1860 — Jan 10, building collapse and fire, Pemberton Cotton Mills, Lawrence, MA –90-145

— 90-145 Blanchard note: We show 90-145 deaths in that we are unable to determine from the sources below that one number or a smaller range is definitive. Neither Smith nor Snow cite a source for their use of 88 as the number of deaths. Celebrate Boston does cite a source for its estimate of 90 deaths, while noting it “highly probable that more people were killed” and that “some of the people seriously injured may have later died as a result of the disaster.” We do not use the number of 169 deaths speculatively noted by Celebrate Boston in that while they note “The death toll could have been as high as 169,” there is no explanation for how this specific number was derived or from where. We do not use the high-end of the Childs range (117-200) in that it apparently includes almost all of the 89 people he notes as missing – his reported death toll of 117 plus 89 missing equals 206.

–117-200 Childs. A History of the United States…1492 to the Year 1885. 1886, p. 170.*
— 169 Celebrate Boston. “Victim List, Pemberton Mill Collapse.”*
— <145 Historic Ipswich. “Pemberton Mill in Lawrence collapses and burns…Jan 10, 1860.” -- 90-145 New England Historical Society. “The Pemberton Mill Disaster.” -- 145 New York Times. “The Fall of The Pemberton Mill.” April 18, 1886. -- 145 Wikipedia. “Pemberton Mill.” -- >120 Celebrate Boston. Boston Disasters. “Pemberton Mill Collapse, 1860.”
— >115 American Almanac and Repository…for the Year 1861. Vol. 32, Vol. II, p. 407.
— >115 Noble, Richard E. “The Pemberton Mill Disaster of 1860.” 3-19-2008.
— 115 Willsey and Lewis. “Massachusetts,” Harper’s Book of Facts. 1895, p. 491.
— 100 Oickle, Alvin F. Disaster in Lawrence: The Fall of the Pemberton Mill. 2008, p. 11.
— 90 Celebrate Boston. “Victim List, Pemberton Mill Collapse.” Accessed 10-9-2021.
— 90 Weisberger, Bernard. “The Working Ladies of Lowell.” American Heritage, 12/2, 1961.
— 88 Smith. Dennis Smith’s History of Firefighting in America… 1978, p. 65.
— 88 Snow. Marine Mysteries and Dramatic Disasters of New England. 1976, p. 41.

*Blanchard on Childs. We do not use the Childs death-toll range of 117-200 in that the higher number includes people “missing” who were not included in the “official” toll of 117. Given the loss of income, it is quite conceivable that many former workers moved on.

*Celebrate Boston notes: “The death toll could have been as high as 169.”

Narrative Information

1890, Boston Globe: “What is likely the worst industrial accident in Massachusetts history occurred on January 10th 1860. A large mill located in Lawrence collapsed without warning… while 800 men, women and children were at work.” (Boston Globe, July 26, 1890.)

Celebrate Boston, Boston Disasters: “The Pemberton Mill building was five stories high, 84 feet wide, and 280 feet long. This huge structure was only 7 years old when it collapsed. The cause of the disaster was determined to be faulty iron pillars which supported the floors, and under-strength mortar which bonded the brick walls together.” (Celebrate Boston. Boston Disasters. “Pemberton Mill Collapse, 1860.”)

Celebrate Boston. Victim List: “The Pemberton Mill in Lawrence, Massachusetts collapsed on January 10, 1860. The debris was set on fire while trying to extricate people that were trapped in the ruins. Many people died in the fire after having survived the collapse.

“The death toll could have been as high as 169. Shortly after the disaster, former Lawrence Mayor John R. Rollins published a list of victims. For genealogical reasons, this list has been duplicated below. The death toll is set at 90 (76 dead and 14 missing), with 134 badly injured. A large number of those killed were young women, of Irish descent. It highly probable that more people were killed, and are not listed below. Many of the victims were Irish immigrants and may have had no relatives in the United States. Also, some of the people seriously injured may have later died as a result of the disaster.” [Provides listings of Dead (76), Missing or Unidentified (14), and Badly Injured (134).]

