 Hello Thank you all so much for joining us tonight and for your patience as we get everyone in and seated I'm so glad that you've all Come out on such a gorgeous evening to to join us and hear this fascinating discussion About the Great Portland fire of 1866 This talk came about because of the exhibit that you were sitting in the middle of Called images of destruction of destruction remembering the Great Portland fire of 1866 The exhibit is generously sponsored by Luminato and we do thank them for their help and their sponsorship The exhibit is in this room And I hope you all after the talk get a chance to take a quick look around But it also spreads into two spaces behind this wall as well in what is usually our conference room Plus our showcase gallery. So please take a look and make sure that you see the amazing amazing artifacts That document the fire the after effects and all the objects that actually survived the fire as well The exhibit was curated by main state historian Earl Shuddleworth And he will be the first person that you hear from tonight Earl's going to give you a wonderful Talk mostly about the photography and how the fire was documented then after Earl speaks will hear a great panel discussion from authors who've written about the fire and Will be opening the floor to questions from you as well So if you have questions things that you've always wanted to know about this amazing part of Portland history now is your chance So start thinking of some great great questions And then after this talk, I hope you'll consider joining us our on on the 4th of July We actually offered walking tours of the path of the fire and it was so popular sold out incredibly fast We've actually added some more walking tours this weekend So Saturday at 11 and Sunday at 11 will be offering those walking tours again You can register on our website And we are looking to add more dates throughout the summer as well So keep watching we're working with our tour guides to make sure everyone's available And we can offer this great great program as much as we can while this exhibit is up The exhibit will be on view until October 2nd So come back tell your friends send everyone you know down here This is a great chance to to really see and understand this important part of Portland's history So without further ado, I am pleased to introduce and welcome and thank Maine State Historian Earl Shuttleworth Well as mentioned First part of the program this evening. I'm going to be spending a few minutes Sharing with you some photographic images of the Great Fire to put this in perspective Photography came to America in 1839 and within a year in 1840 Photographers were coming to Maine so that by the time that the Great Fire struck in July of 1866 Portland actually had quite a few of its own photographers and had been very well photographed as a city during the 1840s 50s and 60s But of course the fire actually destroyed the center of the city and thus the photographic studios So it was left for the most part for photographers from outside Portland to make the photographic record of what the ruined city Looked like and this is what we're going to see in the next few minutes We have a count now of at least eight photographers Who came to Portland? To photograph the city in the days immediately after the July 4th July 5th fire And I should add to that that there was one or two Enterprising photographers who managed to get cameras very quickly after the fire. They were B. F. Smith And Marcus F. King and I'll show a little bit of their work as well But now we're starting with this view because we're actually going to kind of go across the peninsula Follow the the path of the fire through these photographs We're starting with the ruins of Brown sugar house at commercial Street and Maple Street And of course for those of you who have been reading about the fire in the newspapers or listening to the WGN presentation or reading the wonderful books that will be available later this evening You find that this is roughly where the fire began in the boat shop on commercial Street Just a just literally just to the left of where this photograph is taken and you can see it's the old commercial Street With the with the railroad tracks for going right down the center Some of us are old enough to still remember those railroad tracks I certainly do as a child and then we're looking up into the city And the smokestacks are the stacks from the Brown sugar house And the ruins those great high brick walls are all remains of the sugar house Which of course once it hit the sugar house. It was just the moment of Igniting the fire and and that was really what gave it the fuel to to get it started As we move up into the center of the city We're now at the corner of Middle and Free Streets looking along Middle Street toward the corner of Middle and exchange streets We see this just this utter devastation in the center of the city The only buildings standing in total in the center of the city is a building that we'll see quite frequently in these photographs And that was the US Custom House and Post Office That stood where what we now call post office Park was located the corner of Middle and Exchange Streets and it was a building which had been built as a custom house in post office by the US government in 1854 and interestingly it had been built Consciously as a fireproof building. It was of Sandstone on the exterior all the window trim was cast iron the Interior a lot of the structure was cast iron. There was very little wood in the building However, it was directly in the path of the fire and as we'll see in other views But I just want to give you this background now on it It it even though it stood it withstood the fire It was so badly damaged that the government decided to take it down And they put the old marble post office that some of us knew in its place that in turn was torn down Now one of the wonderful things about this view This is the first of the John P soul views that we'll see John P soul was a photographer Who was a native of Maine who worked in Boston and he came up here on the 12th 13th and 14th of July and Took 25 stereopticon views and then returned a few days later and took another eight views so 32 views in all and He caught some wonderful scenes here including these men Working in the foreground Almost immediately large crews of men were put in force into the burnt area to try and salvage as many of the bricks as Possible and so that's what's going on and you see those neatly piled bricks in the foreground and soul has just caught that moment in time Now we're down at the foot of exchange Street on 4th Street and for those again You who are following the the maps that have been available Online and and in the publications you know that the south side of 4th Street and all of commercial Street Was spared the fire, but the north side of 4th Street was Destroyed and so we're at the corner of Exchange the foot of exchange and for there's the remains of a building at the right and we're looking right up this exchange Street to that custom house and post office that Withstood the fire and at least the superstructure was still standing there and this again is a soul of you and Then we have this this wonderful Very sort of head-on view We're we're now making our way up exchange Street toward middle and exchange and we get a pretty close view now of that Custom house it had a very interesting Rounded front to it. It was with arched windows. It was what we would call in the Italian style And it is it is kind of the landmark the benchmark for us And in this case the photograph is taken by SW Sawyer of Bangor, and it's one of at least 28 stereo views that this Bangor photographer took of the ruins And now we're literally right there right in the midst of the rubble this is really a remarkable photograph and not Instead of being a stereo view and the stereo views are