1871

by Peter J Spalding

  “You needn’t worry,” she replied. “I’ve been on that roof before.” And without another word, Lillian headed for the stairs.

  Sam frowned. “Who is she?” he asked.

  “It would take too long to explain,” Simon replied. “Just accept her assistance and think nothing else of it.”

  “In any event,” Sam continued, “I shall also need you to assist Mister English in his writing. He has got enough material to keep him working for a week, and by the looks of it, I expect you to have material of your own. Is that clear?”

  “Yes sir.”

  As Sam directed his attention toward the latest crisis, Simon hurried across the newsroom. Everyone was trying to learn how the fire had started, and several wild rumors were already making the rounds. The most widespread rumor was about Mrs. O’Leary’s cow. The story held that Catherine O’Leary had gone milking late that night, and in the process, her cow had kicked over a lantern and started the blaze. No one seemed to know where the story had come from, and no one had any evidence to substantiate it. But that didn’t seem to matter; the Evening Post had already accepted it as fact and was going to press with it.

  At the time, the lantern story was only one of many unconfirmed, unsubstantiated rumors. What no one realized was that the story would become Chicago’s most notorious legend. And in doing so, it would forever change the lives of Patrick and Catherine O’Leary.

  BILLY HOLBROOK TOSSED AND TURNED, but try what he might, he couldn’t fall asleep. He was starting to regret having left Tommy home alone, and he feared that it would anger Robert. Billy’s surroundings didn’t help him relax. His room was hot and stuffy; Billy’s two brothers were sleeping on the floor, and his sisters were staying in his parents’ adjacent room.

  Billy heard a set of footsteps in the hall. That was strange, Billy thought, because everyone was supposed to be asleep. Ordinarily he would have paid no attention, but he was too restless. Billy sighed, whipped his covers aside, and got out of bed.

  Billy heard the stairs creak as the footsteps headed downstairs. Billy snuck past his parents’ room and reached the end of the hall. He looked down the narrow stairway and saw a figure tying his shoes. Billy wanted to call out, but he was afraid of waking the rest of his family. Then the figure took a hat off the coat rack, opened the door, and vanished into the darkness outside.

  That was odd, Billy thought. Everyone in his family had to work the next day, and the Holbrooks rarely ventured outside at night. Billy crept down the staircase and tiptoed to the door. His father’s coat and hat were gone, but he had left nothing to explain where he was headed. Billy considered pursuing him, but then he decided he shouldn’t. He was supposed to be at Robert’s house in time for breakfast the next morning, and Billy knew that he needed some rest.

  At the thought of breakfast, Billy’s stomach growled. He stumbled across the kitchen and opened the pantry. It contained nothing too appetizing, but then the liquor cabinet caught Billy’s eye. The cabinet door was cracked open, offering a tantalizing glimpse of the bottles inside. Billy looked around to make sure he was alone. Then he took a few shots of whiskey and felt the comforting warmth in his chest. After that, he replaced the bottle, headed back upstairs, and went back to bed.

  ROBERT STRODE OUT OF LIZZIE’S HOME, with Lizzie following close behind. “You must protect her from any news,” Robert said. “Whatever happens, you must never allow her to panic. Keep her away from any second-floor windows— in fact, it’s likely best to bring her downstairs in the event she wakes up.”

  “I must do this myself?” Lizzie asked. “You mean to tell me that you won’t be there to help?”

  “I wish I could, but I’m afraid I cannot,” Robert said. “There is something I must do.”

  “What do you mean?” Lizzie asked. “What you must do is to take care of your mother.”

  “That is exactly what I intend,” Robert said, “but please, don’t ask me anything more, for I don’t wish to discuss it. Just keep her calm, and keep her safe, and I will do my part as well. And let us pray that all will be right in the end.”

  C.V. DYER RODE DOWN MADISON STREET and tried to gauge the extent of the blaze. His camera equipment sat in his wagon’s back seat. At the moment there was little to see, since the downtown buildings blocked most of his view.

  Dyer saw Fletcher Bingham on his balcony. Fletcher was peering through a set of binoculars.

  “Son,” Dyer said, “what do you see?”

