Amanuensis Monday - The Long Lost Dennis Dugan

I've blogged before about Dennis Dugan and his first wife, Bessie Dugan nee Quirk.  Bessie was my great-great aunt and she died shortly after giving birth to a daughter.  I've often wondered what happened to that daughter, but so far (despite previous moments of inspiration on the subject) I have been unable to figure out if she died young, moved away to live with other family, or if she grew up and simply got married and led a normal life.

In an attempt to try to find out what happened to her I finally tracked down some obituaries for her father, Dennis, and his 2nd wife.  Sadly, there was no mention of her in the obituaries, so back to square one.  Her not being mentioned does lead me to believe that her life was most likely cut short.  Perhaps she even died prior to her father remarrying.  Who knows.  I'd like to avoid Pennsylvania doing a broad search for her death record, but it may come to that if I keep banging my head against this brick wall.

Dennis' daughter, Betty/Elizabeth (named after her mother), did have some half-siblings though.  I do often wonder if they ever knew her.  Was her name even mentioned after she passed?  Ah well.  On to her father's obituary:

The Globe Times - 17MAY1954, pg8

"Dennis J. Dugan

Dennis J. Dugan, 711 Pawnee St., a former employee [sic] of Bethlehem Steel, died unexpectedly at 8:30 a.m. today in his home.

A resident of Bethlehem for 45 years he was born in Audenried [sic], Pa.  He was a member of St. Ursula's Church in Fountain Hill, of the Protection Hose Co. and of the South Side Fireman's Relief Assn.

His survivors include his wife, Rose (King) Dugan; two sons, James of Bethlehem and Francis, at home; two daughters, Sister Rose Dennis Dugan, SSJ, Church of the Ascension in Philadelphia, and Mary wife of James Phillips at home; and two sisters, Mrs. William O'Donnell and Margaret Dugan of Washington, D. C. Three grandchildren also survive."

The Peshtigo Fire - A Miracle From the Ashes

The statue of Mary inside the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help

As promised I'm ending my posts on this historic tragedy on a miraculous note.  I'm not speaking figuratively.  I'm not saying "It's a miracle my husband's ancestors survived".  I'm grateful that they survived, and it could be viewed as miraculous, but I'm talking church acknowledged miracle! This miracle didn't happen in the town of Peshtigo.  It was across the bay in a town called Robinsonville that was also under attack by the series of fires collectively known as the "Great Peshtigo Fire"....and it's the sort of story that makes you believe in miracles if you didn't already.  A little history...

Adele Brise (also spelled Brice) was a young Belgian immigrant who came to America with her family and settled in Wisconsin.  She had originally wanted to stay behind in her native Belgium and join a convent with some other girls, but after talking with her priest, he advised her to do what any good priest would...to follow her parents wishes and go to America with them.  He told her that if she was meant for a religious order that she would no doubt find one in the United States.  So instead of a convent Adele found herself in a heavily wooded area of Wisconsin.

Mary as Adele described

Adele was very religious.  She would walk to church every week...ELEVEN MILES to church every week!  In October of 1859 Adele experienced not one, but 3 Marian Apparitions.  The first was as Adele was walking to a grist mill 4 miles from Robinsonville with a sack of wheat on her head.  She saw a lady in white standing in her path on the trail she was walking.  She stopped, frightened and remained still until the lady disappeared before her eyes a few minutes later.

The second time was that Sunday as she walked to church.  Her sister walked with her and in the exact same place, Adele saw the lady before her in the distance.  She stopped, again afraid.  Her sister could not see the woman.  Eventually she disappeared and they continued to church.  After Mass Adele spoke with her priest about what she saw.  The priest told her that the spirit would not hurt her, but to ask in God's name what she wanted.

On the way home from mass that day, Sunday, October 9th, 1859, Adele again saw the apparition before her.  The people with her stopped as she knelt and asked the apparition , "In God's name, who are you, and what do you want of me?"  The response that Adele got was that the apparition was the "Queen of Heaven" and she commanded that Adele teach the children their catechism, how to make the sign of the Cross, and how to receive the Sacraments.