wonderful and they have a lot of detail in them Particularly when you enlarge them, but this is a larger format photograph that was taken with a larger negative And this is one of the two photos that we know of that were taken by local photographer Marquis F. King he was a wonderful photographer worked from the 1850s to the 1890s in Portland at one point he was mayor of the city And so he took this this very wonderful close-up photo He's standing right in the ruins on exchange Street And you get a head-on view of the custom house and post office and interestingly King was able to get a copy of this photograph to New York to Harper's Weekly, which was a weekly illustrated magazine and Harper's Weekly was doing extensive coverage both in its July 21st and July 28th issues And so they purchased this photograph and another one of the city hall that's actually on the back wall there and In those days Magazines and newspapers could not reproduce photographs that didn't come till photo lithography in the 1880s So as a result they took King's photographs sent to them from Portland and had Engravers re-engrave them on wooden blocks so that they could be printed in the newspapers And this is how people learned all over the country and actually Harper's Weekly and its counterpart Frank Leslie's Weekly in New York were read all over the English-speaking world So now we're going to do a little time-lapse photography, which is kind of fun We're fortunate. There's enough photographs before the fire so that we can kind of play this visual game tonight We're looking from the dome of the city hall that was built between 1858 and 1860 on the site of our present city hall That's a city hall that was burned in the Great Fire But that was yet to come this photograph is part of a series of about 20 stereopticon views that were taken of the city in 1865 just a year before the destruction and it's kind of an eerie feeling to look at these and to think You know whoever took these had no idea that these would become You know a unique record of what the city looked like before its destruction It reminds me of a few years ago remarkable early movie footage from 1906 was found of a photographer Who got on a trolley car in Market Street in San Francisco and went from one end to the other of Market Street and shot the Entire Street in film that film was recently rediscovered and it has the same Eerie feeling so we're we're standing in the dome and we're looking down exchange Street Prefire there's your custom house the back of it the stone building at the left Where the light is showing is where Middle Street is crossing exchange and you can see that even though this is Very well built up with brick buildings There are in the foreground all these little wooden buildings It's these little wooden buildings that play a big role in of course fueling the fire Once it gets into the center of the city, but here's the scene in 1865 and here's the same scene Shortly after July 4th 1866. This is another of the soul views We're looking from the custom house roof down exchange Street and in the background is The Chadwick Durand block we know it now as the Acres block and that building is still standing at the foot of exchange Street on 4 to this very day and Then with our time-lapse photography This is a little less than 10 years later. This is a stereo view by the Kilburn brothers from New Hampshire and you can see the entire Exchange Middle Street commercial area is entirely rebuilt and rebuilt with the larger brick Victorian buildings that We are familiar with today. This in essence is the old port that we know 150 years later, but interestingly a few little wooden buildings there have crept in and Now we're going to do the same some kind of time-lapse We're standing in 1863 and this is a photograph taken by Jup Burnham who was a local photographer We're standing at the corner of middle and exchange streets looking up exchange Street to Congress Street at the right is the stone us custom house and post office and In the background looms the very graceful dome of the new City Hall opened in about 1860 this was the pride of Portland and there also was An ulterior motive in building this grand building In that of course Portland from the time that it had lost the distinction of being the capital of Maine in 1827 every year Portland legislators put in a bill to get Portland to be renamed the capital and when they were building this building in 1858 and 1859 Portland had the entire legislature down to look at the building and said wouldn't this make a nice state house Well, of course within a matter of years it was ruins so here we go Now we're time-lapsing to shortly after July 4th 1866 and in this case we're looking at the work of yet another photographer John Whipple from Boston He did a number of stereo views and he also did the beautiful large Format photographs that we see on this wall of the exhibit But there we're on the top of the ruins of that to custom house and post office and to the left We're looking up exchange and to the right. We're looking up market Street And there is the the the walls of the City Hall survived But as we'll see in a moment The entire building was gutted by the fire and there there's a close-up by soul of The ruins of the building you can see it was really a grand Building the exterior was brownstone on the front with brickside walls. It had a great auditorium in it It was it was quite a building and Here another of the soul photographs just showing the the utter Rubble and ruin of the interior of the City Hall after the fire And that's what makes it when you look at this photograph in particular that what makes it even more remarkable Some of you who may have read the different Accounts of people who survived the fire that apparently there was some poor soul in the lock-up In the Cumberland County Jail that was underneath this building and he managed to survive But of course Portland rose very quickly from the ruins of the fire Our motto was resurgent. We'd been destroyed three times before and so we rose and the decision was made that the walls of The City Hall were intact and that the building could just be cleaned out of the rubble and a new building could be built within the shell of that building and the Architect in that case was the local architect Francis H. Fassett and the project went very quickly between 1866 and 1868 so we're we're somewhere probably in 67 or 68 in this photograph taken by Isaac Dupy But notice how much ruin there is in the foreground The City Hall in in this area is the one building that's rising very rapidly and a new dome is being placed on the building And in the left-hand corner we have Dupy's sort of traveling photo picture gallery and studio And this is the building completed This is a photograph of about 1870 and this is the building which served the city as City Hall from the late 1860s until it again burned in January of 1908 and at that point they said well enough is enough You know we're and there actually was a school of thought to to scoop out the walls of this building and reuse it once again But John Calvin Stevens prevailed and he said no we need a new building and that's the building We have a little more than a hundred years later So now we're going to time-lapse again And we're in that series of 1865 Photographs and we're in the dome of that first big City Hall on the site and we're looking north Toward Manjoy Hill that's in the background and the harbor is sort of over there to the right But what we're looking at in the foreground is the third congregational church on Congress Street and the other little tower is from the Universalist Church and just beyond that very Tight group of buildings that essentially is what becomes Lincoln Park and when we talk about the issue of Firebreak of the concern that city officials had for the future of the city when they were in the rebuilding process