(Celebrate Boston. “Victim List, Pemberton Mill Collapse.”)

Childs: “On the afternoon of the 10th of January, a serious disaster occurred at Lawrence, Mass. The main building of the Pemberton Cotton Mills, one of the largest structures of the kind in the country, while the machinery was in motion suddenly fell without warning, burying in the ruins several hundreds of the operatives. Strenuous efforts were made to secure the victims, and many were saved; but at nine o clock in the evening the ruins took fire from the accidental breaking of a lantern used by one of those engaged in the work of aiding the sufferers. The flames spread with such rapidity as to render it impossible to save those who were shut up among the fallen timbers and machinery, and large numbers were burned to death, in addition to those who were killed by the fallen building. According to a careful canvas of the city made a week after the disaster, the number known to be dead was one hundred and seventeen; there were eighty-nine missing, most of whom were supposed to be buried in the ruins; one hundred and twelve were severely, and two hundred slightly injured.” (Childs 1886, 170)

New England Historical Society: “On a wintry evening in 1860, textile workers in the huge Pemberton Mill in Lawrence, Mass., heard an odd rattle followed by a long, ear-splitting crash. Part of the building’s brick wall bulged and exploded, and then within seconds the mill collapsed. Tons of machinery fell through disintegrating floors, bringing screaming millworkers with them. The collapsed building formed a pyramid 50 feet high, the Boston Journal reported. ‘The moans and cries for help of those in the ruins whose lives had not been immediately crushed out, mingled with an alarm rung out by the factory bells, called almost the entire community to the spot,’ reported the Journal. ‘Darkness lent additional horror to the scene, for while a thousand hands were ready to rescue it was impossible to know whence the calls for assistance came.’….

“Between 90 and 145 people were killed, and another 166 injured….

“The mill collapsed with 800 millworkers, mostly women and children, working inside. They were Yankees from Maine and New Hampshire as well as recent immigrants. More than half had come from Ireland during the potato famine, but natives of Scotland, Germany and Switzerland also perished.

“Dozens died within minutes of the factory’s collapse. More than 600 agonized workers could not escape the wreckage of twisted iron, smashed bricks and splintered beams….Rescuers took more than 200 people out of the building using ropes to move beams and pillars. The rescuers called out to the trapped workers and gave them water, coffee and encouragement. When the sun set, rescuers built bonfires to light their way. The fires revealed ‘faces crushed beyond recognition, open wounds in which the bones showed through a paste of dried blood, brick dust and shredded clothing.’

“Around 10 p.m. two men climbed through a crevice with lanterns to rescue a young woman. One of the lamps broke. The flames raced across the cotton waste and wood, some of it soaked with oil. The Boston Globe reported 14 people were burned to death in front of their loved ones, who could do nothing to help them. One man cut his own throat rather than burn to death. He survived, but later died of other injuries. By midnight the screams of the trapped and burning victims fell silent….

“A jury found Charles Bigelow responsible for the collapse because he allowed malformed cast-iron columns to support the structure. Bigelow claimed he didn’t know of any problems with the pillars. The original owners, he said, bought the building materials and approved their use. Bigelow did not go to prison; in fact, no one received any punishment for the preventable disaster.

“….After the Pemberton Mill collapsed, the owners completely rebuilt it. The mill still stands today.” (New England Historical Society. “The Pemberton Mill Disaster.”)

Noble: “On January 10th in 1860, at twilight, in the industrial mill town of Lawrence, Massachusetts, the massive five story, redbrick Pemberton Mill collapsed. More than 115 died in the disaster and estimates of injured range from 165 to 300. The factory employed between 800 and 1000 workers.” (Noble, Richard E. “The Pemberton Mill Disaster of 1860.” March 19, 2008.)

“A young girl named Mary Bannon who was trapped under debris handed over her paycheck to a girlfriend asking her friend to pass it on to her dad and say good-by for her. She knew she was about to die. A foreman, Mr. Maurice Palmer and several other men, slit their throats rather than wait to be consumed by the rapidly approaching flames. Mr. Palmer was miraculously rescued, but ended up dying from his self-inflicted wound. In the final moments the trapped victims sang church hymns until their voices faded one by one into the consuming flames and tragic darkness….

