Brattleboro Brattleboro Retreat
Published: 2013-09
Total Pages: 112
Get eBook
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1887 edition. Excerpt: ... RECORD OF 1877'78. ON the 13th of February, 1877, the Institution suffered the loss by f1re of the boiler house, stable, carriage house, straw house and ice house, with most of their contents, also of the contents of the cellars Estimated loss $25,000, insured for $8,000. The following account in detail is taken from the Vermont Phoenix of the 16th of the same month: "At twenty minutes past seven on Tuesday morning, in the midst of one of the worst gales of this season, the village was aroused by the sound of the Asylum fire-whistle, and its warning note had hardiy reached the ears of the people before a dense volume of blinding smoke came pouring down Main street, giving rise to the gravest apprehensions. A general alarm was immediately given, followed by a rush of neariy every able-bodied citizen'for the scene of the fire. To those who were first on the ground the situation was 1ndeed an alarming one. The streets were black with smoke, and so dense and threatening was the cloud that rolled over and enveloped the buildings, that even from the top of the hill near the common they were entirely invisible. The lire proved to have originated in the stable which stood in the rear of the west wing of the Institution, and by the time the first outside help arrived, both the stable and the carriage house, straw barn and wagon shed which adjoined it on the side next the street, were a mass of thick smoke and flame, which roared and leaped from the doors, windows and roof, and in the terrible northwest gale drove'straight toward the main building in a way which seemed to render its immediate destruction inevitable. Adjoining the stable on the other side, stood the new boiler house, and the upper part'of this building was also soon wrapped in...