All you have to do is look at that photograph and realize that if fire hit and so it did with an ear of this photograph a very confined And very densely built block like that. It was just a matter of time before it all burned So here we have a photograph of The beginnings of Lincoln Park for a brief period. It was known as Phoenix Park Of course the symbol of Portland on the seal is the Phoenix the mythical bird that rises from its ashes This is a very rare photo. We don't know who took this But it shows The land being cleared The pathways are beginning to be built houses are already being constructed on Federal Street and Franklin Street But it is still raw open land and of course the the purpose here was dual It was to first and foremost have a firebreak in the very center of the peninsula But at the same time also disguise it and enjoy it as a park and So again within a matter of ten years We find this photograph taken from the rebuilt City Hall In the foreground at the left is the beautiful second parish church and then you can see splendid Lincoln Park in its fullness with the lovely curving pathways and the And the water fountain in the center and then surrounded by Victorian houses on Federal and Franklin Streets Would be that at some point we live to see the day when it's back again And it's full glory Okay, the periphery of the fire We know of course through the photographs The center of destruction in the peninsula But it's fascinating to look at a couple of these photographs. This one is by Mosley from Newbury port Where we're standing on the top of that custom house again And we're looking westward into the part of the city that was not destroyed and so the Greenow block The H the old lower HHA building is there in the center of the photograph where it comes at the juncture of free and Middle Streets And then in the background all of those spires are the church spires that surrounded Congress Square so those give you some points of reference and way up in the left-hand corner that Long flat roof form there. That is the monitor roof on the old mechanics hall that's still with us today And here's another photo. This is one of the large Whipple photos. It's on the wall in the back there In which again, we show what was lost but miraculously what was spared Now we're very close to what is modern-day Monument Square and our landmarks are The first parish church Literally the buildings right across the street from the first parish church including the natural history society at the time Were burned behind the first parish church is the beginnings of Portland High School That's the original Portland High School from 1863 and that building is still standing It's incorporated into the larger early 20th century building and so when Longfellow writes and we've seen that quote recently about how close the fire came to the old homestead This gives us a feeling for it. I mean literally the path of the fire The periphery of it was a block or two from where we are right now Now let's move Northwood toward Monjoy Hill and eastward and northward This is a photograph by Mosley again taken from the top of the custom house and That very ghost-like gothic church form is the ruined front wall of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church now not to be confused with the old St. Stephen's church that stood in Longfellow Square in some of our times and memories But this was an earlier St. Stephen's and that had been remodeled in from an even earlier Episcopal Church And then just this absolute ghostly sea of ruins of of chimneys and walls all the way up to the open land on Monjoy Hill and there center left in the photograph is the profile of the observatory You can see it there and then another one of these great Whipple views. We're looking at it right now This is just literally a very close-up view of what the devastation was like in the very center of the peninsula and at the right That front wall of St. Stephen's Church gives us a point of reference St. Stephen's Church stood on Pearl Street near Middle Street and Another of these wonderful sweeping photographs by Whipple Again, just showing the complete and utter devastation of the center And and northeast parts of the peninsula and way in the background up in the upper right Is the openness of Monjoy Hill? Now we're going to switch vantage points and we're in the observatory and we have a very noted and enterprising Boston photographer Named John Black who has come up within according to one reference As as quickly as two days after the fire now I'm not quite sure about that But that's what the the print that I'll get into in a moment references But in any case whether two days or a few days after the fire Black takes his camera up to the observatory 80 feet above the city and he photographs three different Makes three different photographs and then splices together to create a panoramic photograph And so you get this this wonderful sweep here from the observatory your center reference point is Congress Street It goes down to Mumford Street and Washington Avenue And then at the left of where Congress's appears to be ending although of course it continues on along the peninsula You can see some of the the white flecks those are the gravestones in the Eastern Cemetery and then of course by the time this photo was taken The Army surplus tents have arrived in the tent city has developed in the open pasture land That's owned by the city on the left-hand side going down Congress and you can see on the right the fire actually devoured houses right up almost to the observatory and then the lower section there Around Franklin Street Newbury Street that that was spared the fire and into the waterfront But it's remarkable photographs to study and we have it in the in the show and and you can take a close look at it And then an equally enterprising print maker named Russell Took this photograph when it was available in Boston and turned it into a print that was sold as a kind of Momento of what Portland looked like immediately after the fire and he does give credit to black and his Photographic partner case for taking the photograph and he actually says on the print the photo was taken two days after the fire But this is the lithographic version the artistic version The conversion of the photograph into a print and we have that as well And then as we end I'm just going to do a very quick sequence here of Soul photographs of the tent city from the observatory Here we're looking right down on the tent city. We're to the left of the of Congress Street similar in what was captured by the black and case photo and Down at the very end of the photograph at the right is the Eastern Cemetery And then the camera moves a little bit further and we get the tent city Congress Street and the buildings that were burned out on the other side of Congress Street still with a very good view of Of the cemetery and now I think with a fairly clear view of the sense of the overall city in the background And this is a very interesting view by soul in that he's now directing the camera toward back Cove And what we have here in the foreground is he took these photos July 12 13th 14th, and you can see how quickly people are rebuilding These little wooden houses on Congress Street right across from the observatory are already under construction the the street just behind This block that we're seeing in the foreground is Cumberland Avenue as it's coming down off Monjoy Hill and The big landmark here in the lower in the middle right hand corner is the old Cumberland County Jail or Monroe Street Jail, and you can see how close that was to the water There was certainly some infill of back Cove for streets for houses by the fire But of course much more would occur as a result of the fire and in our time-lapse photography We're now standing atop the observatory about 1875 and The city has been reborn As you can see