“Employees had long feared that the building was unsafe. Though massive in its construction the machines that it housed were equally massive. When all the machines were operating and especially when the looms chanced to be synchronized many workers claimed that the building actually rocked and swayed. The windows were said to be too large, thus weakening the walls. It was determined that the iron supports had casting defects. The mortar used to lay the brick walls was not the best but was not declared inadequate.

“Jesse Glover, overseer of repairs testified at the inquest that he had always considered the building weak. John B. Tuttle, superintendent of brick work testified that he had complained to the architect, Bigelow, that he thought the walls were insufficient. Mr. Bigelow in turn blamed the owners. Bigelow said that it was the owners who were responsible for all the purchasing and the approval of the iron castings.

“Though no precedent setting worker safety legislation resulted from the disaster or even more stringent rules for construction, an attitude was established. It was entrenched in the minds of the workers across America that greed motivated the wealthy and that workers should not be so foolish to look to the rich industrialist for their health, wealth, safety or security. The cause of fellowship, brotherhood, organization, and unionization were made stronger. Fellow workers lives, women, young girls and children, had been squandered, all for the sake of penny pinching savings in construction costs and cheap mortar. The blood of fellow struggling workers was wasted for the cause of greater production, higher profits, and a profitable corporate bottom line….

“The building was originally financed by John A. Lowell and his brother-in-law J. Pickering Putnam. It was built in 1853. The chief engineer was Charles H. Bigelow. The expense for the construction was $850,000 – a fortune for those times. Lowell and Putnam sold the building in 1858 to George Howe and David Nevins at a loss for $350,000. The new owners installed more machinery in the attempt to increase output and achieve greater profits. For some strange and foolish reason, the upper floors were especially burdened with extra heavy machinery. At the time of the collapse there were 2,700 spindles and 700 looms in operation. The mill earned $1,500,000 per year. Most of the workers were either Scotch or Irish Immigrants.” (Noble, Richard E. “The Pemberton Mill Disaster of 1860.” March 19, 2008.)

Smith: “The scene…the Pemberton Mill, a five-story fac¬tory where textiles were produced. According to a resi¬dent of Lawrence: “No mill in [this city] was better pro¬tected from fire, nor was any mill in the city considered more substantial or secure in any respect. In the opinion of all it was the model mill of the city. It was insured, at the lowest rate at which such property is taken…”

“Yet on January 10, 1860, the seemingly impossible happened. At 5:13 in the afternoon, with nearly seven hundred people at work in the main building, it simply collapsed. Five stories filled with workers and textile ma¬chinery crashed to the ground. Said the same resident: “Immediately a wail went forth from all beholders, which at a distance, was mistaken for a simultaneous cry of fire. The dust which rose upon the moist still atmosphere from the fallen walls, filling it like a cloud, favored this delu¬sion. The direction, to those at a distance, indicated that a terrible fire had broken out. . . .”

“Firefighters were on the scene immediately, helping to dig people out and standing by in case fire should break out. For six hours they, the police, worry-torn relatives and friends, and other able-bodied people struggled to extricate the workers trapped by layers of twisted ma¬chinery, wooden beams, and slabs of brick wall.

“Then in the darkness of eleven o’clock, one of the rescuers accidentally broke a lantern, and its flames leaped upon the cotton and oil waste in the debris. The fire took hold, slowly at first, but the firefighters were unable to stop it. The streams of water they sent onto it simply washed down and off the collapsed floors like rain off a slanted roof. Soon fire covered the ruins entirely, and there was no longer any hope for those still trapped. They would have to perish in the flames, and at least fourteen of them did.

“In all, 88 workers were killed or fatally injured, while another 275 were either badly or slightly injured.