On that spot Adele's father (Lambert Brice) built a ten by twelve foot structure to mark the spot of the visions.  Not everyone believed in what Adele saw, but that did not deter her.  Over the years, as people began to make pilgrimages to the spot and as Adele began to fulfill the promise she made to teach the children, the structure grew and the land that held the school and chapel was consecrated.  The Chapel became known as "Our Lady of Good Help."

Twelve years later, almost to the day Adele spoke to the apparition of Mary, the fires erupted.  This is the account of what happened that night as printed in the book "The Chapel:  Our Lady of Good Help" (Sister M. Dominica, O.S.F, 1955):

Stained glass windows in the Shrine

"We do not propose to pass judgment on the reasons for this catastrophe, but we know that twelve years later almost to the day, October 8, 1871, the great calamity fell.  The Belgian colony which embraced a large part of the peninsula,  was visited by the same whirlwind of fire and wind that overwhelmed Peshtigo.  Here, as across the Bay, the forest fires had crept on for weeks and months, and on the same Sunday night came whirling over the Lake and Bay counties.  The Wisconsin peninsula, too, was the scene of an awesome drama.  A terrible, ten-fold wind sprang up from the southeast and fanned the smoldering fires into a mighty wave, submerging the whole peninsula into a raging sea of fire and smoke.

After weeks of fear and suspense, the hour struck and the great forest rocked and tossed simultaneously.  In one awful instant, before expectation could give way to horror, the black-curtained sky burst forth into great clouds of fire.  The day had been prophetically [sic] still; smoke and gases filled the air.  An ominous dread gripped the minds and hearts of every living creature, even the wild beasts of the forests mingled with men as both fled in terror before a great consuming roaring fire circling all within its fiery grasp.  At first the roaring blaze thundered like great cataracts among the tree-tops, but as it gained momentum, it sounded like the distant roar of the sea giving place to thunderous fury mingled with a tornado of fire.

A survivor wrote that if one could imagine the worst snow storm he ever witnessed, and each flake a coal or spark of fire driven before a terrifying wind, he would have an idea of the atmosphere at the time the fire struck.  Hundreds of families were driven from their homes, many being overtaken by the rain of fire.

Adele Brise's photo at the Shrine

'This is judgment; this is the end of the world,' was uttered by a frenzied mob dashing wildly for means of escape made impassable by fallen timber and burning bridges.  Land and sky in flames, wild confusion of the elements, while men looking on, stupefied [sic] with horror, were withering with fear.  It was indeed a terrifying spectacle.

The wide spreading track of ruin covered the greater part of the peninsula from Green Bay to Lake Michigan, and from the neighborhood of Green Bay on the south to 'Death's Door' on the north.  In the town of Green Bay, the fire entered at the southeast corner and swept on the wings of the wind to the north east.  It extended into parts of Outagamie, Kewaunee, Door, and Brown counties.  The towns of Humboldt, Green Bay, New Franken, Casco, Brussels, Rosiere, Lincoln, Robinsonville and many others were scathed with a whirlwind of flame which devoured the woods, leaped across clearings, and lopped everything inflammable in its path.  The area burned was not less than fifty miles in length and twenty average miles wide.  The burning belt widened as it advance.  Nothing could be done to stop its forward march, and the Chapel of Our Lady of Good Help lay in its path.

The crucial hour had come, the hurricane of fire broke in all its fury.  Adele and her companions were faced with a momentous decision.  They were determined not to abandon Mary's shrine, and their faith in Mary's protection never faltered.  The children, the Sisters, and the farmers with their families, drove their livestock before them and raced in the direction of Mary's sanctuary.  They were now encircled by a raging inferno with no means of escape.  Looking back, they saw their buildings literally swallowed by the fiery monster.  By this time the surrounding territory was one vast sea of fire.  Awe-stricken, they thronged the Chapel grounds.  Already the Chapel was filled with terror-stricken people beseeching the Mother of God to spare them, many wailing aloud in their fright.  Filled with confidence, they entered the Chapel, reverently raised the statue of Mary, and kneeling bore it in procession around their beloved sanctuary.  When wind and fire exposed them to suffocation, they turned in another direction, and continued to hope and pray, saying the rosary.