new landmarks the houses on the right hand side are all rebuilt There's still a little bit of city land left, but that will quickly give way when more people want to Steve And and and then center left in the photograph is a landmark that's still with us today the old North school that was the school that was built In the north end of the city right after the great fire 1867 and is still with us today as housing and then way over there and the in the right Is the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception you can see the big tower there so the miracle of photography and these eight individuals who Had the foresight to create this remarkable record. It is very much to our benefit. I end with one more view this one taken by Whipple and It's one of the few views where you really feel you're right there in the moment This is right behind the custom house and post office on the corner of middle and exchange Street ruined buildings on The west side of exchange or in the background But here here we are Invited into the photograph by these figures who are standing talking 150 years ago plotting the resurgence of a great city. Thank you 50 years and two days ago Portland experienced the great fire This is a night of remembrance and reflection Tonight we commemorate Not celebrate an event so large it ended an old city forever Gave birth to a new one and opened a new path that Portland still marches upon today as Tonight's distinguished panel will relate the great Portland fire of July 4th 1866 was the largest and most devastating Citywide blaze in the United States history until that time Outside the devastation of the Civil War itself only Savannah only Columbia only Atlanta only Richmond New and they under the sword what we learned under the hand of fate on one night July 4th 1866 one third of the entire city was swept away over 340 acres over eight miles of city streets 56 streets by name all the banks all the newspapers all the law officers Nine of 12 hotels eight churches City Hall three fire stations themselves over 1500 buildings much more over I believe Over 10,000 people left homeless Literally a third of the city population when in the morning papers of this great seaport Announced on the morning of the fourth that the pyrotechnic display of that evening would be of unusual magnificence wrote Harper's weekly They did not foresee and what direful sense their prediction would be fulfilled before the day closed Now in that blaze our modern city was born. What are the lessons and what is the legacy our? Distinguished panel is here to tell us that tale to weigh the evidence to present the facts and give history meaning Earl Shettleworth junior the official Maine State historian for four decades director of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission and a founder of greater Portland landmarks and an author of many books celebrating our state of Maine sits in the middle Michael daisy retired Portland firefighter of 30 years service Official historian of the Portland fire department and co-author of the book Portland's greatest conflagration the Chronicle of the Great Fire Seated closest to me and Mr. Allen Levinsky Long-time docent at the Wadsworth Long fellow house Author of books about Joshua Chamberlain's home a short history of Portland and Author of the night the sky turned red the story of the great Portland fire All their books are available for signing and gifting Right after this event you know Earl what was Portland-like in 1866 just out of the Civil War Could you give us a few sentences about what a visitor's fresh eyes would have found here? Well, I think like any American city in the mid 19th century It would have been a mixture of both the splendor and at the same time a certain rawness as well But with Portland you would have had a city with about a population of about 30,000 It had been increasingly prosperous Since some major decisions had been made about its future in the mid 1840s one of the key decisions was to Create a railroad between Portland and Montreal which actually opened up Portland to be the winter port for a great deal of Central Canada And that was a tremendous economic boom and then with a matter of a few years just on the heels of that You had transatlantic steamships going every week between Portland and Liverpool and in many cases taking the goods back and forth, but also bringing Immigrants and and just travelers as well So Portland, I would say on the eve of the fire herb was a very prosperous a growing city and a city of Both of considerable Strategic and economic importance the fact for example that the government had invested so much in the In the network of fortifications during the Civil War Reflects its strategic importance, and I think that to a lot of degree that was really to protect The commercial railroad and and shipping interests as well I've mentioned in my talk some of the key buildings certainly the city hall was a great pride to the city the new city hall Where our present one is but there were other splendid houses buildings Commercial structures everywhere and and Portland was Portland was really a place to be reckoned with in 1866 Thank You Alan There are legends about how the great fire of 1866 started here in Portland What do you think was the mrs. O'Leary's cow of? Portland's great fire and If you would pick the microphone Your way That's a tough one You'd you'd you'd never think that something is small as a firecracker Would start something there have been Suggestions that other things started it that the the train Things coming out of the chimney and so forth, but the large consensus is the fact that Everybody kind of thinks that yes, it was a little boy As little boys will do and just lit up his firecracker and threw it into the yard of a boat shop On a corner of high and and commercial Street and since the Weather had been very very hot through these the spring and summer and very very dry It didn't take a whole long for that to catch on to all kinds of pieces of wood and so forth that were scattered all over the the yard and Before you knew it They started now there were many many many things that were against Portland at the time We had no water system All the water came from Cisterns or wells or the ocean or reservoirs It just so happened at the time that the fire broke out, which was a little after four o'clock We were ebb tide the tide was out So the only sources of water that were available to any fire department Just were almost non-existence and it didn't take long before That fire just started to spread. Let's hold it right there Alan as the flame is getting brighter and bigger And we'll come back to you in just a moment Mike Dacey The Portland fire department had responded to only 15 major alarms in 1865 What was the setup of the Portland fire department in 1866? What equipment was at the ready? Where was it? Not much different than the year before as as usually goes with the City departments, you know, they ask each year for things they think they need and City Hall decides what priorities are and a lot of times they don't get what they want But you have to think of what Portland was like then put it in your mind very densely packed city You know Alan talked about the the kids playing with Firecrackers down there. The waterfront was a very dirty place in that era You know men and men worked long hours. They were coming right back the next day So they weren't sweeping the floors or cleaning up the boat yard where it started in mr. DeGuo's boat yard at Maple Street. They were they were just leaving it there and coming back tomorrow Very common. So the waterfront was not a very tidy place. So there were a lot of Wood shavings everywhere a lot of scrap lumber scrap everything I mean think of what things were made of back then. We didn't have the the plastics of today and the rubbers it was all Wolves and cottons and a lot of wood a