The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 1, 1900, Page 13

- Pages 0 * - . § : : i § 022 JEIREBNEIEIEN PHOHE FOX SXOXOAONS HPAPHPRO N SAN FRANCISCO, SUNDAY, JULY 1, IG LINERS BURNED AND SCORES OF 1900—THIRTY-TWO PAGES. goom’ FGRGEOE SEOLO HOR SXOXOXIRO40Q - : = * * * a * * - * b * > p - . BOXEPXPXBAIXINOE B % PHORIXIRILO%4D | I PRICE FIVE CENTS. HELPLESS PERSONS PERISH. Ten-Million Dollar Fire at the North German Lloyd Steamship Piers at Hoboken Attended by a Loss of Life Estimated at From 100 to 200—-Seamen Cremated in Blazing Vessels. B¢+ 0 0002020000000 0000006040600 00000-0006+4 e e e o ol e o R R S SR Y b e . € N i ot eie er of a outward line to the 1 600 to 1000 feet r great 2 dozen or more ts grasp. he loss of number estimate "p to midnight been recc 1 so badly b identific New York, City are d 1 eing brought. in by ured, gathered along the f udson River to conflagration ey can never always will ace in the vere enveloped ke through s, bursting as into the € The surface 1 with fic ne masses of freigt water 1 the doomed + ted in the mac re precious hum: atened or being s: the great ships. pall of smoke a great 1, enlarged to thrice the haze, glared like an mous eye as it slowly sank the west. Such was the tre- lous spectacle presented on ace of the Hudson River, d been some holiday pa- It was made tragic by the ion that in that smoke eath the turbid waters es had been lost or ores of 1 ere then in their last desperate struggle against death. The spectacle was witnessed by housands and thousands from feteieieieieieieiedeieieieiei et ODNS OF THE P R s 1pon every river craft that conld | @ ¥ T AT R TETRTREIECEADE T A THSES TS AR AT A AT AT AR R TR AR . s be secured for the purpos The X NEW YORK, July 1.—At 2:30 o’clock this (Sunday) morning, the North German Lloyd pier fire is 1 upon the banks of - th still burning brightly and, viewed from the New York side, presents a hrilliant spectacle. No estimate of ¥ almost as great as that » the loss of life falls below 100, The bodies on the deck and in the hold of the Saale will probably be re- e 3 g 3 covered by divers at once, but of the dozens who jumped into the North River, some will never be found 4 | gD W nn?’\’ pae ,!n » at all. The steamboat men lost are nearly all Germans and many have no friends or relatives in. this x | umphant . return - of - Admiral| } country. 'No attempt has yet been made to compile s list of the dead. ):| Dewey.- Looking up the river »* Up to 2 o'clock twenty-five bodies had been recovered. * | toward the burning ships and ¢ The World estimates the number of lives lost at 300. The Journal places the loss at 200. Other pa- ( | piers the scenre was a wonderful | / and tragic one of grandeur. The | @< ¥ ¥ KR ¥ TR RN ship Saaie had been towed down the river until she was just off Liberty, where she had gathered about her a ring of fireboats and: tugs, all fighting to save at least the hull of the deomed steamer. Flames still were leaping: from her portholes and rushing out of descent upon them escape was cut. off before they realized their awful position. The people on the piers jumped into the water to save thernselves, and scores of men huddled under the piers, clinging to the supports, only to be suffocated by the flames or to her cabins. At varying distances drop back into the water from about the burning ships lay coal fexhaustion: > cotton - barges, all ablaze, Men working - on .the ships each with one or more tugs play- | were shut in by walls of flame ing streams of water upon it.|and it was imp;ws.:xl)le to reach Some of these barges and light- ers were loaded with very inflam-~ mable stuff, and the flames leaped in the air, while the heat was! fic that it was not possible to use only the small hose of the tug. them. - It will probably never be known how many perished in the ships, as the flames were so fierce they would leave very few rem nants of the human body. The greatest loss of life’ ap- pears to hate been on the Saale. She carried 250 people, and was to have sailed for Boston this af- ternoon,- When the police boat Captain went aboard of her with his rescue party he saw bodies lying all: about the deck. The ship Bremen carried a crew of 300, the Main 2350, and if as many lives were lost on the Bremen and Main as on the Saale, the number of lives lost will be very great. Then, also, many perished on: the piers, the canal-boats and lighters. SO ter Soon one by one these al- tars of fire were slowly consumed, most of them burning down to the water’s edge. Along the Jer- sey shore small fires were blaz- ing, started the . wreckage from the great steamships. On this side of the river the fire caused the greatest excite- ment; as the drifting steamships and barges floated, all aflame, to the New York shore and crashed against the piers from Canal to Murray streets... The Fire ‘De- partment was called out at vari- ous points -along the fhreatened sections, and the spectacle . pre- | sented of the firemen ‘on:shore trying to fight fires; -at - everyi minute changing their situation.