Statues of children kneeling on the grounds of the Shrine

'Thus passed for them the long hours of that terrible night.  I know not if, supported only by nature, they would have been able to live through that awful ordeal, ' so wrote Father Pernin, hero of the 'Peshtigo Fire.'

After hours of horror and suspense, the heavens sent relief in the form of a downpour.  The fervent prayers to the Mother of God were heard.  The fire was extinguished, but dawn revealed the ravages wrought by the conflagration.  Everything about them was destroyed;  miles of desolation everywhere.  But the Convent, school, Chapel, and the five acres of land consecrated to the Virgin Mary shone like an emerald isle in a sea of ashes.  The raging fire licked the outside palings and left charred scars as mementos.  Tongues of fire had reached the Chapel fence, and threatened destruction to all within its confines - the fire had not entered the Chapel grounds."

A fire so fierce that it destroyed most everything in its path did not destroy Our Lady of Good Help.  It was 151 years after the apparition of Mary to Adele, 139 years after the miracle at Our Lady of Good Help occurred that the Roman Catholic Church finally acknowledged the visions of Adele Brise.  On December 8th, 2010 Bishop David Ricken of the Diocese of Green Bay announced, "I declare with moral certainty and in accord with the norms of the Church that the events, apparitions and locutions given to Adele Brise in October 1859 do exhibit the substance of supernatural character, and I do hereby approve these apparitions as worthy of belief (although not obligatory) by the Christian faithful."

Candles lit by visitors inside the Shrine

That declaration made Our Lady of Good Help the first and only approved Marian apparition/shrine in the United States.  You can read more about the Churches declaration and the Shrine, by going to the Diocese's website here.

Within 2 weeks of the announcement my family and I were back in Green Bay visiting for the Holidays.  It is hard to convey the feeling of knowing that this happened so close to where my in-laws were.  The first Marian Shrine in our backyard.  I took my boys and my mother-in-law and we visited the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help.  I didn't know what to expect.  The grounds were pretty, but looked like any other church.  The crypt where the statue of Mary is located, and the site of the original vision, is in the basement.  The Church built on top of it.  It is small, but I thought it beautiful.  I lit a candle to my father-in-law who had passed away earlier in the year, and to my cousin who was killed by her husband earlier in the year.  I finally lit a candle in honor of all my family's ancestors and prayed for awhile.

Crutches left behind

When I was done, and without disturbing the few others that were in the Shrine, I took out my camera and took some flashless photography to remember this place.  I took pictures of the crutches that people left behind.  Those that since 1859 came to the Shrine using crutches and left them behind as they walked away.

Our Lady of Good Help was being visited by newspapermen from the New York Times the day that we visited.  They asked my mother-in-law if she believed.  Without hesitating, she replied that she did.  A bit ridiculous if you thought about it.  Why would you visit if you didn't?  We weren't offended though.  We were glad that it was being reported on.  Glad to see that after so many years and so many people thinking Adele Brise was lying or demented that the Church acknowledged what she always knew to be true.

With everything that happened during the Great Peshtigo Fire, how could I or anyone not view what happened on that spot as anything other than miraculous!

The cemetery at the Shrine

Peshtigo - Why Did it Happen?

Click on map to be taken to Rootsweb's Peshtigo Fire page

Who knows?  There are lots of guesses, but it's hard to determine which is correct. Some believe that it was the work of a comet.  Others due to fires intentionally set to clear the area as a fire prevention measure.  Still others believe that there was one fire and that it jumped the bay.  So who is right?

Well, I've got no scientific proof, but I really don't think it takes much to figure out at least part of it.  No one debates the fact that there was an extreme drought that took place that year in Wisconsin and parts of Michigan.  Naturally, with dry conditions there are bound to be fires.  Some were man-made (as a part of manufacturing, clearing large areas to ready for farming/building, to prevent fires, etc).  Some may have been nature-made (lightning).  Sorry, I'm not a big comet-theory believer.  Show me the rock, baby! That one just seems like there has to be someone trying to become a member of the Who's-Got-The-Oddest-Theory-Club.