lot of wood. So the fight apartment was in a big transition They were going from hand-pump engines if you've ever seen a hand-pump pump It took a lot of men to do that and They were going from that to steam fire engines which took one person to operate and That person was our first full-time firefighters. So there was one per steam engine So they would send him to the factory where the engine was being made or built To learn all about it because again 1866 you couldn't call up on a telephone because kelk telephones weren't invented and say send me apart I just broke part of the the valve They had to learn how to repair it fix it weld it Whatever they could do to get it running until a part came maybe weeks later So Portland only had at that time for steam engine companies. They had a spare steam engine but so there was five steam engines here and They were very powerful machines, but the city really needed more than that But again, it was a perfect time for a fire everything came into play and that's why it happened that way Even in the chief's report He said if he'd had the only way to stop that fire was if he'd had a working steam engine on the spot When that spark was started to put it out. That's the only way Well, we're rolling that engine toward that spot Let's go back to you for a moment Alan I Believe you meant to say that the fire started at the corner of maple Street and commercial and Now this little fire while Michael has been explaining things to us is really exploded into something larger and it's roared a couple hundred feet up Maple Street Toward a place called Brown's sugar house on York Street now tell us Alan. What is brown sugar house? Why is it so fatal in our story? Brown sugar house was Probably one of the largest buildings in Portland and it was built of stone and The windows had iron But what they really did as they imported rum from the Caribbean To take care of the people that didn't drink it Because you drink rum, but you can also take rum and they make it into sugar and that's what the sugar house did and There were lots of barrels on the outside and everything And once the fire started and began to spread The wind was becoming stronger and stronger and fire as it grows tends to create its own wind And it didn't take a whole long time before we had gale force winds And you think that building wouldn't go down but the fire got so hot that it melted the metal that took care of the barrels the windows were broken fire would get to the inside and It didn't take much more after that Part of our part of the of the Stuff that we have from that fire if you want to see it later, and they're down in that little hallway are a whole bunch of paper that came from the sugar house and you can see that He the John Bundy Brown who owned it Got a lot of people he paid them a dollar an hour if they would go in and start moving stuff out before really Got to its fullest source and they have some of the papers that were in there You can see that the sides of them are all scorched and everything and they managed to get a lot of the paperwork out Mike we Alan has told us about The legends that have to do with how the fire started But who turned in that first alarm? What's the story? Regarding that and could as you were just starting to illuminate could the Portland fire department have ever stopped that blaze in Its tracks no matter how brave they were could it ever have been done? No And it all goes back to no It all goes back to again the time You know when you call for the fight apartment in this city today You're gonna get somebody at your location in two to four minutes It took that long to muster up a group of people to get that hand pump out of an engine house After they had heard from the church bells ringing where the fire was They came up with this in 1858. There was no telegraph system but what the city did was the fire department cut the peninsula in 10 fire districts and When there was an alarm of fire, that's how that's what That's how it was rung in people would haul a fire and say where it was the district. It was in most people knew the district of Where they were they knew what district it was the word would get to the church They'd ring that bell by that number one through ten whichever district it was in this case. It was district eight So they got to the church rung at eight times hesitated Rung at eight more and as many times as need be Until they got word back to the church that they were there or it's all out, but that's how they did that So a very slow process compared to today No telegraph system like I said no fire alarm telegraph system No radio is obviously no phones. So it was the cry of fire and Mr. Ruby you've probably heard of William Ruby. He's the one that Notice the fire down there and Maples and commercial Street and he's the one that started the cry of fire and probably we can't say because we don't have him on Tape to know what he said, but he was probably doing the same thing hauling fire fire district eight Maple Street, you know, that's probably about what he was saying commercial and maple district eight fire and the word gets carried on to somebody to get it at the church and And again think of what the city was like a very densely packed city a lot of wooden buildings and When Alan was talking about the the brick sugar house brick on the outside But it's what they call ordinary construction on the inside. There's a lot of wood A lot of big massive beams I don't know the process of making molasses and sugars But I'm sure there was a lot of heated materials in there that didn't take much to get going along with the rum Which you know what rum is right so So William Wilber force Ruby a young African-American in fact has probably been the one to To shout the alarm and Earl right behind Brown sugar house all eight stories flaming brick now Waits Gorham's corner. Yes. Now. What is Gorham's corner and what laid beyond that on Middle Street? The heart of a business district in the center of the city both of these places now Straight in the path of the fire, right? Well first her for Gorham's corner And we still call it Gorham's corner today. It's where several streets converge You have Center Street. You have four Street. You have Pleasant Street. You have Danforth Street all coming in together it's where the John Ford statue is now for point of reference and in 1866 that was one of the two most densely populated areas of Irish population in the city and it was also where a lot of the clandestine Irish distilleries were as well a lot of the a lot of the rum trade was going on there clandestine bars and distilleries and also very as Michael has said very tightly knit Wooden structures everywhere in that neighborhood So if you have an eight-story sugar house that's blazing and then the cinders and the flames just move You know another block north Gorham's Connor is the perfect place for the next the next Insighting of the fire now as to what happens after Gorham's corner Then of course it pushes right along the the north side of four Street as we saw in the photos And at the same time begins to head up into the very center of the Peninsula Which is the area around middle and exchange and by that time Middle and exchange Street area as we saw in the photos is heavily commercial You have shops offices Some light manufacturing there as well, but it is primarily a commercial area However, there are a few Large homes some of them very old that had been built right after the revolution that had somehow survived into the changes of that area in the 1850s and 60s But also a few really fashionable new homes in particular a home that you find referenced Extensively after the fire as having been a major loss was the home of Mrs. John Wood John Wood in the 1850s was a leading business man He's the man who conceived of and started to build Woods marble hotel And that was because again in the 1850s