The wind blew fast across St. John’s, Newfoundland on a hot summer afternoon.
It was a day like any other.
Until it wasn’t.
At a barn atop Carter’s Hill, a lit pipe, placed too close to the edge of a table, was about to change the course of history for the Atlantic port city.
All it took was one spark, in a pile of hay, to unleash a wild and untamed beast that lit up the sky that as it tore through the sun-drenched coastal houses.
By dawn, two-thirds of the city had become ashes and thousands were homeless.
I’m Craig Baird and this is Canadian History Ehx and in our fourth and final story focusing on Newfoundland, we are traveling to the end of the 19th century to an event that levelled and reshaped the city.
This is The Great Fire of St. John’s.
Fire!
Throughout history, the word has sparked panic in cities across the globe.
So much so that falsely yelling the word in a crowded place is illegal and considered dangerous because it potentially could cause serious injury or death.
One flame, left to its own devices, can easily level a city, like it did Los Angeles last year.
St. John’s was also under threat as wildfires roared close to Newfoundland and Labrador’s largest city.
But fires are nothing new for The Port City going as far back as the early 19th century when a fire broke out in a house near the harbour on Feb. 12, 1816, which spread quickly, fueled by e dry conditions and the numerous wooden buildings.
By the time it was under control, 120 homes were destroyed and 1,000 people were homeless.
The city rebuilt, but the disaster struck again as two fires seven days apart in December 1817 reduced over 300 buildings to ashes.
The Montreal Gazette wrote quote.
“Providence to suffer, in the course of the present winter, it will be easily conceived, and therefore unnecessary to point out, that various forms of misery must exist at the approaching season, in so severe a climate amongst a crowded population, thus deprived of shelter and property. “Only two years later, another terrible fire destroyed at least 130 houses.
For those keeping track…. that’s four devastating fires in as many years.
But then…The city was given a reprieve from destruction for the next three decades, until June 9, 1846, and what happened that day was worse than any of the previous disasters.
Hamlin was living in St. John’s as a cabinetmaker.
He was working in his shop when a pot of glue boiled over and started a small flame.
Before long, it had engulfed the shop and then spread to other buildings.
At the time, St. John’s was a major producer of seal oil, and it was well stocked by merchants in the city as it helped fuel the local economy.
As it turned out, it would also fuel an inferno when the fire reached their stockpiled barrels and they exploded.
To stop the raging fire, firefighters blew up a house on Walter Street to create a firebreak.
Instead, they scattered embers that blew across the city.
By the time it was put out 2,000 buildings were destroyed, including every mercantile warehouse except one.
Over 12,000 people, 57 percent of the city, were left homeless and it claimed the lives of an artillery man and two civilians.
One who was trying to gather his possessions from his burning house.
The second was an imprisoned man who was in the courthouse jail when the building burned to the ground.
The Montreal Gazette reported,
“From the long drought, the wooden tenements of which the streets were entirely composed, were dry as tinder, and the fire extended rapidly.”
And yet…it wasn’t the worst fire the city would see in its history…
That wouldn’t happen for another 50 years. [BEAT]
Since 1846 St. John’s had matured into a major coastal city as ships left the harbour, and the Grand Banks fed the British Empire.
The growth saw a change in the skyline as The Colonial Building, which became the seat of government for the island, opened in 1850.
The George Street United Church was built in 1873, followed by St. Patrick’s Church in 1881 followed by the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in 1885.
By the 1890s, the city’s population was booming, and homes were built quickly and close together as land was at a premium.
However, fire and safety codes were non-existent, while the fire department which was made up of volunteers was disorganized and inefficient as crews were inconsistent and high turnover made training difficult.
To make matters worse, their equipment, if there was any provided by the city, was mediocre at best…if it was available at all.
Old-timers talked of past fires that had once ravaged St. John’s but young people, scoffed at the idea of another great fire happening ever again.
Everyone assumed that after 1846, the local government would make sure the city was safer.
There were recommendations for homes to be built farther apart, with wider streets and established fire breaks.
But if you have listened to this show before, you know that political leaders too often ignore the advice of experts.
Not surprisingly, this is what happened in St. John’s.
In early July 1892 the local fire department conducted a rarely occurring a drill.
As I mentioned earlier, the fire department was made up of volunteers who couldn’t take time off work to practice and lose a day off.
But on this day, those who attended the drill, practiced spraying water on a deliberately set fire from a 113,650-litre water tank that was only 70 metres from a barn owned by Timothy Brine.