The bottom line (to me) is that there had been fires.  The inhabitants of the various towns and of the country-side had been fighting them for awhile.  If you've ever been camping you get absolutely nagged to make sure your campfire is completely out.  What if it's not?  Fire.

Moving on a bit.  A strong frontal system moved through the area the evening of October 8th.  What usually occurs when a weather front comes through?  Wind.  In this case the winds were described as almost hurricane force and many survivors described being thrown to the ground several times by the wind.  Think about that one.  How strong does the wind have to be to throw an adult to the ground?

So we've got small piles of smoldering ash/pine needles/leaves that people previously fought to put out and a giant wind comes along.  What happens when you blow on something like that...Fire.  Oxygen feeds the fire.  It starts it up again, but it needs more.  It needs something to consume.  To burn.  Wisconsin was (and frankly still is) a heavily wooded area.  Dinnertime.

Aftermath of the Peshtigo Fire 1871

The frontal system just pushed that fire through.  The area was extremely dry to begin with so it didn't take much to ignite.  To spread...and it did.

I don't know why the whole attachment to thinking it all started in Peshtigo and jumped the Green Bay to hit the Door County Peninsula.  It kind of makes me laugh because the Bay is at least 5 miles across.  Jumping rivers?...Yes.  It jumped the Peshtigo River easily and tormented those taking refuge in the water.  Jumping a 5 mile wide bay?  Well, you'd have to prove the possibility of that to me because it's too funny.  Perhaps I'll be proven wrong one day.  Maybe I should call Myth Busters and see if they can figure it out. Until then, I still think it more likely that fires that had been burning were advanced quicker and those that had been incompletely extinguished had been revived.  The name the "Great Peshtigo Fire" is used because Peshtigo was the area hardest hit.

Any way you theorize it the combination of drought, fire and wind was deadly.  Luckily today, we have the means to monitor our weather and to evacuate people in danger.  We know the danger is coming.

I hope we never see another Peshtigo-type fire.  Living in Texas this year has caused me to think of Peshtigo often.  In my neck of the woods we hear about fires almost daily, and the wind in Killeen is no joke.  But we are better prepared today.

Now I have posted about many depressing and down-right scary things this week, but as promised, I will be ending on a positive note.  A miracle.  Until tomorrow...

The Peshtigo Fire - Illustrating an Absence of Ancestors

The Appleton Post Crescent 08OCT1963, pg 12

As I blog through the week on the Great Peshtigo Fire, I am reminded that there were many disasters, plagues, and even small accidents that could explain why we can't find an ancestor we are searching for.  It is always good to know a bit about great disasters and plagues, but don't forget to troll through those reels of newspaper microfilm that may have hints about what happened to ancestors.

This won't solve every problem as this article on the 92nd anniversary of the Peshtigo Fire illustrates in the final paragraph.  If an ancestor was transient during a period, you may never find them.  Many of the transient workforce killed in the Peshtigo Fire may never be accounted for and therefore we may never know the true loss of life experienced.

"Peshtigo Scene Of Devastating Fire in 1871

1,200 Persons Died In Blaze Which Swept Lumber Town

PESHTIGO (AP) - Today is the 92nd anniversary of the great Peshtigo fire, on of the worst disasters in Wisconsin history.

Twelve hundred persons died in the terrible conflagration that destroyed the small lumbering town in northeastern Wisconsin - 800 in Peshtigo, another 400 in the surrounding area.

The destruction was complete.  Flames devoured every building in town save one - a house that was under construction.

An accident of history prevented the Peshtigo fire from receiving the attention it deserved.  For it was on the same day, Oct. 8, 1871 - a Sunday - that Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicked over a lantern to start the great Chicago fire, or so the oft-repeated story goes.  The Chicago fire claimed 250 lives.

Slow Burning Fire

The Peshtigo fire was an outgrowth of a series of slow-burning blazes in pine needle blankets and peat bogs.  The acrid smell was in the air for weeks before and volunteers had been in and out of the woods trying to extinguish them.

Fanned by galelike winds, the small fires merged, forests were soon ablaze and flames roared into the village.  This was a Sunday night.  The time:  about 10 p.m.