Portland was had this railroad and steamship connection And there was the projection that there would be a need for a large modern hotel Ironically Woods hotel was never finished and never opened and it was destroyed In that heart of the city as part of what was lost in the fire and then The flip side of that is that J.B. Brown then steps forward and says well, you know We need a major hotel Facility in the middle of the city and that's when the concept of Brown's Falmouth hotel is born very quickly after the fire and he builds it between 1866 and opens it in July 68 Where the Canalbank Plaza is now but to answer your question herb Gorham's Connor is the perfect fuel and then we move on into another very densely populated area but an area that is primarily business and commercial and Michael given that the fire now has plenty to eat marble wood alcohol brick densely populated areas and It's moving on very rapidly your book gives a vivid description of the mechanics of how a fire Becomes from a single flame a moving Breathing virtually living thing. Can you describe what's happening now as the fire hits Gorham's corner in Middle Street the when it started getting into that area with the the flying brands and Catching so much on fire. That's when a conflagration will will take hold and what it does it Creates its own wind force now that day. There was also a very high wind almost a gale So it didn't need a lot besides that but it and it was going where else it was going in towards land off the water So it wasn't much help to do any firefighting down at the pit. You couldn't you had to get in front of it and You know a lot of people think bricks and granite buildings They're fireproof. They're not fireproof. It's usually what's inside that's going to burn anyway But what happens when brick and stone and granite dries? It spalls and it flakes away and when I say flakes away. I'm not talking about little pieces. I'm talking big chunks and You know if you haven't read John Neal's account of the Great Fire you should read that Because he was an eyewitness to it and he was down there within hours of it starting and he had a large business down there never thought it would burn and It did and it went through there in about 20 minutes And that was a good size structure 20 minutes think of that and nothing left but a pile of rubble They said he said that his his iron shutters covering that covered his windows and they closed them thinking the fight wouldn't get in They were almost like parchment in there because they had started to heat and melt and they were you know like any metal Would do it was almost like parchment But when it got up Away from Maple Street towards the old port It started to mushroom out because of the size of the structures there and so much there that's ready to burn And if you've seen the map the map that shows the the damage Part of the fire you'll see it a jagged edges and those are the city blocks And what the fire fighters would do and this is well documented in the fire company log books They a lot of the log books said exactly what they did that day. They were on that They were on the on the ground for over 20 hours The fire didn't go out till about 2 o'clock the following day So they were there for about 22 hours 21 22 hours and what they were trying to do is get ahead of it and to cut it off from gaining more and more streets and blocks and Because of the water situation They'd run out of water, you know from the the wells and cisterns that were already low because of the weather Alan talked about it earlier a dry spring a dry early and Hot summer And with that wind it was just I don't want to use the the term perfect storm But I will it was a per it had everything that could create that kind of a a fire And that's what happened. So they'd be trying to cut it off. It gets so hot one of the steam engines the the lanterns glass blister well documented and The firemen were actually getting Hot and burned and parts and so they had to move the steam engine up to another block Take another stand there and do it again. You know a lot of these firemen. They weren't just You know city boys that were part-time firemen or whatever But a lot of these people were battle one two from me from the the civil war They'd seen battle in in human life and they were battling another type of battle and in the Destruction of fire. So that's what they were doing trying to cut it off And Alan this vividly described creature Rolling ahead almost howling in its literal Self-fed fury is coming blasting up Center Street toward where we are sitting now How did the long fellow house? survive on Congress Street with this beast 40 feet across the street I Can only think of one way That was the grace of God Because all you have to do was go outside Look to your left and two blocks down is a burnt out city hall But yet the fire just the way the wind was blowing It just kind I guess God said now people may want to see this house later We'll leave that one just just go down. We don't need the city hall That's the only thing I can think of That's a wonderful historical explanation And to each of you one by one because you've all read the accounts that we have and getting ready for this evening Tell us out of all of your learning and reading one of your own favorite stories about People's behavior in the middle of this all 10,000 people 10,000 stories are running down the streets with this great lurid light Behind them pick one or two of those stories and each of you, please Tell it before we follow the fire to the eastern cemetery Mike Earl you may start Herb I Think one of the heroes of the night is George Frederick Morse He's a relatively young man. He's an official at the Portland Company He's also a very gifted artist and he has the presence of mind when this City is aflame and when the whole world is rapidly changing around him to bring out his his his panels And his paints and do Actually, there were six small panels that he he did that very night that it was happening and sadly those six panels have disappeared and the the the paintings that we have On view are ones that he did somewhat later Four of the we have four paintings based on four of the six panels And they're wonderful paintings But there are color photos of the of the six original panels which Did turn up in the 1970s were Exhibited once around 1980 or so And we tried very hard Kate and I when we were putting this exhibit together To locate Where they presently are and I think I'm just taking a moment here with the camera rolling to say if anybody knows where George Morse's six original panels are please come forward. We won't ask any questions We'll just take them for the main historical society I'm kidding, but seriously. I think that you know We we have concentrated in our commemoration And remembrance of the great fire With some really wonderful historiography But at the same time I think that the theme of this exhibit that is around us is the art of the great fire and The Morse panels are really in many ways The shining stars of that. Thank you Who wants to guess who's next Michael you're next The question was out of your learning your writing and your reflection upon this Humans being humans and 10,000 stories playing out on the street the night of the fire Can you tell us some that are particularly? I'm trying to avoid the word illuminating Instructive on your memory. Okay, I'll keep it kind of clean here First I've been awestruck all the research I've done on it. I was awestruck by humanity We don't we you know, we think of the fire and the destruction and all that but the humanity helping each other Imagine most of those people they were trying to load up their wagons if they had one of their belongings You know think of what we have today most people, you know We have and we couldn't get we take us four days to pack everything up, right? but Packing up their prized