|Island and - Governors Island. For hours the river was crowd-| Each of these craft will add some- er with small boats hastening tothing fo the list-of the dead. the scene of the disaster or. al-| - The loss to the North German ready taking part in the rescue of | Lloyd docks alone is placed at the hundreds who had leaped|$2,000,000. - The ~value of the into the river when seized by the ! great quantities of cotton; oil and terror of the flames. These boats | various other ~merchandise on were paddled here and there, butj the docks has not been esti- soon their occupants had noth- | mated. - The loss to.the North ing to do but to watch the mad | German Lloyd Steamship Com- sweep of the flames. Those who | pany alone will had plunged into the water had |close to $10,000,000, as the Bre- either been rescued or had gone | men, the Main and the Saale to the bottom. ,!\\‘ere almost totally destroyed. There were hundreds of men|The Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse on each of the destroyed stcam-|was somewhat damaged. ' The | ships and a few women. Crowds | five-story houses of the Campbell |of dock laborers and also em-|Company were greatly damaged, | ployes of the companies were on!the loss on one building alone | the piers. Men, women and ¢hil- | being’ placed at $1,500,000. The by niains of canal-boats, lighters and barges are scattered all the way down the river and bay to Staten The burning or smoldering re- | | immediately made fast to the big Kaiser | probably come | pers place the number of dead at from 100 to 250. | ber of small buildings in Hobo- I ken were destroyed along the wharves, with their contents, but be obtained. ! Burned to Water's Edge. { From what ¢an be learned to-night flames gtarted among a large pile’of cot- ton bales on pler 2 of the North German Lloyd Steamship Company and spread with such remarkable rapidity that in fif- 1 teen ‘minutes the entire property of the company. taking in over a third of a mile of ‘water: fron. and consisting of great plers, was completely enyeloped in fire. The - flames started so suddenly and gained such headway that the people on the: piers and on the numerous vessels docked were unabl 0. reach the street. { There were great gangs of workmen on the plers, and these, together with a num- T 0f people who were at the docks on | business and visiting the ships, scattered | in all directions. As all means of exit | was cut off by the flames = they - were | foreed to jump overboard, and it is be- | lieved a great number ', of = people were drowned. At the docks of the North German Loyd were the Saale, a single- screw passenger steamship of 4965 gross; tons the Bremen, a twin screw passen- | mer and freight steamer of 10,528 tons, and | the Main, a_twin-screw. freight and pas- “scnger steamship of 10,500 gross tons. | They all caught fire and were burned to | the water's edge. The Kalser Wilhelm | der Grosse, which had just came in, was the .only one of the four big vessels at | the dock that escaped. Great Loss Among Crews. |/ The loss to the crews of these vessels |1s said to reach a hundred. The fire. was first discovered by a | watehman on the pier at 4 o'clock. He |saw ‘a small streak of flames shoot |from & ‘bale of .cotton ' on. - pler | at: which' was docked the steamer | Saale. '~ He immediately sent in ‘af {alarm. In a few minutes the flames had extended to the ship and were com- | municated to “the adjoining. pier on the I north. Here were docked the Kaiser Wil- helm der Grosse and the Main. Tugs were Withelm der. Grosse and she was got out into the midstream with safety, al- | though badly scorched at the bows. The ship Main, however, was doomed, as the [ flames had: already ‘become so fierce on the north side of the pier that no tug | could approach the vessel. Then by a shift in the wind the flames | were sent in the direction of pier No. 1, which was {o the south end of pier No. 2. {To the north of pier No. 1 was the dock of | the Hamburg-American line, at which the | steamship Phoenicia, 8 twin screw pas- | senger steamer of 6761 gross tons, was | docked. The flames got a good hold on | the Phoenicia and she was towed out into | midstream ablaze. | Dock Blown Up. | The fire had by this time become so | flerce that the officials of the Hamburg- | Americau line decided that the only way | to prevent a total destruction of their | great pier was to blow up the side of the