The story of Detroit / by George B. Catlin.

HISTORIC CONFLAGRATIONS

549

that the firemen working in Third Street were all badly singed.
Their clothing was burned and their faces seared, but in spite
of entreaties of the bystanders they stood at their posts until
a quantity of benzine exploded in an adjoining warehouse.
James R. Elliott, then a pipeman, and later a chief of the fire
department for whom one of the fire boats is named, was badly
disfigured and nearly lost his life before he could be dragged
from the wreckage of the explosion.
One of the most appalling fires occurred April 26, I866,
when the Brush Street depot and much adjoining property was
destroyed. The ferryboat Windsor was unloading a cargo of
merchandise at the dock while a gang of freight handlers was
loading a car with 25 barrels of naphtha. Beside the freight
car which was being loaded with naphtha stood a passenger
train full of people which was to leave at 1 P.M. A barrel of
naphtha was observed to be leaking badly and a man started to
examine it with a lighted lantern in his hand. There was a
violent explosion, which scattered blazing naphtha in all directions. The naphtha in the car caught instantly and the barrels
began exploding. Soon the adjoining buildings, the ferryboat
and the passenger train were all wrapped in flames.
Several of the men plunged into the river to extinguish their
saturated clothing and about 35 took refuge on the ferryboat as
their only avenue of escape. The flames were so fierce that the
people on the boat were unable to cast off the mooring line and
by the time it had burned in two the boat itself was ablaze.
It drifted down the river, coming into contact with several
boats at the Woodward Avenue wharf, and but for the prompt
arrival of several tugs several of those steamboats would have
been destroyed. The ferryboat Detroit went to the rescue of the
Windsor passengers, assisted by several people who put out in
rowboats, but 17 persons who had fled to the hold were burned
to death. The revenue cutter yohn Sherman engaged in the
rescue of fire-trapped men who had jumped into the river. The
passenger train in the station was blocked by a freight train
ahead of it and some of the passengers were already in their
sleeper berths, but the porter dragged them forth and rushed