1876 — Dec 5, Fire, Trampling, Suffocation, Conway Theater, Brooklyn, NY –284-300

lornajarrettblanchard December 5, 1876

— ~300 Brockett (Compiler). Handbook of the United States of America. 1890, p. 151.

— ~300 Childs. A History of the United States In Chronological Order… 1886, p. 238.

— <300 Library of Congress. “Topics in Chronicling America – Brooklyn Theater Fire of 1876.”[1]

— 300 New York Tribune. “The Worst of Calamities. Three Hundred…” 12-7-1876, p. 1.

— ~300 Smith. Dennis Smith’s History of Firefighting in America... 1978, p. 90.

–273-300 Wikipedia. “List of Historic Fires.”

— 296 National Fire Protec. Assoc. Spreadsheet on Large Loss of Life Fires (as of Feb 2003)

— 295 Brooklyn Daily Eagle Almanac 1905. “Great Fires, 1904. Other Notable Fires,” 477.

— 295 Country Beautiful Editors. Great Fires of America. 1973, p. 134.

— 295 History.com. This Day in History. “Hundreds Die in Brooklyn Theater Fire.”

— 295 Nash, Jay Robert. Darkest Hours. 1977, p. 656.

— 295 National Fire Protection Association. Key Dates in Fire History. 1996.

— 292 NY Tribune. “The Great Catastrophe…Almost Three Hundred.” 12-9-1876, p. 1.[2]

— 289 Brooklyn Daily Eagle Almanac 1917. “Loss of Life in Panics…Disastrous Fires,” 495

— 284 Blanchard estimate.[3]

— 284 Usmanov. The Day When Brooklyn Burned. “The Number of Victims.”[4]

— 283 Barlay, Stephen. Fire: An International Report. VT: Stephen Greene, 1973, p. 139.

— 283 Gerhard, W. P. Theatre Fires and Panics: Their Causes and Prevention. 1896, 14.

Narrative Information

Childs: “On the evening of the 6^th [5^th] of December, the Brooklyn Theatre, in Brooklyn, N. Y., caught fire during the performance of a play. A panic ensued, and nearly three hundred persons lost their lives by suffocation or the flames.” (Childs 1886, p. 239)

Country Beautiful Editors: “It was eleven o’clock on the night of December 5, 1876, and soon the capacity audience would be discussing the performance as they slowly filed out. A canvas backdrop broke from its fastenings and dangerously hung over one of the border lights in the center of the stage. One of the stagehands quickly responded and hoisted the piece upward. However, he raised the canvas too quickly and the resulting rush of air caused the smoldering backdrop to suddenly burst into flame. A roof ventilator fanned the flames onto other backdrops. The stage manager ordered two stagehands to extinguish the fire, but they were unable to do so and soon the entire stage scenery was ablaze. [Actress] Kate Claxton described the scene:

At the beginning of the last act just as the curtains went up, I heard a rumbling noise on the stage, and two minutes after I saw flames. The fire seemed to be all on the stage. Mrs. Farren, myself, Mr. Studley and Mr. Murdock were on the stage at this time. We four remained there and endeavored as best we could to quiet the audience and prevent a panic. I said to the people “Be quiet, we are between you and the fire. The front door is open and the passages are clear.” Not one of the audience jumped on the stage. The flames were then coming down on us. I ran out and jumped over several people. Mr. H. S. Murdock, after endeavoring to calm the fears of a panic-stricken people, went to his dressing room to get his clothing, and must have been suffocated.

“The fire marshal conducted an investigation after the tragedy and a witness reported to him that. ‘…fire commenced to fall on the stage. When I saw it at first, the pieces were dropping on the stage. As soon as the cry of fire was raised, people rushed to the door, but when told by the actors to be quiet, some sat down again a few moments. Then the fire became visible and was followed by a dreadful panic.’ Many of the actors and actresses were able to escape by backstage routes to Johnson Street. The main exit for the audience was on Washington Street, and this immediately was choked with terrified people. One witness said that “the people were panic-stricken and were falling on each other.”

“In the surge from the upper galleries to the street a woman caught her leg in a railing on a landing. The crowd tripped and fell over her, and soon there was a large pile of struggling people. Police immediately arrived from the station house next door but found the audience packed so tightly that few could be removed. Most of the dead were burned or trampled beyond recognition. Firemen began to remove bodies on the morning of December 6 and found them packed in tight rows beneath the rubble, indicating the great pressure they had been subject to. Many victims were found in the basement, since all the floors had collapsed and crashed downward. Washington Street was lined with horses and wagons ready to remove bodies to the morgue.

“The ruins still smoldered in the late afternoon of December 6; flags flew at half-mast and other Brooklyn theaters were draped in mourning. Actors Claude Burroughs and Harry S. Murdock had lost their lives. The fire had vented its fury on the theater patrons and 295 people were either burned, trampled or suffocated.” (Country Beautiful Editors. Great Fires of America. 1973, 134)

Gerhard: “Conway s Theatre, Brooklyn, N. Y.