  “Damned near nothing,” Fletcher replied. “It could be near the Gas Works for all I can tell.”

  Dyer licked his lips. The Gas Works were only a few blocks away, and they supplied most of the city’s fuel. Their tanks held two hundred thousand cubic feet of reserves, so if they exploded, they could tear apart the whole block. The engineers were trained to transfer the gas in case of any danger, but Dyer had no way of knowing if they were putting their training to use.

  Another gust of wind whistled through the streets. The air was getting noticeably hotter.

  Fletcher put down his binoculars and looked inside his apartment. He was frightened for the first time in his life. Even if the fire didn’t reach him, his speculative gains could collapse, which would mean that Fletcher and his company were done for.

  “Say, you’re a speculator yerself, ain’t ya?” Fletcher asked.

  Dyer looked up with his good eye and frowned. “What makes you ask that?”

  “Well... what do you reckon this fire will do to real estate?”

  “Son, if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you,” Dyer said. “I’ve made too much money to give away my secrets.”

  “But if I—”

  “I’ve got other things to do,” Dyer said. With that, he whipped his reins and continued on his way.

  In the distance, Dyer could hear people yelling, and the fire roared with new intensity. A family hustled down the sidewalk. A handful of shopkeepers poured water on their roofs, while others carted away belongings and evacuated buildings. Dyer barely noticed; he had other things on his mind.

  And then, as he crossed Monroe Street, Dyer heard a series of explosions. The buildings shuddered, and slowly but surely, the city lights flickered and died.

  “WHAT THE DEVIL?” Simon yelled as the Tribune was plunged into darkness.

  “Find some illumination,” Sam Medill replied.

  Simon nodded and headed downstairs. Just before he reached the front door, he encountered commercial editor Elias Colbert. A Times reporter, Everett Chamberlain, was following close behind. “I’ve brought candles,” Colbert said in a clipped British accent.

  “Thank heavens,” Simon replied. “Your timing is impeccable.”

  “It’s no matter of timing,” Colbert said. “I could see that the Gas Works were nearly about to fail. Is Sam upstairs?”

  “Yes.”

  Chamberlain patted Colbert on the back. “Listen, friend,” Chamberlain said, “I must return to a paper of my own. Good luck to you.”

  “And to you,” Colbert said. He shook Chamberlain’s hand, then followed Simon as he scurried up the stairs.

  At the top, they found the staff clustered around Sam Medill. “No matter what happens,” Sam was saying, “this issue must go to press. Understood?”

  Everyone stood in the darkness. No one moved.

  “We have things to do,” Sam continued. “This issue will be read a hundred years from tonight, so I don’t want to see a single thing done wrong. I believe I’ve made myself clear.”

  Sam motioned for everyone to leave, and the staff slowly went back to work. Colbert headed up to the roof, where he could use his telescope to track the fire’s progress. G.P. English went along at Sam’s request; English knew the city better than anyone, so he could identify most of its buildings by sight. Even Tod Cowles, the Tribune’s baseball reporter, was drafted into the effort.

  Simon started passing out the candles. Sam struck a match and lit his flame, then leaned over to ignite the next person’s. The flame pa
ssed from person to person, desk to desk, candle to candle.

  When Simon returned to his copy, he started writing what he thought the editors wanted to hear. Since the fire was clearly a sensational piece of news— and people around the world would see it that way— he wanted to describe it accordingly. Strong words came naturally to him, so he tossed off one sentence after another, waxing poetic about “the wind raging, and the fire burning, and London, and Paris, and Portland outdone, and no Dante on Earth to put the words together!”

  In truth, however, the fire had plenty of precedents. In the year 64, for example, a fire swept through ancient Rome. It started near the Circus Maximus among some highly flammable shops, and it burned four Roman districts over the following six days. Legend had it that Emperor Nero had set the blaze himself, and that he had played the fiddle while the city burned. The legend wasn’t true— fiddles would not be invented for another fifteen hundred years— but Nero did use the fire for his own ends. He wound up pinning the blame on an obscure new sect called the Christians. In the weeks that followed, he persecuted all the Christians he could find. Nero then rebuilt Rome according to his own desires.

