Terrible Disaster in Holyoke by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 3, 1875

Terrible Disaster in Holyoke.

By Uriah Smith

THE French Catholic church, in Holyoke, Mass., was destroyed by fire during the evening service, May 27. The drapery around the Virgin Mary took fire from a burning candle, and almost immediately the whole building was enveloped in flames. The passage ways were at once choked up by the panic-stricken and frantic crowd, and seventy-five perished and many more were injured before they could be rescued. So rapid was the work of destruction that in twenty minutes the building was a mass of ruins.

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