Ran for Lives

Within 20 minutes the entire town was ablaze and residents were running for their lives toward the Peshtigo River in the center of the community.  Many made it:  some did not.

The fire raged through the night.  At daybreak when the wind had died down the flames abated, and the heart-rending task of searching for the missing began.

The death toll continued to rise for days as fever and shock claimed additional victims.

Officially, Peshtigo's population was listed at 1,750 at the time of the fire.  But historians say hundreds of transient workmen, many of them immigrants, also were living in the village or nearby.  Many were trapped and died in the flames."

The Great Peshtigo Fire - Reporting the Unimaginable Part 3

Today I will be continuing with my posts on the Great Peshtigo Fire.  This is the last series of posts dealing with a rather long article that appeared in the New York Times on October 17, 1871 regarding the fires.  This last bit is the longest of the three sections I broke it into, but I've got to admit that I'm rather impressed with how much space the New York Times actually gave to the fire.

The New York Times, 17OCT1871, pg4

"Several Villages Utterly Destroyed - Appalling Loss of Life - Four Hundred Dead Bodies Already Recovered.

From the Green Bay (Wis.) State Gazette, Extra, Oct. 10

On Sunday night, about 9 o'clock, fire broke out in the southern part of the Belgian settlement at Brussels, in Door County, and rage with terrific violence, destroying about 180 houses, and leaving nothing of a large and flourishing settlement but five houses.  Nine persons are missing - supposed to have perished in the flames.  The names are as follow:  Mrs. JOHN B. WENDRICKS,  and three children; three children of JOS. DANDOY; one child of JOS. MONFILS, and a young man by the name of MAURICE DELVEAUX.  The remains of some of the clothing of the latter person were found, by which he was identified.

On Monday morning, 200 people breakfasted on four loaves of bread.  Houseless and homeless, the camp out on their land, and seem struck dumb with their great losses.  Their houses, barns, implements of farming, house furniture and cattle were burned and destroyed.  The roads are filled with carcasses of horses, cattle, sheep and hogs, suffocated by the smoke and heat.  At Sturgeon Bay WILLIAMSON'S mill is reported burned, and fifty persons are said to have lost their lives.  our informant reports the most pitiable state of things all through the district devastated by the fire, and hunger and starvation staring the wretched inhabitants in the face.

The [sic] inhabitants during the conflagration only saved their lives by throwing [sic] themselves on the ground and covering their heads.  They had no warning of the approach of the fire, except the ringing of the church bell for a few minutes in advance.  Then suddenly a great fire came down on them from the woods, roaring like a cataract, and they had no time to save anything.  The heavens were all ablaze, and the earth also seemed on fire.

PESHTIGO, MENOMINEE, AND MENEKAUNEE.

The George L. Dunlap has just arrived from Escanaba, having been delayed thirty hours by heavy winds and dense smoke.  Her passengers bring terrible accounts of the devastation by fire.  At Menominee they received accounts of the burning, last night, of nearly the entire village of Menekaunee.  At the mouth of the Menominee river, on the Wisconsin side, 150 buildings were burned, including three extensive saw-mills, owned by McCartney & Hamilton, Spofford & Gilmore and Spaulding & Porter, the latter being the largest, with one exception, on the bay shore.

The villages of Menominee and Marinette were in great danger, and many of the people fled to the bay shore for safety, remaining in the water all night.  The steamer Union, lying in the river, took about 300 women and children to a place of safety in the harbor.  The women and children of Menominee went on board the steamers Favorite and Dunbar and vessels lying at anchor in the roadstead.  The male portion of the population of three villages lying within three miles of each other spent the whole night in fighting the fire.  No lives are known to be lost, with the exception of one man, who died from fright after he had been rescued from the water, and another, who was sick in a house, which was burned before he could be rescued.  At a small settlement of five or six houses, called Birch Creek, on the State-road, none miles west of Menominee, every house was burned, and ten or twelve lives lost, only three persons escaping.

