Monticello, NY Fire, Aug 1909 - part 2

Continued from part 1, below

Mrs. MURRAY said that her husband had been in New York when the fire started and that her brother-in-law, Joseph Murray, had left the engine room for a short time in charge of a subordinate, who if he was conscious that the roof over his head was on fire, failed to give the alarm.

Rapid Spread of the Flames.

By the time that the Neptune Hose and the Hook and Ladder companies had come to the aid of the Mountain Hose Company, the flames had crossed over the narrow side street which separates the palatine buildings from the big block of county and business buildings on the north. The latter block is the very center of the village. From the Strong grocery, the flames reached to the roof of the Loberhose business block. Both the Loberhose and the Strong buildings have been entirely remodeled within the last year. The flames surrounded Burns & Taylor's Department Store. Hammonds & Cook, another dry goods firm, is alongside. These two companies are the largest general merchandise concerns in the village. The buildings they occupy were both supposed to be fire-proof and both were supplied with iron shutters to protect the windows in case of fire. Both stores were open and doing business when the fire started and continued to remain open after the fire surrounded them on every side. When the stores began to fill with smoke JOSEPH H COOK, one of the partners of Hammond & Cook, told his girls to put the books in the safe and leave if they desired to. One of the girls became panic-stricken, and, thinking her escape was cut off from the front door, tried to jump out one of the northern windows. Another of the young women fainted. Cook carried her over to Dr. CAUTHER'S residence, and then returned and sat with his partner, A.J. HAMMOND, near the store door.

They still believed in the efficacy of their fire-proofing. But the iron shutters began to drop from the walls of the building and the flames began to lick in. The two partners dashed across the street, and, behind the streams of water watched their fire-proof brick walls melt like paper. Cook's loss is put at $50,000. When the fire finished with Cook's "fireproof" department store it enveloped the drug store of Thornton & Miller. Its stock is expensive and was valued by members of the fire department at $50,000. The fire left enough of this buildings walls standing to be dangerous to passengers. Fire Chief BURNS accordingly directed to-day that they be blown up.

Opens Bank in Undertaker's

The flames also made a clean sweep of the Norton block, damaging the plants of the Western Union, Callery Brothers' Saloon, James Kelly's candy store, and John T. Heath's stationery store to the extent of about $100,000. It ate into the roof of the National Union Bank, but could not get through the walls of stone. When cashier, E.H. STRONG saw the way things were going he dashed over to Liberty in a buggy, borrowed some cash from the Sullivan County Bank there, had a temporary banking office rigged up across the street in Mitchell's Undertaking shop, and spent the day briskly honoring all checks as fast as they were passed over his unvarnished pine counter.

By this time two hose carts had come from Port Jervis and twelve lines of hose were playing on the flames. All Monticello's water has to be pumped up from Lake Kiamesha by a pumping station. The pump has not a heavy pressure and the streams hardly seemed enough to hold back the fire. When the old Monticello house was threatened Chief BURNS thought of using dynamite on the Carlisle grocery, between it and the conflagration. Instead, he had the men chop the light pine shop to pieces with their axes.

The glare could now be seen twenty miles away in Ellenville.

Several hundred men from other villages had driven into the fire-swept town by this time to offer their services. Among these was JOHN PELTON, a farmer. PELTON borrowed an axe and set to work with the rest to chop the grocery down, when he missed a stroke and almost cut his left leg off. FRANK JACKSON, a Neptune volunteer, had his head cut open by a falling tree.

Being stopped by the razing of the Carlisle store, the fire merely jumped across the street and destroyed all the stores and residences in that block.

Cries as His Hotel Burns

For no man was greater sympathy expressed yesterday than for GEORGE ROCKWELL, proprietor since 1890 of the Rockwell House. The Rockwell House is a three-story frame structure on the opposite side of the street from where the fire started. It escaped the fire and flames until a few leaves on the bough of a tree carried the fire over to its eastern cupola. The house burned to the ground. It contained a number of rare prints and oil paintings, also a great many stuffed animals and birds. They were the collections of a lifetime. When he saw that his place was really going, Rockwell burst into tears and cried like a child. He puts his loss at $40,000.

Opposite the Rockwell House is the Post Office. The flame started in its direction. It was saved by a strange device. Some members of the Mountain Hose Company, seeing a big signboard nailed on it, ripped the sign off and used it as a shield. They were thus enabled to stand within a foot of the flames on which they were playing.

The village was early cut off from telephone and telegraph communication, because the burning trees and rafters fell on the telegraph lines on Broadway and tore them down. Monticello has only a common battery telephone system. While Manager WILLIAMS of the Telephone Exchange tapped the Poughkeepsie-Scranton trunk line wires, which pass through Bedford Avenue, Wire Chief DORCAS took a forty-mile drive through the country to borrow four generating telephones over which F.M. STODDARD, EDITH ALLEN, and MAE ROARK presided on camp stools in the Bedford Avenue gutter for the rest of the day.

HARRY J. LANDFIELD of the Mountain Hose Company placed the total loss from the conflagration at $1,000,000. Although President ENGELMAN of Monticello Village stated that “in ten days the work of rebuilding will be started.- few of the businessmen whose places had been destroyed took any such optimistic tone. Monticello is the county seat of Sullivan County. Among the other buildings destroyed are Masonic Hall, Surrogate's Office, the Belsom House, and the private residences of L.H. DURLAND, J.F. TYMERSON, DR. J.H. CURLETTE, J.H. WALLER, and the crockery store of W.W.JOHNS.

The New York Times, New York, NY 12 Aug 1909