Providence Patriot, Columbian Phenix

Office of the Cape Fear Recorder.

WILMINGTON, N. C. Aug. 4

Awful Calamity on the night of the 2d inst.

—The painful duty devolves on us of recording, with implements, for the use of which, we are indebted to the kindness of a friend, the particulars of a dreadful fire, in which we have jointly suffered with several of our fellow citizens, some of whom are reduced from situations of comfort to poverty and distress.

The 2d instant, was a day of excessive heat. At about 10 o'clock at night, the atmosphere changed and we had heavy falls of rain, attended by brilliant trails of lightning and heavy claps of thunder. At about 1 o'clock, the electric fluid descended on the northern end of Mr. Langdon's large wooden building on Market and Second street, and in a few seconds more struck the same building, near the partition, which separated it from the house in which was the Office of the Cape Fear Recorder. It is certain, it set fire to quantities of produce and merchandise, combustible in their nature, and ignited some casks of liquor which burst with a tremendous explosion. The flames then began to blaze forth and to spread through the contiguous buildings and soon reached those which were adjoining to the south and east on Second street; and burned with prodigious fury until the whole block of wooden houses, from Second street, to Mrs. Wright's alley, was consumed.

During the whole of this awful and sublime spectacle, the fire companies of the town performed their duty with admirable spirit and firmness. One engine was stationed to protect the south side of the Town Hall; one at the east end, and another in Second street near Mr. Hall's Livery Stable. These engines were plied with unshrinking courage, amidst torrents of rain, and amidst flashes of lightning the most vivid and piercing, and such rending claps of thunder, that the stoutest heart might have quailed under the portentous display of warring elements. Twice the belfry of the Town Hall was on fire. The houses on the west side of Second street, sweated continually from the great digenous mass of fire on the opposite side, and large flakes of fire were falling on the roofs of adjacent and distant houses. The progress of the fire, was arrested at Mrs. Wright's alley by the activity of the firemen in blowing up and pulling to pieces a small two story house belonging to Mrs. Wright, on the east side of the alley.

The sufferers in this dreadful fire which did not last much longer than two hours, were Sa. Rev. Langdon, Esq. Mr. Chauncey, Mr. John Brown, E. P. Hall, Esq. Mrs. Scott, Wm. C. Lord, Esq. Ancrum Berry, Esq. Mrs. Wright, Gabriel Holmes, Esq. Mr. Tibbits, Archibald M. Hooper, and Mr. Sampson (a coloured man.)

After these details the subscribers to the Recorder can have no difficulty in accounting for the non-receipt of their papers. The loss being total, the proprietor of that paper, saw not a feasibility of reviving his Journal under existing circumstances: but the gratuitous liberality of his excellent friends has enabled him, and the encouragement of his sympathising fellow citizens, induces him to resume the publication of the Cape Fear Recorder, which he will do as soon as materials can be obtained from the North.

P. S. The proprietor of the Cape Fear Recorder having lost every book and paper in his office, will have some difficulty in ascertaining the names of his subscribers who reside in the country, or at distant points. He therefore respectfully requests all postmasters, to whom this Handbill is addressed, to furnish him as speedily as may be convenient, with the names of subscribers to whom papers were sent direct, or to their respective offices.