  In 1666, a similar blaze destroyed London. The fire broke out in a Pudding Lane bakery, and it burned almost all of the old medieval city. The original Saint Paul’s Cathedral was destroyed, as was Bridewell Palace, the Royal Exchange, and almost every other local landmark. Two hundred thousand were left homeless, and five hundred acres were burned.

  During wartime, of course, fires were much more common. In 1812, when Napoleon’s troops entered Moscow, the Russians burned the city as they fled. Two years later, British troops torched Washington D.C., gutting the White House and the Capitol. And during the Civil War, the cities of Richmond and Atlanta had also succumbed to flames.

  Simon knew all of that, but it didn’t stop his rhetoric. He sensed that the Chicago Fire would be the biggest conflagration of all. He knew that Sam Medill was trying to put a good face on things, since no one wanted to admit how dire the situation was. Privately, however, Simon could tell that his editor feared the worst.

  “Mister Caldwell,” Sam finally said, “I believe we now have things under control in this office.”

  Simon looked around at all the frantic reporters. “Do we?” he asked.

  Sam nodded. “You must go to the Courthouse, for I need another man there.”

  “Are you sure?” Simon asked.

  “I say I need you there,” Sam shot back, “which means you must go. There is plenty to report, and I shan’t have you questioning my judgment.”

  Simon nodded. “Of course not,” he said. “I shall—” But before he could finish his sentence, his editor had sprinted away. Simon cleared his throat, grabbed a notepad, and headed for the door.

  LILLIAN CRANED HER NECK TOWARD THE SOUTHWEST, and she tried to determine if her father’s factory had burned. She was sure that it had; the fire was now three blocks past the river, so only through a miracle could the building have survived. Lillian hoped her father was all right. The very thought of him in danger sent a chill down her spine. But she told herself that there was no point in worrying, and she distracted herself by staying busy. Lillian kept stalking across the roof, making sure all the men had the supplies that they needed.

  Lillian had expected someone to question her presence. She didn’t know any of the men who were there, but for the time being, no one seemed to notice. Elias Colbert barely glanced away from his telescope; he calmly told English that the fire had crossed Franklin.

  Lillian turned toward her right. She saw Simon down below as he headed north on Dearborn. With the gas lamps extinguished, he quickly vanished into the darkness. Lillian couldn’t help thinking of a few months before, when she and Simon had looked up at the stars. She had never truly decided how she felt about him, but it didn’t seem to matter, since their old problems now seemed little more than trifles.

  “Miss?” came a voice. “I have need of that bucket.”

  “O-of course,” Lillian said. She handed her bucket to the pressman beside her. Then she took a deep breath and forced herself to stay calm, and she kept on helping the men as before.

  LIZZIE BROWN OPENED THE FRONT DOOR AND ENTERED ROBERT’S HOME. She wanted to turn on a gas lamp, but she couldn’t get any of the lights to work. Eventually she gave up and pledged to make do. She headed up to Mary’s room, but the staircase was so dark that she had to navigate by feel. Finally she reached the top of the stairs, then turned toward Mary’s room on the left.

  Robert’s mother was sleeping soundly with her back to the door. Lizzie crept around to the other side of the bed. She saw that Mary had rolled her blankets together, and Mary clutched the roll in an unconscious embrace. Her pillow had fallen off the bed to the ground; Lizzie picked it up, fluffed it a little, and replaced it behind Mary’s head. Mary didn’t react except to give off a soft sigh.

  “I am here,” Lizzie whispered. “You needn’t be afraid.”

  Lizzie waited for a response, but Mary didn’t move. It was just as well, Lizzie thought; she didn’t want to disturb her cousin’s sleep.

  “Well,” she said, “I shall be downstairs when and if you need me.” Then she turned and headed quietly toward the kitchen.

  C.V. DYER HAD ARRIVED IN CONLEY’S PATCH and was racing to get his equipment set up. His camera was awkward and bulky, and it wasn’t designed to take pictures at night. On his left, the engine T.B. Brown was trying to hose down a tenement, but a drunken rowdy crowd had assembled around it.

  “Get out of my way,” yelled one man.

