The Wisconsin Fires

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 19, 1871

The Wisconsin Fires.

CONSIDERABLE has already been said on this subject; but we think it well to put on permanent record the following additional particulars concerning the unusual circumstances attending that conflagration, from one who has visited the spot and writes from his own observation. J. A. Richards, in a letter dated at Little Prairie, Wis., to the Milwaukee Sentinel, says:—

When the cry of anguish came from Northern Wisconsin, it reached our hearts, and nobly did the people respond to the call for aid. We organized a Relief Committee, and in three days—among farmers—we had $380 in money, and six boxes of bedding and clothing ready to go forward.

The ladies in the meantime were active. They brought their sewing machines and goods to the Temperance Hall, and made up $60 worth of new clothing. Being appointed a committee to take charge of these supplies and distribute them to the sufferers, I proceeded to the burned district. At Green Bay I found the Relief Committee hard at work. At Marinette I found many sufferers severely burned, but doing well under the skillful treatment of Drs. Jones and Brunschweiler, surgeons in charge, who kindly favored me in my work and with information, for which they will please accept my thanks. I left at this hospital $80 in money with the sufferers, which was received with hearts too full for utterance. They were much in need of bandages and hospital supplies.

VISIT TO PESHTIGO AND THE SUGAR BUSH.

O God! what a scene met my gaze on every side. Here came the crisis of the storm; here the fiery elements, controlled by a tornado and a whirlwind, made war on human hopes, hearts, and life. The half has not been told, nor ever can be.

The phenomena and results of this storm were mysteriously strange. In some places the forest trees lay in every imaginable position, while in others they were carried into windrows. They were mere sticks in the hands of a great power, slashing and whipping the earth, and then made fuel for the work of death. The fields, woods, barns, houses, and even the “air,” were on fire, while large balls of fire were revolving and bursting in every direction, igniting everything they came in contact with; and the whole of this devouring element was driven before a tornado at the rate of a mile a minute. There can be little doubt that the air, strongly charged with electricity, helped on the work of destruction and death. Mr. Kirby says he saw large balls of fire in the air, and when they came in contact with anything, they would bound thirty or forty rods away. Others testify that they saw large clouds of fire burst into fragments, and in some instances great tongues of fire like lightning would issue from these dark clouds and light upon the buildings. Pennies were melted in the pockets of persons who were but little burned. A small bell upon an engine, and a new stove, both standing from twenty to forty feet from any building, were melted.

Near Mr. Hill’s farm, in the Upper Bush, is an ox half burned up, while two rods from him was another, dead, but not even scorched. The barn of Mr. Hill was burned, full of hay and grain, also a fence ten feet off, yet a double wagon which stood between the fence and barn was not scorched, or even the appearance of fire upon it. This phenomenon is true everywhere. Wherever the force of the storm swept along, it burned up and melted everything in its way. There was no escape. There is no wonder that so many burned, but that one is left to tell the fearful tale of that awful night of anguish, fire, and death. Fourteen persons were burned but a few rods from Mr. Hill’s house, and some thirty horses, thirty-five sheep, twenty hogs, and several head of cattle. In the Lower Bush they found eighty persons dead on six acres, and one hundred within two miles in the Upper Bush. The loss of life is not less than five hundred in the Bush, and from three to five hundred at Peshtigo.

Many thought the “great day of His wrath” had come. And why should they not? If persons who visit the ruins since the fire are forced to think that God hid his face in wrath and sent forth his thunderbolts of destruction; nay, that he gave the very fiends of hell the right and power to shake the place and burn it up, what must have been the feelings of those who passed through the fiery ordeal?

The most of those that can are returning to their farms. But they need aid at Peshtigo and in the Bush. Although three weeks had passed since the fire, yet they had no stoves, no axes, no bedding, no blankets, no provisions (except as dealt out in rations), and but very poor clothing (old.) But with ample supplies that have been given, and are still coming in from millions of noble hearts, their wants will no doubt soon be supplied.