At Peshtigo Harbor they were met by a number of people from the village of Peshtigo, seven miles west, who gave a heart-rending account of the total destruction of their town.  During Sunday evening a hurricane of wind from the west sprang up, which fanned the smouldering fires int he timber into a blaze and drove the flames into the village.  It came rushing into the village between 9 and 10 o'clock.  So great was the violence of the wind that in less than one minute after the first house took fire the whole village was in flames.  There was no prospect of checking the flames, for the smouldering forest presented one mass of fire.  The people could only flee to the river for safety.  Those living in close proximity to the water reached it and waded in to their necks.  Here they remained from two to four hours, and by constant wetting of their heads were enabled to escape with their lives, although many were terribly burned.  Those who lived only one or two streets from the river were struck down by the fiery fiend and burned to death.  Whole families were thus destroyed.  This morning the streets were strewn with burned bodies.  In one case eight or nine bodies were found together.  One family, consisting of father, mother and three children, were found dead together within twenty feet of the stream.  It is impossible as yet to form any correct estimate of the loss of life at Peshtigo.  Fully seventy-five are known to have perished by fire and water.  Reports are constantly coming in of new cases of destruction of property and life.  In Peshtigo not a single house remains standing.  The immense wooden-ware factory and the large saw-mill of the Peshtigo Company, at the village, are burned.  Stores, dwelling-houses, &c., are totally destroyed, not a vestige of property remaining.  The people who were saved escaped in a destitute condition, being without clothing or provision.  The names of but few of the lost could be learned.  Among those known to have perished are JOSEPH S. BEEBE, book-keeper to the Company, wife and two children, and Mr. THOMPSON, express agent.

It is supposed that the inmates of the Company's boarding-house, 100 in number, nearly all perished in the flames.  A special messenger was dispatched to this city last evening for supplies for the people of Peshtigo, and the steamer George L. Dunlap left this morning with everything necessary for their sustenance and comfort.

Aid for Wisconsin and Michigan

E. C. FISHER, President of the Anchor Life Insurance Company, No. 178 Broadway, states that being personally acquainted with the people of Maintee, Mich., whose homes have been destroyed, he will gladly take charge of and forward any donations, either in money, clothing, or other necessities, that the generous-hearted may contribute for their relief.  Acknowledgements will be made through the public press."

The Great Peshtigo Fire - Reporting the Unimaginable Part 2

Tonight I'm continuing to blog about the Great Peshtigo Fire.  The article I'm transcribing is a bit long so, as I mentioned in yesterday's post, I'm breaking it up for easier reading.  Tonight's portion of the news article (taken from the Green Bay [Wis.] Advocate and reprinted in the New York Times) is the account of what happened by G. J. Tisdale.  The NYT also includes information as to the situation in other cities/regions of Wisconsin.  Rosiere, where my husband's ancestors were is briefly mentioned toward the end as a town of previously having 180 houses now with only 5 left. 

The account of Mr. Tisdale is well worth reading.  I know much of this can be difficult to read, but I promise a miraculous end to my series of posts!  Stay tuned.

New York Times, 17OCT1871, pg4

"...G. J. TISDALE makes the following statement in regard to the calamity at Peshtigo:

'During the day - sabbath - the air was filled with smoke, which grew dense toward evening, and it was noticed that the air, which was quite chilly during the day, grew quite warm, and hot puffs were quite frequent in the evening.  About 8 1/2 o'clock at night we could see there was a heavy fire to the south-west of the town, and a dull roaring sound, like that of a heavy wind, came up from that quarter.  At 9 o'clock the wind was blowing very fresh, and by 9 1/2 a perfect gale.  The roar of the approaching tornado grew more terrible at 10.  When the fire struck the town it seemed to swallow up and literally drown everything.  The fire came on swifter than a race-horse, and within twenty minutes of the time it struck the outskirts of the town, everything was in flames.  What followed beggars all description.  About the time the fire reached the Peshtigo House, I ran out at the east door, and as I stepped on the platform the wind caught me and hurled me some distance on my head and shoulders and blew me on my face several times on going to the river.  Then came a fierce, devouring, pitiless rain of fire and sand, so hot as to ignite everything it touched.  I ran into the water, prostrated myself, and put my face in the water, and threw water over my back and head.  The heat was so intense that I could keep my head out of water but a few seconds at a time for the space of nearly an hour.  Saw logs in the river caught fire and burned.  A cow came to me and rubbed her neck against me and bawled piteously.  I heard men, women, and children crying for help, but was utterly powerless to help any one.  What was my experience was the experience of others.  Within three hours of the time the fire struck the town the site of Peshtigo was literally a sand desert, dotted over with smoking ruins.  Not a hen-coop or even a dry-goods box was left.  Through the sugar-bush the case seems to be even worse than in the town, as the chances for escape were much less than near the river.  I estimate the loss of life to be at least 300 in the town and sugar-bush.  Great numbers were drowned in the river.  Cattle and horses were burned in the stalls.  The Peshtigo Company's barn burned with over fifty horses in the stable.  A great many women and children and men were burned in the streets, and in places so far from any thing combustible that it would seem impossible they should burn.  They were burned to a crisp.  Whole families, heads of families, children, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters, were burned, and remnants of families were running hither and thither, wildly calling and looking for their relatives after the fire.'