It is very important you remember these details.
When training was done the volunteer firefighters went home.
They were either too tired, or simply negligent, either way they forgot to refill the tank.
Everyone assumed someone else had done it.
It would take a week for them to realize the magnitude of their mistake and by then it would be too late.
– MIDROLL-
On July 8, 1892, people in St. John’s woke up to a day like every other and filled with the usual hustle and bustle as children went off to school; fishermen went out on the waves, and the city restaurants were filled with patrons.
The narrow streets, built like European cities with no grid system, were crowded.
Backyards were nonexistent. A person could reach out their window and touch their neighbour’s houses which were all mostly made of wood.
(small beat)
Meanwhile at city hall, Municipal Council Chairman Thomas Mitchell sent out an order to staff warning that the water supply was to be shut off for the morning so workers could lay down new pipes.
He neglected to tell the rest of council, or even the city engineer about this.
Mitchell didn’t think he needed to. After all, the water supply would be turned back on by 3 p.m.
However, he also didn’t consider the hot summer day ahead as temperatures pushed over 30 degrees Celsius.
With no air conditioning in existence yet, people cooled off the best that they could.
Mercifully, a brisk wind helped but it would soon be a problem.
At around 4:45 p.m., on a small farm atop Carter’s Hill along Freshwater Road, Timothy Brine was finishing up his day in his barn.
He often worked while puffing on tobacco from his pipe. It helped him focus but that late-afternoon, he put his pipe on a table.
Distracted by the task at hand didn’t realize he had placed it in a precarious position on the edge.
And then…. he walked out of the barn for the day.
With the gentle push of destiny or maybe even the wind…the lit pipe fell on the dry hay below.
A few minutes later, Patrick Fitzpatrick was walking by when he smelled smoke.
It didn’t take him long to realize where it was coming from as flames were licking the side of the building. Patrick ran to free the cows and horses.
There was little else he could do and the entire barn was engulfed within minutes.
He barely escaped with his own life.
By 5 p.m., word of the fire had reached the St. John’s Central Fire Hall, but firefighters arrived 30 minutes later, to find fire had already spread to other structures.
But they weren’t worried. There was that large water tank on Brine’s farm!
All they had to do was hook up their hoses and point the water at the fire.
That was when the firefighters realized no one had refilled the tank.
Ah! Not to worry! They could use the fire hydrants!
Firefighters hooked up their hoses expecting a gush of water and instead felt a small trickle that barely sprayed their feet… after all water supply had been turned off to lay new pipes that day.
It had been promised to return at3 p.m., but pressure was still too low to force water up the hill to the fire.
Firefighters had only one weapon in their arsenal left.
A firebreak!
All they needed were hatchets and axes which the city had failed to provide.
They also didn’t have any grappling hooks, and when Head Constable Joseph O’Reilly went looking for something to haul down a building, all he found in the fire station was a single rope.
O’Reilly said days later,
“It was a very old one and broke almost immediately. It was useless for the purpose for which it was intended.”
If human error and negligence weren’t enough… Nature then also conspired against St. John’s as that brisk wind that had helped cooled down the city earlier, picked up steam and spread embers further and further away Local business leader W.J. Kent said,
“Flames made headway before water was procurable and, as a very high westerly wind was furiously fanning the fire, it began to spread rapidly.”
What should have been a minor fire was quickly burning out of control and in less than an hour there would be no containing its destructive force as it traveled down Carter’s Hill until it reached the intersection of Harvey Road and Long’s Hill.
Residents rushed to grab whatever valuables they could from their homes and then escaped to the great cathedrals but then the fire tore through them as well.
The Anglican Cathedral was so badly damaged it took a decade to repair, and Bishop Lleweyn Jones described what he saw on that deadly day quote,
“With one fearful rush the demonic fire seized upon the doomed cathedral, a gem of Gothic architecture, the masterpiece of Sir Gilbert Scott and the pride of every Newfoundlander, was a seething mass of flame. With a crash, heard even above the din of the elements the roof fell in, and the result of the labours and offerings of thousands for many years vanished in a cloud of smoke and dust.”
The inferno entered the downtown core at 8pm four hours after it had started.
By then the telegraph office had succumbed to the flames, and the city was cut off from the rest of the world.
To ensure word still got out about the disaster, telegraph operators ran to a safe area and tapped the wires manually to send out messages as the fire raged on.
Reverend Moses Harvey described the destruction as quote.