possessions like beds people don't think back then a bed was a prized possession And that was one of the firefighters tools of the day as they had bed keys And they had companies that when they showed up one of the first things they do is get in there and get that better pot And get it out of there a very prized possession. So very simple things like that, but it was humanity helping each other and I did run across to nautical years ago where This was this one family was in such a hurry. They saw the fire coming and they were loading up their wagon and They were helping somebody load up theirs and somebody drove off with their wagon You know and again, it wasn't thievery. It was it was that mass chaos and but again Humanity helping each other and many heroes that day and not just the Feynman because the Feynman couldn't put that out by themselves And there were many citizens that were helping haul hoes and unhook hoes and drag hoes and There was a lot of humanity that day. So that's what's odd me by that conflagration Alan I have read in your book that People literally fled into the eastern cemetery The living taking refuge among the dead as the last hope of saving their own lives Is that so and can you tell us about that? Yeah, it is it was one of the Sort of almost the end pieces of the fire because you had that that empty land and a Lot of the a lot of the families Gathered and they went up to the eastern cemetery There's one gentleman that went up to that direction and he looked at it and he saw all these ghost-like figures sitting upright in the cemetery The it's almost impossible To even imagine What people felt like and what was going on the panic that took place The wailing women the crying children People Grabbing things out of their house and putting them on the street their furniture Hoping they'd be able to save it, but unfortunately it just was more tender for the fire and more cases are not there have been There have been there was one case which is kind of Interesting this one family If their house caught fire And they left the house burned down they Went to look for a place to stay and they went over to Cape Elizabeth and They found a boarding house when they got in the boarding house They were brought into their rooms and guess what was there? their furniture They It's it's almost impossible to put yourself in that place And if you could find a place like the cemetery with and that cemetery never was Much more than what it is now there weren't many there weren't many trees or anything there So you basically had a lot of empty land And it was a firebreak and they figured it was probably one of the safer places to go into and I guess they got what they were looking for I Just a post script to what Alan has said about eastern cemetery and that is that one of the Morse Paintings that you'll see in the hallway depicts the cemetery that night Now these gentlemen have brought us 15 hours of a story in just a few minutes and the fire Burns itself out at the foot of the Portland Observatory Literally the width of the street Across from the foot of the Portland Observatory and the front yard of a brick house that still stands and is for sale tonight Spared for the condo developers Earl People being people and tragedy being tragedy How did people? Beyond Maine in Maine the next town over and in another nation next to us Respond to what happened in Portland in the days after the fire. How did other places react? What did they do? Well, I think I want to build on Particularly what Michael said about humanity because first the city officials in Portland Mayor Stevens and other key players and of course John Bundy Brown being the leading Financial individual in the city They've rallied so quickly so remarkably and with such vision. There was just an immediate Determination that the city would be rebuilt There was no there was no question about it. One thing that helped is that although many properties were not fully insured There was a system of insurance companies by the mid 19th century So there was some insurance money available to people But what helped particularly was the direct appeal and you'll see here in in the exhibit a little Handbill called appeal from Portland And of course that was just one part of it In those days news traveled by telegraph and then off the telegraph The newspapers would take the news and print it in the newspapers and so within a very short time Portland's calamity was known, you know all over the English-speaking world and as a result the efforts to aid Portland In its aid for its distressed citizens, but also in the concern for rebuilding the city it all happened incredibly quickly and Incredibly generously and I think in the recent accounts that have been done in the paper and With the television program and so on some very good figures have been cited And I'm sure Mike and Alan's book also has them But it's really a phenomenal story that rebuilding and so if you consider the fire happens in early July of 1866 within a few months Buildings are going up on Exchange Street in the commercial area Also many homes are being built and by 1876 10 years later when the great bird's-eye view of Portland is issued Though you would not know that the fire had happened and in fact the the Portland Peninsula has not only rebounded, but it's grown eastward and westward to fill those those destinies And it's it's a great story in itself of how people really put their their their shoulder to the stone and Determined Lee Recreated the city in many different ways and it is the city that we now know today And that's very well put it about the legacy of the fire in an architecture and in Attitude and that in irony we may be a better city now than we would have been Before or without shall we say that fire? Alan in your book you cite specifically two legacies of the great fire and that would be in insurance and in Sabago water, can you give us a few sentences about each? Well, one of the one of the main reasons that Portland burned down as I mentioned at the very beginning is Water was scarce. I mean People did have cisterns in their cellar and they would get water from the roof And it would drip down and go into this big cistern in the basement now you know that We are right on the water. There were a lot of seagulls and seagulls like roofs Just stop and think Seagulls using the roofs the water comes down it goes in the cistern and that's their drinking water They have to have wells and we did not have a water system in Portland One of the great legacies of the fire. I think is the fact that in 1867 A bunch of people got together and formed a company and they planned to have the water pumped in from Sabago Lake And they find they had tried to do this before the fire and nobody cared It just it just didn't go through but I guess people woke up when the fire came and they found they had no water It took a while it took four years For the water to get from Sabago Lake into Portland, but finally in 1870 Portland had a water system the insurance companies most of them were burned down and Most people that had insurance on their house Figured nothing was ever going to happen to it. So they always Had their insurance at a much lower value But the insurance companies for the most part even though they the majority of them were all burned down The majority of them did come through and did pay Insurance within a few just a short time after that That's probably a couple of the biggest biggest legacies But I think the fact that we have a water system and we still have water coming from Sabago Lake And it's a wonder they haven't run out But we're still getting it I think that's probably the number one in my book anyway legacy for that Michael with a century and a half of new technology a Century and a half of new equipment a century and a half of reorganization Could it happen again Could there be another great Portland