Peshtigo had nearly 2,000 inhabitants.  The village was mainly owned by the Pestigo Company, of which Wm. B. Ogden, of Chicago, is President and chief owner, and THOMAS H. BEEBE, also of Chicago, general manager.  W. . ELLIS is the resident manager at Peshtigo.  It was the chief point of the company for its large operations on that river, and there were concentrated all the offices, stores and general head-quarters.  It is about seven miles from the harbor at the mouth, with which it is connected by a railroad.  It is also on the highway from Green Bay to Escanaba, between Oconto and Menominee,  and is to be a station on the Northern Extension of the Chicago and North-western Railway.  Among the main features of the place was the extensive pail and tub factory, one of the largest and most complete in the United States, and quite new, having been running less than a year.

There was also an extensive mill for the manufacture of sash, doors, blinds, and a variety of wood-work.  The company also had a large hotel and boarding-house, and a great number of dwelling houses - one of which, the residence of the local manager, was as complete as all the modern improvements could make it.  There were also the company's shops, for the building of cars, logging sleds, and all the implements required by this great lumbering concern.

LATER.

We are informed that the exact number of houses in Rosiere was 180, of which there are but five left.  In addition to the names of the dead first reported, we get the name of GABRIELLE MANFORT.  The villages of Rosiere and Messiere form the town of Lincoln.  Both are burned.  At last accounts twenty-one persons were missing.  Among the dwellings burned at Dyckesville are those of PAUL FONTAINE, PIERRE LIGOT and JOSEPH TONNARD.

At the burning of SCOFIELD'S mill, town of Brussels, and settlement, nine lives were lost - six men and three women.  HAULOTT'S mill, in the town of Humboldt, was burned on Sudnay.

A letter from Forestville, Door County, says that a settlement of six families, on the west side of the town of Brussels, was burned Sunday evening.  But one family escaped.  They at one time gave up for lost.  All the buildings were burned, and thus far thirty-four dead bodies have been found and buried.  A large amount of stock was burned.  The Kewaunee Enterprise brings news of additional destruction in the towns of Ahnepee, Pierce, Kewaunee, Casco and Carlton.

A telegram from Green Bay, Oct. 12, says:

The northern steamer is just in.  Three hundred and twenty-five bodies had been found and buried at Peshtigo up to last night.  The river will be dragged today, and it is thought 100 more bodies will [sic] be found.  Between sixty and seventy dead bodies were brought into Oconto last night.  The loss of life on the east shore - in Door and Kewaunee Counties - is appalling as the terrible news comes in.  Those left are houseless and almost naked.

ROBINSON & BROTHER..."

The Great Peshtigo Fire - Reporting the Unimaginable Part 1

The New York Times republished information from the Green Bay Advocate on the Peshtigo Fire as well as other fires in the area.  The fires and the absolute devastation made national (and international) news.  This article was extremely long.  For sanity's sake I will be posting it in three parts.  Even doing so the final part will still be incredibly long.  It is still a very interesting read, but not  for the light hearted.

"In Wisconsin.

Particulars of the Burning of Williamsonville and Peshtigo - Frightful Number of Deaths.