“The beautiful shops, full of valuable goods; the stores behind, containing thousands of barrels of flour and provisions of all kinds; the fish stores; the wharves, which it had cost immense sums to erect, disappeared one by one into the maw of the destroyer.”
To escape the embers floating through the air, ships and boats sailed out to sea as they watched the harbour wharves be engulfed by the blaze Every road in the city was jammed as people tried to escape and screams echoed over the roaring fire and crumbling buildings The Telegraph-Journal wrote,
“As building after building went down before the ruthless destroyer, the people of St. John’s saw with horror that those structures which they had regarded as almost essential to the existence of their city, were doomed to destruction.”
From the water the glow of the fire in the distance could be seen, as it lights up the sky.
W.J. Kent said that very few were able to sleep after the horror they were witnessing Ashore, those who took shelter at Bannerman Park and the Roman Catholic Cathedral prayed that the winds wouldn’t shift and drive the flames back towards them.
As morning broke on July 9, the fire had finally been brought under control.
By then, Two-thirds of the city was in ruins, and 11,000 were homeless.
The English Episcopal and Roman Catholic Cathedrals, which had cost $500,000, to build were now nothing but ruins.
The Orange Hall, St. Patrick’s Hall, Supreme Court Building, Police Headquarters, Government Savings Bank and the Christian Brothers’ School were all gone too.
W.J. Kent said
“When morning broke the thick clouds of smoke still ascended from the burning ruins, and it was hours before it had cleared sufficiently to admit a view of the track of the desolating scourge.”
As Reverend Harvey walked through the city he saw nothing but utter devastation. Only chimneys and blackened walls, barely stood in place and waited to fall.
The fire caused $13 million in damages, one-third of which was covered by insurance.
The only good news was this beast had only claimed three lives [PAUSE]
A Fire Relief Committee was organized two days later to handle the disaster response.
So many were homeless, and living in temporary accommodations in any large public spaces including Bannerman Park committee helped people find employment or receive training for new jobs.
It also distributed the huge amounts of food, clothing and other items that had been sent from Canada, Britain and the United States.
Newfoundland and Labrador Governor T.N. Brine raised $113,705 in donations, while the British government provided an additional $72,000.
Boston, donated $16,000.
An editorial in the Halifax Herald stated,
“Our sister city is in ruins. Thousands of our fellow subjects are homeless. They must not starve for lack of bread. They need our assistance. Can we deny them?”
Canada immediately sent HMS Blake loaded with tents, food and clothes to the island. With most of the harbour destroyed, ships had to shuttle supplies in by smaller boats. The Montreal Star wrote,
“Newfoundland with St. John’s destroyed is about in the same position that Britain would be for the munitions of war if Woolwich were in the hands of the enemy.”
As the city dealt with the impact of the latest fire, municipal leaders finally decided to ensure such a disaster would never happen again.
Gone where the volunteer firefighters as the city reorganized the entire department as they hired 22 paid firefighters and built three new fire stations.
A mixed fire and police force was also created, all under the command of the Inspector General. These recommendations came from Judge D.W. Prowse, who had been tasked with investigating the fire and released a report.
“The Fire Department is under the control and management of the Municipal Council, and the universal experience of every one present at the late fire was that the Fire Department was a starved, mismanaged, rotten institution. If this department is ever left again in the same hands, all I can say is that we deserve to be burnt.”
Amid the ruins of that day something else was born… a city’s unique style.
When it came time to rebuild, the city turned to architect John Thomas Southcott.
The Southcott family had a lot of experience rebuilding cities.
John’s father and uncle had arrived from England after the 1846 fire to help rebuild the city and over the next 50 years the family had become one of Newfoundland’s most well-known contractors.
In 1876, John followed in the family footsteps by going to England to study architecture and returned in 1876.
With him, he brought an affinity for what was known as the Second Empire style which included dormer windows, mansard roofs, elaborate ornamentation and Renaissance designs for public buildings and large homes.
After the great fire, John Southcott designed so many buildings in the city that the Second Empire style was rebranded the Southcott style.
He also changed the city’s layout.
With so much of the city decimated, gone were the narrow streets.
They were replaced with nice wide streets and homes were built further apart to offer extra fire protection as a grid system was set up. Today, many of the heritage buildings that now stand in St. John’s date from after the 1892 fire.
*sources*
Newfoundland Heritage: https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/politics/st-johns-fire-1892.php
Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/046295a0
CBC: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/great-fire-125-st-johns-1.4194546
Dictionary of Canadian Biography: https://www.biographi.ca/en/topics/topic-match-list.php?id=2185
