A Glue Pot, a Pail of Water, and the Fire That Took Seattle
A painter, a cabinetmaker and a frightened workman recount how a glue pot and a bucket of water ignited the blaze that consumed Seattle.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Seattle, having been made the subject of inquiry, the origin of the fire was investigated yesterday. A reporter talked with several men who belonged to the shop at 88 Front Street when it started. The first interview was with James McGough, a painter whose workshop was just over the basement where the fire started. He said: “I was at the corner of Fourth and Terrace streets, and, being a fireman of Company No. 1, I quit work and hastened to join my company, not knowing the locality of the fire. I soon learned the fire broke out in the shop of Clairmont & Co., cabinet makers, who occupied the ground-floor basement just beneath me. I am told several men were working there at that time. The stove, which spread the flames at once, had a heavy draft swept through the room from its two wide doors at the front and rear.”
Calling upon Mr. Clairmont, who owned the place and employed the men when the fire started, he at once brought the reporter into the presence of two of them. They were Charley Stoll and a young man named Kittermaster. The former stated: “When I went into the basement, I saw a fire in the pot upon the stove. There were four others in the room, and I told them to pack up and get out. Kittermaster went after something ... and dashed water over the glue-kettle and stove. That sent the fire all through the shop. It was a sheet-iron stove with a hole in the top for this ... It was at once full of fire and smoke, and I got out as best I could.”
Mr. Kittermaster, being called on, said: “There were five of us in the room: Mr. Kichner, Charley Stoll, an old Swede named Bergen, a young Swede from New York, and myself. At the first alarm I was ... with my back toward the stove. As I turned to look back it was blazing right and left, and I saw Bergen with a pail of water to throw upon it. I shouted for him not to do it, but ... he dashed it. I rallied to a corner to get my coat, intending to throw it over the burning glue and keep the air out; but the water touched the matter and made it difficult to get out.”
Bergen, the unconscious incendiary, is yet in this city, looking about for work; but his former employer does not want one who caused their misfortune.
“I shouted for him not to do it, but ... he dashed it. That sent the fire all through the shop.”
The Great Seattle Fire of 1889 leveled the city’s business district, and this interview pinpoints its start to a glue pot and a panicked pail of water. Today fire investigators still trace disasters to small human errors, and the rush to assign blame—here to a Swedish laborer—has a familiar ring.
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