Shepherdstown Register

NEW VOL. 7-NO. 19
Burning of Villages and Forests.
On Sunday night last Mr. James B.
Clark, of Detroit, was in Uniontown,
Wisconsin. Fires were blazing through
the forests and along the prairies in every
direction. At sundown there was a
strong breeze, which at 9 o'clock increas-
ed to a furious gale, blowing toward the
lake. The whole surface of the country
to the westward, eastward, and south-
ward seemed to be one mass of flame
which almost reached to the lowering
clouds, and rushed along at race horse
speed. Even where Mr. Clark was the
heat was intense. Beyond, toward the
lake, was the settlement of Williamson's
Mills, comprising about forty families.
The fire suddenly made a rush,
like the flash of a train of gunpowder,
and swept in the shape of a crescent
around the settlement. It is almost in-
possible to conceive the frightful rapidity
of the advance of the flames. The
rushing fire seemed to eat up and anni-
hilate the trees.
The roar of the blast was as loud as
the whirr of a great mill. As we looked
on, say at about 1 o'clock, when half a
mile distant, we could just see something
moving, now it would appear
like a black mass, then it would separate
into segments, waving to and fro and
bobbing up and down. It can, when a
distance from the fiery wall of flames,
so intense was the glare of light all
about us that our eyes were dazed, they
ran with water, and we could only see
by constantly wringing our handkerchiefs.
At last we made out by sight and sound
that the moving mass was a stampede of
cattle and horses thundering along to-
ward us away from the flames, bellow-
ing, neighing and making as the wind
leaped on. Finally they came rushing
past with fearful speed, the eyeballs
dilated and glaring with terror, and every
motion betokening the anguish of
fright. Some had been badly burned
and must have plunged through a large
space of flame in the desperate effort
to escape.
Following considerably behind came
a solitary horse, panting and foaming
and exhausted. He was saddled and
bridled and as we first thought, had a
bag lashed to his back. As he came
up we saw that the head of a
boy had fallen over the animal's
neck, the bridle was wound around his
hands, and the mane caught by
the fingers. We tried to
stop the wild horse and save the
lad; but he bolted past the stake,
and was seemingly dying. Some time
elapsed, and he rallied enough to speak.
He told his name, Patrick Byrnes, and
said:
"Father and mother and the children
got into the wagon. I don't know what
became of them. Everything is burned
up. I am dying. Oh, is there no one
worse than this?"
The poor fellow lay in a critical con-
dition when I left. The next morning
we drove down to the settlement. The
first house we came to was that of Pat-
rick Byrnes, father of the lad before spo-
ken of. It was a heap of ashes. The
brick chimney, the cooking stove, and
iron pots and farm tools were the only
remnants of the place. The forest
was burned down close to the ground the
stumps only being left, smouldering and
smoking. Everything was hot. Even
the road was baked and cracked by the
heat.
About a mile further on we came to a
horrible spectacle. Along side the road
in a gully lay the bodies six oxen and
two horses roasted to a crisp. The
tires of the wheels were brass and
bolts of the wagon were twisted about.
Death had survived and en-
gulfed them. Evidently the animals in
their madness, had reared, plunged
and fallen headlong from the road to
where they died.
Mr. Byrnes was a native of Tipperary
county, Ireland, and with his wife had
been in America over thirty years. For-
merly they lived in the Fifth Ward
of New York, where he was employed
as a carman. Seventeen years ago he
moved West, and by industry has ac-
quired a snug property. He had five
children, the eldest being eighteen and
the youngest five years.
We hurried on. All along the road
lay the carcasses of cattle, sheep and
dogs burnt to a crisp. The smaller
animals were almost entirely consumed.
Now we came to the village. Nothing
was left but piles of ashes, smoking and
smouldering. In the cellar of one house
were found eight bodies. One of a man
was in a stooping position over that of
a child, as though he died trying to ward
off the flames. This was very likely
the body of Mr. Williamson, the owner
of the mills, who, with his entire family,
is said to have perished. In the rear
yard of the next house were four bodies,
apparently those of a mother and her
children. They were scorched, not
burnt crisp, and cheek of the youngest,
a girl of six, retained an expres-
sion
of calmness that seemed to indicate a pain-
less death of suffocation.
But the most horrible of all was the
largest in the village, and in the centre
of the yard, midway between the house
and barn, was a large but shallow well.
Several of the neighbors were supplied
with water from this fountain, and it is
likely the conflagration, when all hope
was cut off, the neighbors, insane with
terror, thronged with one purpose to
this well. The ordinary chain and
wheel pump used in that place had been
removed, and the wretched people had
leaped into the well as the last refuge.
Boards had been thrown down to pre-
vent them being drowned; but evidently
the relentless fury of the fire drove them
pell mell into the pit to struggle with
each other and die--some by drowning,
and others by fire and suffocation. None
escaped. Thirty-two bodies were found
there. They were in every imagi-
nable position; but the contortions of their
limbs and the agonized expressions of
their faces told the awful tale.
All the houses along the roads down
to Sturgeon Bay were reduced to ashes,
and in them, or near by, were the black-
ened corpses of the ill-fated residents.
Twelve only are as yet known to have
escaped. These ran to the lake and
plunged to their necks in water.