dock at which the Phoenicia lay, and this {was done. A number of barges docked 1 at the pler also took fire, but in the effort 'm save the. other property no attention | was paid to them and they were allowed | to ourn. | It is feared that the loss of life in the | hold of the vessels was frightful, as it is ! said that many of the crews whe were | asleep at the time were fmprisoned there. { The worst tale will come from the Main, | which was unable to be towed from the | pier. L e woptei e} only arrived this morning ]and some of the passengers were still on | board, and when the cry of fire was raised a number of them were seen to run to the both shores and by other thou- dren were on the canal boats and | Thingvalla pier was burned, and |burning decks. Most of them jumped over- sands who crowded upon every | men on the barges and' lighters, | the dock of the Hamburg-Ameri- ferry-boat, every excursion boat, | and when the fire made its quick ] can line suffered greatly. A num- d, and save for the few who were ,plcked up by the tugs not one has been heard from, although every hospital and hotel In the city of Hoboken is crowded THE NORTH GERMAN LLOYD STEAMSHIP. SAALE, UNDER CHARTER TO THE CHRISTIAN ENDEAV- ORERS, -BURNED. TO THE WATER'S EDGE. REY OF THE DEVOURING FLAMES. 34000V ¢O 0Ot I TP GE T4 OIS0 00060000090 006000000-0beede i e R S S N ® B e R o e S N e e S e | no idea of the value of these can | | three | saw about thirty people crowded i | | § f x| 3 o with fjured the Main tried to escape to the plers, and | it was almost certain that they perished | in the flames: ; : Panic on the Ships. There was a panic on each of the ships.| Many persons jumped overboard, and.the water for some distance along the docks was lined with people. They were cling- | Ing to the plers and even to the rudders | fully burned and his arm was useless, but the | of the burning vessels. Some were picked | he treaded water and floated so skillfully Peter Quinn, a | that they drifted down the river and a tug The man who toid the story said he fainted after being res- | up, many were drowned. Justice of the Peace, tells a story of hav- ing seen at least thirty people perish. He sald: | “I was standing on the end of one of | the Hamburg-American line piers and | unde; Pler No, 1 ¢f the North German Lioyd. They were calling to some of the passing tughoats, but their appeals were in vain and when the flames got near them they dived into the water. There was na as- sistance near them at the time, and I be- Heve that every one either -drowned or perished in the flames.”’ About two hundred people were rescued | at - the Hamburg-American line pier. | They were much overcome from exhaus- tion, but soon revived with stimulants. Gained Rapid Headway. When the fire broke our such headway | was gained by the time the Hoboken Fire Department arrived that they were ut- terly helpless to cope with the flames. | Calls were made to the New York Fire | Department for assistance, and fire tugs were sent over. These, however, had lit- tle effect on the great mountain of flame i and smoke. i By 7 o'clock the three plers of the | North German Lioyd Company had been | burned to the ground. The south end of the Campbell Storage | Company ~ building, consisting of five | five-story _structures, caught fire, and flames shot from every window of the two floors in but a few minutes. The | buildings, being filled mainly with jute| and whisky, burned rapidly. The firemen were unable to go within fighting dis- tance, and the fire had pretty much of | its own way there. In these buildings great loss will be sustained. | The steamships Saaie and Bremen, | after being pulled free from the docks, were towed ablaze down the bay and beached off Liberty Island. On the Bremen, as she blazed out in mid- stream, six men could be seen with their | heads out of portholes waving handker- | chiefs for assistance. Tughoats and smali boats darted around the big steamshins making every effort to save the men, but | the terrible heat from the flames kept them away. Some Exciting Incidents. The saving of the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse was attended with exciting inci- dents. It seemed as if it would never be possible to get her clear, and the fire was spreading so rapidly that it threatened at almost any moment to break out on the | big ship. The great hawsers in the confu- | sion could not be handled well and axes were brought into use to chop them, re- leasing the vessel. She was towed out into midstream and then far up the river. Her bows were slightly burned. Five minutes after the fire broke out a. woman jumped from one of the ships in a vain effort to reach the water. The flames drove her from the ship and