From the Green Bay (Wis.) Advocate

By GUILLAUME DELALUZERNE, from Uniontown, we learn that the entire settlement at WILLIAMSON BROTHERS' mill, five miles from the shore of Little Sturgeon Bay, was burned on Sunday night.  The proprietor, JOHN WILLIAMSON, with his wife and two children - his entire family - are burned to death, and about fifty-three other persons in the same settlement perished.  Scarcely a soul is left to tell the tale.

There were twelve families about the mill and fifty-two men in and about the mill.  Of all these people, but two were saved uninjured, and ten injured persons still living were found, and were sent on Monday by the tug Ozaukee to Big Sturgeon Bay for medical treatment.  Every other individual in the settlement is dead.  Mr. GARDNER sent twenty-five men to chop through the woods to this settlement, our correspondent being one of the number.  They found the remains of six persons in one house, and piled the partly charred remains of fifty-five bodies of men, women and children.  Twenty-nine human bodies lay on a spot about ten feet square [sic] - some with arms and legs burned off, and all with clothing gone.  A few rods [?roads?] off were others, and a man and child were found dead in a well.  They found fifty-five dead bodies, and think the total number must be from sixty to seventy.

PESHTIGO

The south-easterly gale of Sunday evening reached the proportions of a hurricane at Peshtigo.  The woods, which had been alive with slowly-running fires for weeks, were suddenly burned with a whirlwind of fire, and, without any warning, great sheets of flames were carried into the village.  Those who escaped describe the scene as awful in the extreme.  No attempt could be made to arrest its progress, and the inhabitants ran terror-stricken and screaming into the river, where they plunged headlong, and sought, by dashing water over themselves, to keep off the fire which filled the air.  Every building but one - an unfinished dwelling - is reported burned.  The great pail factory - one of the monuments of enterprise in this region - the extensive lumber mill and door, sash and blind factory, many expensive dwellings, and scores of smaller houses, tenements, shops, barns, &c., were swept away.

Few names can yet be obtained of those who are probably lost.  We get those of JOHN E. BEEBE, wife and two children.  Mr. BEEBE was a clerk and book-keeper in the Peshtigo Company's store.  W. F. THOMPSON, clerk in the same store, wife and mother; D. McGREGOR, conductor on the Peshtigo Railroad, and sister; JAMES MELLEN, foreman of machine-shops, two daughters; MICHAEL CREAMER'S wife and child; Mrs. DANIEL HUNT and one or two children.  One family, consisting of father, mother and three children, were found dead together within thirty feet of the river.  Large numbers are reported to have been burned in the Peshtigo Company's boarding-house.  CHARLES WOODWARD, who kept the Peshtigo House, estimates the loss of life at nearly 400.  The loss in the 'Sugar Bush' was much worse than in the village.  They had no means of escape, while at the village the people saved themselves in the river.

The Sugar Bush was a thrifty farming settlement seven or eight miles long by four or five miles wide, and contained about 300 families.  It was estimated by competent judges on Tuesday that eight-tenths of its inhabitants were dead.  But about eight buildings were left.  Twenty teams went up there on Tuesday to bury the dead, and up to 4 P. M. Tuesday they had reported the following dead in the Sugar Bush:

L. H. HILL, wife and boy, and forty-two bodies picked up in front of their house;  T. KELLY and one child, (wife and two children saved;) daughter, twelve years old, of FRED BARTEL'S; four families of NEWBERRYS, all gone but one boy; JOHN CHURCH, wife and two grown children; wife and five children of CHAS. LEMBK, JOHN SMITH, wife and five children; JOHN ALSWEIGER, wife and six children; CHAS. LAWRENCE, wife and three children; N. MAY, wife and two children; wife of PETER LEECH, and two hired men; father, mother, wife and child of WM. PENRY; CHAS. CHAPMAN, wife and one child; HENRY HAYS, wife and two children; JOHN PRATT, wife and four children; widow AYMER and two grown-up boys.  Mr. WOODWARD gives us the following addition to the list of dead in Peshtigo village:  JOHN TANNER, wife and two children; eldest daughter of P. J. MARSHAL; A. A. PRATT, wife and one child; wife and five children of DONALD McDONALD."