, Minn.
LARSEN, Miss, sister of Oscar Larsen; Brood Park, Minn.
OLSEN, CHARLES; Brood Park, Minn.
RAYMOND, Thomas; Brood Park, Minn.
RAYMOND, Mrs. THOMAS, and three children; Brood Park, Minn.
WHITNEY, CHARLES; Brood Park, Minn.
BURNED IN THE MORASS.
Residents of Hinckley Struggled and Perished in the Swamp.
Pine City, Minn., Sept. 3.—At Hinckley the walls of the schoolhouse, the iron fence about the Town Hall Property, the bank vault, and one absolutely uninjured building were all that is left to mark the site where stood a score of store buildings and a dozen times as many dwelling houses.
The fire first struck Hinckley on the east side of the Duluth track, and the brave fire fighters for the first time gave up the unequal battle, and, already too late in many instances, turned their attention to their personal safety.
The Eastern Minnesota train from the south had just come in, and the people of the panic-stricken city flocked to it for safety. A number of box cars were coupled on and filled and covered with men, women, and children. In all, there was a motley crowd of about 450 or more people.
The train pulled out just ahead of the fire, and succeeded, ultimately, in reaching Duluth. This circumstance, while fortunate in a degree that cannot be estimated, has made the confusion greater; for it is not known who escaped in this way, and many people are reported dead who may be safe. Had not this number of people—largely women and children—left the doomed city when they did, the loss of life would have been vastly increased.
About the same time the accommodation train on the Hinckley and St. Cloud Branch left for the latter place with about twenty-five passengers. Its path lay directly across the path of the fire, and the situation speedily became desperate. No one was injured, and they pressed on to Pokegama station, a few rods ahead. But a few feet in front of the engine was discovered a gorge sixty feet wide and forty feet deep, where the trestle had been burned away. They succeeded in reaching the clearing about the station, and escaped with a few burns and bruises. There were burned along the track, however, four or five people, including Dr. Kelley of New Brighton, who had come up to look after his brother.
The people who were left in the city were in what seemed to be an almost hopeless condition. Egress by the only means of transportation that could hope to distance the flames was out of the question. The men had been fighting fire for hours, and the women and children were in a panic-stricken condition. Horses were harnessed to wagons, and women and children were hurriedly loaded. In some cases attempts were made to carry of some household goods, but in most instances the people had no thought for aught but their lives.
Probably 200 of them left town on foot or in vehicles, plunging into the woods to he north, across the Grindstone River, which skirts the town on the north. Over the hill that rises behind the grindstone is a swamp, and to this most of the people with teams headed, but it proved no protection. The fire gave them no opportunity to go further. Some abandoned their teams and ran into the lower portion of the morass but the fire sought them out. Not on was left to tell the tale, and there ,in a space of little more than four or five acres, were counted over 130 corpses. There were families of five, six, and seven, and there they lay, the men generally a little in advance, the mother surrounded by her little ones, cut off by the most horrible of deaths.
Nearly all the bodies were nude, the fire having burned every vestige of their clothing and blackened and charred many of thee corpses beyond recognition, and whole families were wiped out as they were, and some of the bodies completely incinerated.
As night closed in the people began to come out form their hiding places and make their way over the hot embers of the city. They were absolutely dazed by the catastrophe, and the night was spent in a endeavor to find relatives or ascertain their whereabouts. Communication with the outer world was cut off for hours.
The fire had spent its force, but the air was filled with smoke, through which gleamed the dull blaze of smoldering fire in the more substantial stocks of goods. Two huge heaps of coal, which marked the site of the Duluth Coal Sheds, were blazing, and by the light the people wandered about, picking out the places where, only six hours before , their home had stood.
When Sunday morning broke, a few energetic spirits began to organize the work of recovery of the bodies. J. W. Sargent, passenger conductor on the Duluth Road, got into Hinckley during the night, and he organized a volunteer crew, who manned two handcars, whose capacity was increased by the use of planks. They went up the Duluth track to the north and picked up thirty-one bodies between the river and Skunk Lake.
Citizen volunteers harnessed up the available vehicles saved in the gravel pit, and went out to the swamp across the Grindstone. They brought in ninety-six bodies, which were carried out to the desolate burying ground a mile east of town. There was neither time nor opportunity to observe the formalities usually surrounding death. The excitement of the occasion, the horrible experience through which the living had passed, and the more horrible form in which death had come to the lost, had temporarily blunted the finer sensibilities, and the dead were heaped high on the wagons and laid in piles in the cemetery.
The ninety-six bodies brought in to this point were examined by many of the surviving residents of Hinckley, and but four could be identified—Charles Anderson, Axel Hanson, Dennis Riely and Mrs. William Ginder. Those who brought in the bodies from the swamp reported that there were at least thirty-five other bodies left behind which could not be brought in.
The telegraph operator at Hinckley, Otis Green, remained at his post until all but three buildings in Hinckley had been burned. When the station took fire he ran to the safe and took therefrom $5,000 in greenbacks, and fled to the river. A party of Hinckley people, consisting of M. L. Eismore of the Brennan Lumber Company, Prof. Collins of the Hinckley schools, and others, were fishing out in a skiff, but were warned of the approach of the fire by the noise, which was like that of a cyclone. They ran into the shore at the southwest end of the lake, and warned a lot of settlers, who were back in the woods, getting together a party of about eighteen by the lake.
The fire struck the lake at their end, ran along the shore about half a mile, and then jumped the lake in a diagonal direction at a point where it was not less than a mile across. Mr. Eismore says that the fire went across that distance in two bursts of flame with lightning rapidity.
There is little probability of Hinckley ever being rebuilt on its former prosperous proportions. The Brennan Lumber Company is not expected to rebuild its plant. Work had been crowded this season in the hope of cleaning up all the timber, and another season would have been the last. The company has but about 12,000,000 feet of timber remaining, which is so located that it can be sawed to better advantage at other points than by rebuilding here at a probable cost of from $50,000 to $75,000. The timer in the vicinity is well cut and burned off, and there is no chance of any other company coming in. Without an enterprise of this kind, there is no future for Hinckley, except as a junction point.