she plunged heedlessly In_the direction it seemed safety lay. She leaped into a burning lighter alongside the ship, and when an | officer on board the ship, who stood by the doomed vessel, saw her and realized | what would be her fate he plunged down | after her, hoping to drag her out of the burning lighter into the water. He fol- lowed her within a couple of scconds and both went down into the flames in the lighter and perished. . . Flames Driven by the Wind. The rapid spread of the flames is ac- counted for by the shifting of the wind. ‘When the fire first broke out the wind was blowing strongly from the south. This drove the flames across to the pier above the one on which it started. Within a few moments the wind shifted almost directly to the opposite point. Under the great pavilion on the land end the flames were ENTRANCE TO PIER Some of the passengers of ' ¥ | fered from smoke inhaled. NO. 1, KEN, N. L. absolute control. Had not the re- to dynamite been taken to destroy burg-American piler the flames ve gone on. All the fireboats and the harbor would not have stopped them. The flames in the cotton kept the fire at | an intense heat, and the firemen suffered greatly. Again and again it seemed as if they must abandon the fight. The van- tage points at'which they could attack the flames were few and their efforts were necessarily hampered. The smoke which poured out of the flumes’ and ascended high into the air hlew almost directly eastward and main- tafned fts column for a distance of about Seventy miles, as it was seen clearly be- yond Babylon, L. L One Heroic Rescue. Orie ‘mian~‘in ‘the : hospital with burned hands and face was res: man.more severely- burned -than himself. He sald he was helpless in the water when the: other thréw'an arm about him and bupyed him up. The other’s face was fear- went to their rescue. cued. and did not know if his rescuer had also been taken cut of the water. Some of those who went into the water and were rescued and but slightly injured say that when others were caught between the fire and water and saw death coming they went insane. Men babbled of home and friends during the few brief moments that they and the others faced death. The fear of the furnace which lay between them and the land bereft them of their senses. There were acts of cowardice as well as of heroism. Men clung to others and refused to let go, even though the act { meant death to both. One of the survivors was seized by another man, who clung to him frantically and refused to let go. The man; who was later saved, had to beat his compagion into insensibility before he | could lcosen his hold and plunge into the water. When the Hoboken firemen reached the fire at first they set out to conflne it to the pler on which it started. They got | their lines out ¢n the two adjoining, and | even ran their apparatus out to pump from the river. When the flames spread the hose on the pier was lost. Some of the apparatus narrowly escaped being consumed, and as it. was one hosecart and its horses were burned. Later Jersey City stripped itself of all the hose possible and sent it to the Ho- | With | boken firemen in a wagon for use. this streams were later got on the fire, but it was then under control, having burned itself out. Rascued From the Saale. The steamer Saale drifted down to the Battery about 6:3) o'clock. She was ablaze and her crew was on deci. tain Smith of the police boat put his men on a tug and ran to the burning ship. When the tug reached the Saale thirty- | seven of the latter's crew were taken off. Most of them were conscious. Some suf- Ambulances were called from Gouvernour, St. Vincen and Hudson-street hospitals. _Police pa- trol wagons were also called. The in- jured men were taken in these several conveyances to the different hospitals. All appear to be forelgners. None could talk English and not even their names were learned at the pier. While the crew was being taken off Captain Smith saw several bodies of men on the ship's deck. a second trip to the Saale all these corpses were submerged. ,The ship had in the meantime drifted to the Jersey shore and sunk in the mud off the flats. The patrolmen worked with grappling hooks for two hours in an effort to re- cover the bodies. They secured but two, apparently deck hands. They were burned bey#nd recognition, It Was a Terrible Sight. Captain Smith said he thought there were a number of bodles below in the Saale. > “When T got to the Saale on the first | trip with the tug.” he sald, “I saw sev- | eral men with their heads at the port- holes. They were stuck fast and could get no further out. The ship was gradu- ally sinking. It was a terrible sight. Some of the men called to us in their own tongue to ‘help