“Date: December 5, 1876.

“Time of fire: During the last act of the performance of “The Two Orphans.”

“Number of people in audience: About 1000, viz., 250 in parquet, 350 in balcony, 405 in the gallery.

“Cause of fire: A border caught fire from the borderlights, perhaps owing to a sudden draft, caused by opening a window. The fire was increased by the opening of a large door at the back of the stage.

“Number of persons killed: 283, all from the upper gallery.

“Location: Building stood detached on three sides.

“Construction: Ordinary, but with well-arranged exits, permitting the emptying of the theatre in from 5 to 6 minutes.

“Plan of theatre: Considered comparatively good at the time.

“Chief defects: No fire-proof curtain, no water available for fire purposes. No fire-hose at the fire-hydrants, nor any other fire-extinguishing appliances available. Auxiliary exit doors for the gallery kept closed. Only one staircase for the gallery. Stage overcrowded with scenery. Loft over the auditorium filled with much inflammable[5] scenic material. Proscenium of wood. During fire the gas was turned off in the street.” (Gerhard, William Paul. Theatre Fires and Panics: Their Causes and Prevention. 1896, 14.)

History.com: “A fire at the Brooklyn Theater in New York kills nearly 300 people and injures hundreds more on this day in 1876. Some victims perished from a combination of burns and smoke inhalation; others were trampled to death in the general panic that ensued.

“The play The Two Orphans starring Harry S. Murdock and Kate Claxton was showing at the Brooklyn Theater on the night of December 5. The theater, built five years earlier at the corner of Johnson and Washington streets, was very popular at the time and all 900 seats were filled. Sometime near the start of the performance, a gas light ignited some extra scenery stored in the fly space behind the stage. It wasn’t until midway through the play that stagehands noticed the quickly spreading flames. Unfortunately, there were no fire hoses or water buckets at hand and the fire spread, unbeknownst to the cast and audience.

“Finally, someone shouted “FIRE” and despite Murdock’s best attempt to calm the crowd, bedlam ensued, particularly in the balcony and rear of the theater. A narrow staircase was the only the exit from the balcony (there were no fire escapes) and panic resulted in a stampede in which many were crushed and others remained trapped. Meanwhile, the fire grew out of control. Witnesses saw Murdock return to the dressing room to change clothes; he then tried to wiggle out of a small window. He couldn’t get through, and died when the floor gave way and he fell to the basement.

“By the time firefighters arrived it was too late for hundreds of people. The fire raged through the night and destroyed nearly the entire building. When would-be rescuers were finally able to get in, all they found were bodies melted together. Up to 100 of the victims were burned beyond recognition and could not be identified. A mass grave was set up at the Green-Wood Cemetery. In all, approximately 295 people died. A 30-foot-high granite memorial was later erected in their honor by the city of Brooklyn.” (History.com. “This Day in History. Hundreds Die in Brooklyn Theater Fire.”)

Smith: “On the evening of December 5, 1876, one thousand people had gone to the Brooklyn Theatre in Brooklyn, New York, to see the popular melodrama Two Orphans. At about 11:15, as the final act was drawing to a close, Miss Kate Claxton, the leading actress, lay on a straw pallet. Mr. Henry Murdoch, her leading man, was delivering a speech when they both heard whispers of “Fire” from backstage. Looking up, they spotted the flames, still not visible to the audience, above them in the flies. Mr. Murdoch faltered, but Miss Claxton prodded him. “Go on,” she whispered, “they will put it out, there will be a panic—go on.”

“As carpenters behind the scenes tried to beat the fire out, the actors went valiantly on with their lines. But the audience was soon aware that something was very wrong. A great murmuring swept the hall and people began rising from their seats. The four actors onstage then gave up all pretense of the play and sought to calm the crowd. One pleaded:

“Ladies and gentlemen, there will be no more play, of course; you can all go out if you will only keep quiet.”

“Joining hands with her fellow actors onstage, Miss Claxton added coolly, “We are between you and the flames.”

“For a while the audience remained calm and exited in orderly and efficient manner. But as the flames grew, so did the fears of those high up in the gallery, those who would have a long way to go before they could get out. Panic seized the crowd, and the rush was on.

“A witness described the scene:

The exit from the first balcony was down a single flight of stairs in the rear of the vestibule. Down these stairs the people came in scores, leaping and jumping in wild confusion. The way out from the upper gallery was down a short flight of stairs starting from the south wall of the building, thence by a short turn down a long flight against the same wall to the level of the balcony, and from this floor down a cased flight into Washington Street. The main floor and first balcony were soon emptied through their respective exits, but for the five or six hundred panic-stricken gallery spectators to pass safely through the tortuous passage described was next to an impossibility. Every indication points to the fact that, suffocated by the smoke forced down like a wall from the roof, the mass of those in the upper gallery thronged about the entrance to the stairs, and were either blocked there so as to make exit impossible, or were unable even to make the attempt to escape, and sank down, one upon the other, to fall in a mass into the horrible pit under the vestibule when the supports of the gallery were burned away.