“Two days later, an inquest began into the cause of the disaster. Eyewitnesses gave testimony of support col¬umns falling inward and the roof crashing down, setting off a chain reaction moving down floor by floor. The jury concluded that the cast iron columns used in the build-ing’s construction had not been strong enough to support the roof, machinery, and flooring because they had not been properly cast, the result of the purchasing agent’s attempt to buy the columns a little cheaper per pound.” (Smith. Dennis Smith’s History of Firefighting in America… 1978, p. 65.)

Sparks: “Jan. 10.—The Pemberton Mills at Lawrence, Mass., through a defect in the cast-iron columns supporting the interior of the building, fall in while nearly 800 operatives are at work, and bury many in the ruins. About four hours after they fall, a fire breaks out and destroys those not extricated from the ruins. More than 115 persons perish by this awful catastrophe, and 165 are more or less injured.” (Sparks. American Almanac for the Year 1861, p. 407.)

Sources

American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge for the Year 1861, Volume XXXII, Fourth Series, Volume II (Sparks, Jared, Francis Bowen, and George Partridge Sanger). Boston: Crosby, Nichols, Lee and Company, January 1861. Digitized by Google at: http://books.google.com/books?id=nVITAAAAYAAJ&dq=editions:LCCN05001604&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Celebrate Boston. Boston Disasters. “Pemberton Mill Collapse, 1860.” Accessed 10-3-2009 at: http://www.celebrateboston.com/disasters/industrial/pembertonmillcollapse.htm

Celebrate Boston. “Victim List, Pemberton Mill Collapse.” Accessed 10-9-2021 at http://www.celebrateboston.com/pemberton-mill/victim-list.htm

Childs, Emery E. A History of the United States In Chronological Order From the Discovery of America in 1492 to the Year 1885. NY: Baker & Taylor, 1886. Google digitized. Accessed 9-4-2017: http://books.google.com/books?id=XLYbAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Historic Ipswich. “Pemberton Mill in Lawrence collapses and burns…January 10, 1860.” Accessed 10-8-2021 at: https://historicipswich.org/2019/01/10/pemberton-mill-in-lawrence-collapses-and-burns-killing-workers-january-10-1860/

New England Historical Society. “The Pemberton Mill Disaster.” Accessed 10-8-2021 at: https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/pemberton-mill-disaster/

New York Times. “The Fall of The Pemberton Mill.” 4-18-1886. Accessed at: http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9902E6DC1638E533A2575BC1A9629C94679FD7CF

Noble, Richard E. “The Pemberton Mill Disaster of 1860.” March 19, 2008. Accessed at: http://thehobophilosopher.blogspot.com/2008/03/pemberton-mill-disaster-of-1860.html

Oickle, Alvin F. Disaster in Lawrence: The Fall of the Pemberton Mill. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2008.

Smith, Denis. San Francisco Is Burning: The Untold Story of the 1906 Earthquake and Fires. New York: Viking, 2005.

Snow, Edward Rowe. Marine Mysteries and Dramatic Disasters of New England. NY: Dodd, Mead, 1976.

Weisberger, Bernard. “The Working Ladies of Lowell.” American Heritage, Vol. 12, Issue 2, Feb 1961. Accessed 10-8-2021 at: https://www.americanheritage.com/working-ladies-lowell

Wikipedia. “Pemberton Mill.” 3-27-2009 at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pemberton_Mill

Willsey, Joseph H. (Compiler), Charlton T. Lewis (Editor). Harper’s Book of Facts: A Classified History of the World. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1895. Accessed 9-4-2017 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=UcwGAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Additional Reading

Dyer, John J. & Co. An Authentic History of the Lawrence Calamity Embracing a Description of the Pemberton Mill, A Detailed Account of the Catastrophe… Boston: John J. Dyer & Co., 1860. Accessed 10-8-2021 at: https://archive.org/details/authentichistory00dyer/page/n2/mode/1up

O.B.M. “A Practical Inquiry into the Cause of the Fall of the Pemberton Mill.” Scientific American, Vol. II, No. 11, 3-10-1860, p. 162. Accessed 10-8-2021 at: https://archive.org/details/scientific-american-1860-03-10/mode/1up

Oickle, Alvin F. The Pemberton Casualties. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2008.