them for God's sake.” Their struggles were something frantic. We could do nothing for them. The up- per part of the vessel was a living fur- nace. We tried to get the vrisoners out of the portholes, but the holes were even smaller than usual. I can even now hear the poor fellows crying in their despair as they saw us drawing away from them. “We heard cries of others back of the portholes. They seemed to be struggling NORTH GERMAN LLOYD, ed by another Cap- | When the tug made | i HOBO- D B e o N I B i o B for what little air and respite the holes | gave those already there. It was terrible. We saw one woman at a porthole. J | lames were rapidly approaching & | was said to be a stewardes . {on the tug handed her a small hose and | she played it about her stateroom for a | few. moments. They were serious mo- | ments. My God, how that woman fought {for her life! She might as w. have | poured a teacupful of water on to a It | Ing volcano for all the good it did. She | had no possible chance. As she fought | the fire the ship sank steadily and her | strusgles were stopped by an inrush of water as the ,porthole sank below | surface.” | THe steamship was to have sailed for | Boston during tne afterncon. The om- | clals of the steamship think the less of | life probably 1 greatest on the Saale. They place the number at from thirty to fifty and say the majority of the victims were employed as firemen and coal pass- | ers. Could Not Be Saved. A member of the crew of rebe Ve of the fireboat “The fire made it impossible to get to the steerage of the Saale. We tried next to get the people out through the port- | holes. There seemed to be forty or fifty of them. There were men, women and children. One woman in particular as. tracted out attention. She kept calling to the others not to give up hope—that we would save them. “Her face was torn and bruis he: she had been erymg fo et our of ne small porthole. Finding it impossible to get the poor people, we handed cups of water to some of them who cried for o drink for God's sake. Just before the ship went down a tug drew alongside with a Roman Catholic priest aboard. He callad to the people, who seemed to be mostly | of his faith, and with uplifted hands i parted absolution to them Just as the ship j went down and the water rushed in at | the portholes, drowning them like rats | The cries of the people as the lpound in was something terrible.” During all the time the steamshin Main lay at the burning docks with the flerce flames playing all about her, the flames from the docks licking her sides and warping her plates and the flames in her cargo eating away her interio Sixteen men lived on board of her. Wk | she was hauled out from between the jburnlng docks at 11 o'clock last night the men were still alive. They made the selves known half an hour later wh the wreck of the ship was beached ar Shady Side. One of them is blinded by the heat they underwent, but the rest ars alive and as well as can be expe These men were all coal passers. When the fire broke out they were trimming coal in the coal bunkers. —— FEW PASSENGERS | SHOULD EIAVE PERISHED According to Robert Capelle, the agent of the North German Lloyd in this city, there Is little probability of any cons | able number of passengers having lost their lives, as there should have been few if any on board of either of the ships of his line burned. The Bremen arrived on June 25, and was due to sail again on July 5. Several per- sons from Honolulu were on her passen- | ger list for this frip, and for the next— July 3l—over 100 from San Francisco had secured passage. | The Main arrived from Bremen at § p. m. on the %5th inst., and was to sail | again July 3. | The Saale was under charter to a party | of Christian Endeavor people, and was to | sail at a date fixed by them, presumably | just atter the Fourth. as she was due to on her return trip from Bre o | New “York on July 17. "It 1s hardly seote: | ble that any of her passengers were al- | ready on board. Herman Oelrichs was formerly general American agent of the North German | Lioyd, but retired some time since, and | Gustave Schwab is now at the head of the | ageney. The North German Lloyd is one of the largest steamship companies in the world. | Its fleet numbers sixty-nine ocean steam- ers and thirty-six eoasting steamers, with a gross tonnage of 410200 tons, besides river steamers, lighters, ctc. It makes its | calls at every important port in the world. e Fire at Denver. DENVER, June 3).—The electrieal works and machine-shop of Frint & Lomax were ed by fire this afterncon to the | extent of $15,000. s - — | ,SUISUN, June 30.—Fire occurred near Rlo Vista to-day, destroyi sgventy-five [lcmv(mhllndlu T, the prop- erty of Peter Cook.