“Within fifteen minutes the theater was engulfed in fire. Within thirty minutes the roof had fallen and the broad east wall had crashed inward.

“On the morning of December 6, firefighters who had worked so hard to regain order among the frightened audience and lead them to safety found how unsuccessful they had been. Nearly three hundred people, mostly from the upper gallery, had been killed, the victims of their own panic and an inadequate exit system. More than a hundred of the bodies were beyond identification, so a huge common grave was dug for them at Greenwood Cemetery and a mass funeral held.

“It was too late for these people, but their misfortune prompted the enactment of stricter fire laws concerning the size and number of exits from theaters in New York. Once again it had taken a major tragedy to bring about better fire protection.” (Smith. Dennis Smith’s History of Firefighting in America... 1978, pp. 88-90.)

Sources

Barlay, Stephen. Fire: An International Report. Brattleboro, VT: Stephen Greene Press, 1973.

Brockett, L. P. (Compiler). Handbook of the United States of America, and Guide to Emigration. NY: Gaylord Watson, 1890. Digitized by Google at: http://books.google.com/books?id=0goPAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Brooklyn Daily Eagle Almanac 1905. “Great Fires, 1904. Other Notable Fires.” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Vol. XX, 1905, p. 477. Digitized by Google. Accessed 9-22-2017 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=x8MWAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Brooklyn Daily Eagle Almanac 1917. “Loss of Life in Panics and Disastrous Fires.” 1917, 495. Google Digitized: http://books.google.com/books?id=YhMXAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

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

Country Beautiful Editors. Great Fires of America. Waukesha, WI: Country Beautiful, 1973.

Gerhard, William Paul. Theatre Fires and Panics: Their Causes and Prevention. NY: John Wiley & Sons, 1896. Digitized by Google at: http://books.google.com/books?id=ZDQJAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=true

History.com. This Day in History, Disaster, December 5, 1876. “Hundreds Die in Brooklyn Theater Fire.” Accessed 12-4-2008 at: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&displayDate=12/5&categoryId=disaster

Library of Congress. Newspaper & Current Periodical Reading Room, Serial & Government Publications Division. “Topics in Chronicling America – Brooklyn Theater Fire of 1876.” 6-30-2015. Accessed 10-3-2017 at: https://www.loc.gov/rr/news/topics/brooklynfire.html

Nash, Jay Robert. Darkest Hours – A Narrative Encyclopedia of Worldwide Disasters from Ancient Times to the Present. New York: Pocket Books, Wallaby, 1977, 792 pages.

National Fire Protection Association. Key Dates in Fire History. 1996. Accessed 2010 at: http://www.nfpa.org/itemDetail.asp?categoryID=1352&itemID=30955&URL=Research%20&%20Reports/Fire%20statistics/Key%20dates%20in%20fire%20history&cookie%5Ftest=1

National Fire Protection Association. Spreadsheet on Large Loss of Life Fires (as of Feb 2003). (Email attachment to B. W. Blanchard from Jacob Ratliff, NFPA Archivist/Taxonomy Librarian, 7-8-2013.)

New York Tribune. “The Great Catastrophe. A Death-Roll of Almost Three Hundred.” 12-9-1876, p. 1. Accessed 10-3-2017 at: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1876-12-09/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=12%2F05%2F1876&sort=date&rows=20&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&index=4&words=Brooklyn+fire+theater+Theater+theaters&proxdistance=5&date2=12%2F31%2F1876&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=&andtext=fire%2C+brooklyn%2C+theater+&dateFilterType=range&page=3

New York Tribune. “The Worst of Calamities. Three Hundred Pleasure-Seekers Burned Alive.” 12-7-1876, p. 1. Accessed 10-3-2017 at: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1876-12-07/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=12%2F05%2F1876&sort=date&date2=12%2F31%2F1876&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&index=12&words=Brooklyn+BROOKLYN+fire+Fire+Theater+theater+THEATER&proxdistance=5&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=&andtext=fire%2C+brooklyn%2C+theater+&dateFilterType=range&page=1

Smith, Dennis. Dennis Smith’s History of Firefighting in America: 300 Years of Courage. NY: The Dial Press, 1978.

Wikipedia. “List of Historic Fires.” 4-19-2009 at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_historic_fires

[1] “…almost 300 people…claimed by the fire.” Elsewhere notes: “The fire claimed about 300 lives but numbers are inconclusive as to the degree to which victims were burned beyond recognition.”

[2] “The coroners’ estimate of Thursday [Dec 7] believed to be correct — 292 bodies recovered, and 215 identified.”

[3] We are of opinion that the sources relied upon by

[4] Provides a link to testimony of Fire Marshall Keady who lists 284 fatalities. Notes “This list is identical in number as reported by the coroner.” Usmanov also provides link to “List of the Victims by Death Certificate Numbers” which contains 283 entries. He notes, however that “the above list does not include the…certificate which was issued at the end of December for someone who was laid to rest in Green-Wood on December 30, 1876.”

[5] Meaning flammable in the usage of the time.