  “Up yours,” snapped another.

  “— se ne vada!” came a voice.

  “— Land o’Goshen—”

  “— fuirich air falbh on teine!”

  “Get back!” yelled foreman Frederick Taplin.

  “— nil moran Bearla agam—”

  “— Liam! Where’s Liam?—”

  “— nein, so geht’s nicht—”

  “Può aiutarmi?”

  “Get the hell back!” Taplin yelled, and he waved his hose at the man. A stream of water flew in all directions.

  “Don’tcha touch him!” yelled another drunk as he rushed forward. Taplin spun around and turned his firehose on him. The water threw the man backward, and he staggered back into the mob.

  “Get some help,” Taplin said to driver Charles Pratt. As Pratt ran down the street, the crowd became more unruly than ever. Any thoughts of firefighting were quickly put to rest.

  Dyer resisted the urge to flee. It wouldn’t be easy to photograph the scene, but if he could do it, then he could sell the pictures all over the world.

  A blast of wind came up, and with it came a shower of sparks. Someone screamed, and the mob abruptly dispersed, sending people fleeing in all directions. The firemen swung their hose around, but fires flared up in too many places for the men to put them out.

  Within seconds, Conley’s Patch plunged into chaos. People were yelling at the tops of their lungs. Women’s dresses tore as they ran, and men tried to extinguish their own burning hair. Children screamed for their mommies while their parents grabbed everything from dishes to money. The wind was so tremendous that trees bent over until they cracked and splintered. Clouds of dust swirled into the air and mixed seamlessly with the smoke. Furniture blocked the streets, preventing the firemen from moving northward.

  Dyer tried to retreat, but his carriage couldn’t get past a broken table in its path. He tried to turn around, but the crush of people made it impossible. Dyer tried to think of a different way out, but he realized there was none. He just grabbed his equipment, tripod and all, and ran.

  Many of the Patch’s men were watching the blaze on the West Side. When they realized what had happened, they raced pell-mell toward their homes. The bridges became jammed as the drunks elbowed their way through the crowd. The men countered the stream of refugees and shoved fire engines out of the way. The throng became disoriented, and chaos reigned supreme.


  The drunks reached the Patch a few minutes later, just in time to see their homes disappear under the flames. The wall of fire was a thousand feet wide and a hundred feet tall. It moved forward with impunity, crushing everything in its path. All the gambling dens, drug houses, and ramshackle homes were destroyed.

  And the rampage continued.

  Chapter Fourteen: Fall of the Courthouse

  “The roar was terrific; smoke drifted over me in huge volumes; sparks and pieces of burning wood were flying through the air by millions....”

  — Joseph Medill

  IN COURTHOUSE SQUARE, thousands of people were trying to take refuge from the flames. Everyone was stoic despite the inferno raging nearby. The square was the most wide-open space downtown, but the crowd was so huge that it filled it completely. People covered the lawns and streets so that no carriages could pass. Several people had brought bags full of valuables. Immigrant families scurried around with their children, mixing together with rich industrialists. The children chattered in several languages and were reprimanded in several more. It was a vast cross-section of humanity, an assortment of people who never would have met under any other conditions.

  Simon tied his horse to a lamppost and headed into the throng. He looked up at the Courthouse bell, and he could see the dome vibrate with every clang. Beside him, an asthmatic wheezed and coughed as he struggled to breathe. The smell of smoke was everywhere, and hundreds of onlookers held handkerchiefs to their noses.

  Simon headed up the front steps. His legs were aching, but he forced himself to move quickly. His hands were so slick with perspiration that they slipped off the handrail. When Simon reached the top of the stairs, he turned and looked back, and he marveled at the otherworldly sight.

  Finally he pulled open the large oaken door and stepped into the building. Light drifted in through the windows, reflecting on the floors and illuminating the rooms. A handful of workers were in their offices, but they were so quiet that Simon could hear his own footsteps. Secretaries were gathering files and cramming them into boxes, while city officials drenched the walls with cold water. Although no one dared say it, everyone seemed to have accepted the truth: the Courthouse was doomed, and the most anyone could do was to buy a little time.