fire? I could never say no And I'll tell you why Alan talking about the the water system. I don't know if you remember that Lodge Storm we had back in the mid to late 90s When we had like 32 inches of rain in like six hours or something If any of you remember going out Forest Avenue towards Westbrook that you couldn't get to Westbrook because it was flooded there Same thing on Stroutwater couldn't get over to Stroutwater because of that well We lost our water system from Sabago Lake for about 18 hours a lot of people didn't know that So again when factors come into play anything's possible We were we had devised a plan where we laid We had some high large diameter hose that we were placing on parts of the spine of the city congress tree in certain spots and we were adding a larger pumping engine on to every alarm and If a fire was to take shape we were going to be running the hose line we would we call it down reverse laying We'd be taking the hose from commercial Congress Street and taking it down to the fire boat to pump So a lot of people didn't know that that we'd lost that water But that's how catastrophe has happened when a lot of variables come into play Again the hundred fifty years ago the weather the wind The the firefighting equipment at the time the large die density of the city Alan talked about the insurance Situation well that was the jumpstart for the National Board of Fire underwriters And I don't know if you know that they rate fire departments. They rate cities so if you live in a city that has There's about five different key factors. What is one of the big ones, but they total those up in Poland is a class two And it doesn't get much better. There aren't many class ones around But if pulling went down to a class three, which we almost did back in the 80s The insurance rate goes up for commercial properties And if it goes to a class for it goes up for who else you and I the homeowners so That was a good jumpstart that the national board of fire underwriters that fire actually started that But I could never say no to it not happen again. I think it's highly unlikely but Again key factors if you've ever seen a fire a major fire on a windy night and Seeing firebrands blowing the city Hall fire early talked about earlier in 1908 That said about 30 other buildings on fire a lot of people don't know that but they had fire companies that were coming here For mutual aid chasing those fires those firebrands were blowing on to neighboring buildings so A lot of factors come into play Just let watch the news and see some of these major fires that have happened in some of other cities these big condo developments under construction and I Think there was one in New Jersey recently, and I mean the building was a huge New condo development under construction and just totally involved with fire and firebrands flying everywhere So they'll always be fires. It's human nature. So but I would never say No One other thing Because of the fires shortly after the fire the next year Portland began to put in a real alarm system So they really didn't have to depend on the church bells ringing in numbers That and that and the the border system. I think Helped us a whole lot When Alan said about the fire alarm system the Poland fight upon it had been asking for a Game well fire alarm system telegraph system like Boston had Boston had one up and running and we had gone down there to Have a look at it and we never got it Now the fire started in July 66 that new fire alarm system we finally got was up and running in March of 67 March of 67. That's not even six months, right? I'm not even a year So that was good and what Alan talked about with the water system Early on they were talking about going getting the water from the Przomskiet River That's where they were talking about having the water come from Smiley, thank God. They got Sobego Lake for reasons a lot of people don't may not understand But Sobego Lake is 252 feet above sea level So you get a natural pressure that comes down to the city here to our sea level, right? So you can open up a fire hydrant on commercial Street, and you're gonna have 60 70 80 pounds pressure Which really aids in pumping water? Okay, so Those two things are really key We are down believe it or not to the last few moments. There may be Just time for one or two questions Which I will do the duty of repeating for the sake of the recording That is being done this night And I'll start with you sir in blue in your hands The general good question Information about casualties of the great fire in Portland. I turn it to the panel. We're still Finding new information about that and again think of the the era 60s in 1866 We know of four deaths confirmed It was always listed as two But one was came about in 1891 through an affidavit filed through the court system, I believe For a woman that was entirely consumed in a building on 4th Street so that was the Susan bluefield, I believe her name was right Ellen and Two trickering people up there on Washington Avenue 59 Washington Avenue in the rear and the other one We came across was a mr. Soul That was burned badly. He was 74 years old lived on Quincy Street across from Lincoln Park And now Lincoln Park and he was burned badly and he inhaled the flames according to the newspaper So I had done some research along with others and I traced forward Into the newspapers on he lasted almost two months. He didn't die till September So he suffered and again it said in there that he died from inhaling the flames. He was 74 years old There was one thing I did have unrelated to your question, but that's what we know of now There there may have been more we believe there were more Casualties, we don't know how many people were injured, but we know of deaths That we know of now and that's for maybe five But I didn't run across one real quick Two two sentence story that was in the newspaper on September 6 So this is over two months after the conflagration It said in the Argus two months since the great fire Yet the heat in some of the cellars renders labor difficult bricks are too hot to handle and Yesterday pieces of iron dug from the Fox block down off of our forestry Blistered men's hands as they touched them. That was two months later So and to be fair, we'll take one question from this side of the audience to which I will repeat For the sake of the recording, please ma'am. I noticed in the photographs gas lights and I Remember that this must have been the era of the gas light in home Was it a contributing factor or did someone think to turn off gas? The question is since there are gas lights showing in the photographs and Obviously underground gas pipe. It did it contribute to the fire or did somebody quite literally turn off the gas The gas system actually went down because of the fire Which Made it kind of difficult to see things at night And and the only thing that I can think of that it actually aided With a large number of people that came from out of town in order to do no good and to rob and steal But it didn't take too long for them to fix it and didn't take too long before the army came in and some Marines from Portsmouth, New Hampshire who when they took care of the people that came down to get something and Made sure that they either went to jail or left But the gas system went down because of the fire, but it was it was up in a fairly short time afterwards So much more to think about and so much more to say and unfortunately our time tonight is up But two things to ponder on number one Last night the old city died This morning the new city started building tomorrow You and I will continue to make it the city We wish it to be and in every sense the motto then is still our motto and still embraces us now resurgium we shall rise again and secondly be Don't forget that books are being offered to be autographed by our living authors here, and we will see you all again in 50 years