Disaster!
Rivergate Regionals
Rivergate Regionals is a collection of books published by Rutgers University Press focusing on New Jersey and the surrounding area. Since its founding in 1936, Rutgers University Press has been devoted to serving the people of New Jersey, and this collection solidifies that tradition. The books in the Rivergate Regionals Collection explore history, politics, nature and the environment, recreation, sports, health and medicine, and the arts. By incorporating the collection within the larger Rutgers University Press editorial program, the Rivergate Regionals Collection enhances our commitment to publishing the best books about our great state and the surrounding region.
Disaster!
Stories of Destruction and Death in Nineteenth-Century New Jersey
Alan A. Siegel
RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS
NEW BRUNSWICK, NEW JERSEY, AND LONDON
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Siegel, Alan A., 1939
Disaster! : stories of destruction and death in nineteenth-century New Jersey / Alan A. Siegel.
pages cm. (Rivergate Regionals)
Includes .
ISBN 9780813564593 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 9780813564609 (e-book)
1. Natural disastersNew JerseyHistory. 2. DisastersNew JerseyHistory. 3. Natural disastersNew JerseyAnecdotes. 4. DisastersNew JerseyAnecdotes. I. Title.
GB5010.S478 2014
363.3409749'09034dc23
2013010368
A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.
Copyright 2014 by Alan A. Siegel
All rights reserved
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Contents
By every measure, Hurricane Sandy was a disaster of epic proportion. The deadliest storm to strike the East Coast since Hurricane Diane in 1955, Sandy killed thirty-seven people and caused more than $30 billion in damage to New Jersey alone. Overall, twenty-four states suffered the effects of the hurricane, a one thousand-mile-wide monster that came ashore near Atlantic City just after 8:00 P.M. on October 29, 2012. Superstorm Sandy will live on in the collective memory of New Jerseyansand will be written about, toofor decades to come.
People have been fascinated by disasters like Hurricane Sandy since the time of the Flood, if not before. We know this because almost all cultures tell ancient stories of a catastrophic deluge that overwhelmed the land and annihilated the people. Such narratives are common in India, China, Polynesia, Turkey, the Baltic countries, and South America, to name just a few. The Greeks cherished the tale of Deucalion, son of Prometheus and mythical ancestor of the Hellenes, who built a boat and thereby thwarted Zeus, who had threatened to destroy mankind by a flood. The biblical story of Noah and his ark is universally known. Even older is the epic of Gilgamesh, the king whose ancestor had braved not only a black cloud that turned all light to darkness but a cyclone and flood that devastated the land as well.
Natural disastershurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptionswere the stuff of legend. In the modern age, manmade calamitiesshipwrecks, fires, train wrecks, and airplane crashesare more common. Regardless of the cause, people are captivated by stories of such great events.
Why do we have such an interest in death and destruction? Natural curiosity plays a large role; after all, most of us thankfully will never experience a shipwreck or flood except vicariously through news reports, books, and television shows. Are we relieved that we have escaped to live another day? Do we feel compassion for the survivors or admiration for the bravery and selflessness of people facing the gravest dangers? No doubt a variety of motives draws people inexorably to stories of disasters.
In the nineteenth century, news reports of calamities provided common fodder for newspapers, increasing circulation by the thousands. James Gordon Bennett, who founded the New York Herald in 1835, was among the pioneers of journalism as we know it. His papers vivid and detailed account of the New York City fire of December 1835 set a standard by which disaster reporting would be measured.
In the following pages, I tell the stories of more than a score of natural and manmade disasters that befell the people of New Jersey in the nineteenth century. My sources for the most part are contemporary newspaper accounts; as far as I know, no one has collected these mostly long-forgotten accounts together in one book. And wherever possible, I have consciously emphasized the roles played by those who, faced with sudden disaster, performed heroically. None of the stories end wellthere are dead and injured by the thousands, as well as millions of dollars in property losses. Still, we cannot but admire the courage of those who experienced firsthand such calamities and survived to tell the tale.
Three of the disasters I write about occurred in the opening years of the twentieth century. I include them because they are related to similar events that took place before the turn of the century.
Fires
From the beginning of recorded human history, fire has been both comforter and destroyer. The terrible conflagrations that leveled Rome in A.D. 64 and London in September 1666 are but two examples of the destructive force of one of natures most terrifying elements.
In nineteenth-century urban America, when many buildings were close-packed, ramshackle wooden structures, the warmth of the fireplace and wood stove and the light of the oil and gas lamp were decidedly mixed blessings. It took but one careless moment to set a building ablaze. With fire brigades usually nonexistent or poorly staffed and equipped, the orange glow of an unconfined flame could spread at frightening speed, destroying lives and property indiscriminately until burning out of its own accord.
Even today, with all of our modern firefighting methods, fire takes a heavy toll. In the United States, property loss resulting from residential fires alone in the three-year period ending in 2008 amounted to $6.92 billion; during the same period, nearly fifteen thousand civilians died or were injured in those blazes. Even a state as well protected as New Jersey has not been spared: fire fatalities in the year 2010, the last for which statistics are currently available, totaled 73, with 393 injuries. That year, there were 30,841 fires statewide. Losses were in the millions.
NewarkOctober 27, 1836
New Jerseys first great fire struck Newark on a cold afternoon, October 27, 1836. It was a few minutes after three oclock when a lodger in a German boarding house on East Market Street first discovered the flames. Within minutes, the old two-story, wood-frame structure was a roaring inferno. Moments later, the adjacent frame buildings on the east and west, and sheds to the rear, were burning furiously. Soon rows of shops on both sides of Mechanic Street were ablaze, with flying embers carrying the fire quickly to a three-story carriage factory on the corner of Broad Street. The fire raged up Broad, consuming factories, shops, and fine old homes, until it met the flames burning along Market Street. In less than three hours, an entire city block bounded by Broad, Mechanic, Mulberry, and Market Streets was engulfed.
