–80 Historical Marker Database (Inbody). “The Cleveland School Fire.” 6-16-2016 revision.[1]

–79 Historical Marker Database (Inbody). “The Cleveland School Fire.” 10-20-2011, 6-16-2016.[2]

–77 Barlay, Stephen. Fire: An International Report. Brattleboro, VT: Greene Press, 1973, p. 25.

–77 Blanchard estimate.[3]

–77 High Point Enterprise, NC. “Death Total Now 77 After Inquiry.” 5-21-1923, p. 1.

–77 Moseley. The Terrible Cleveland Fire: Its Victims and Survivors. 1923.

–77 National Fire Protection Association. Key Dates in Fire History. 1996.

–77 National Fire Protection Association. The 1984 Fire Almanac. 1983, p. 137.

–77 National Fire Sprinkler Association. F.Y.I. 1999, p. 6.

–77 Richards. “Cleveland School fire.” South Carolina Encyclopedia. 5-16-2016 revision.

–77 Schoen. “The South Carolina School Fire, Quarterly of the NFPA, V17, N1, July 1923, 14.

Narrative Information

Find A Grave: “On the night of May 17, 1923, approximately 300 persons local to the little country school known as the Cleveland School, southeast of Camden, South Carolina, attended the children’s graduation play. During the play an oil lamp fell, igniting the second floor auditorium. The resulting fire destroyed the school and killed 60-80 people. This serves as my online memorial to those that died that night, and to those that survived but passed away later in life.”

Schoen: “The little district of Cleveland,[4] Kershaw County, South Carolina…is merely a cross roads settlement some six miles southeast of Camden….

“As the evening falls, parents and relatives from all the countryside about, afoot and on horseback, in automobiles and in buggies, assemble at the district school house, bringing with them children that can walk and babies in arms—a joyous throng come to witness the triumph of its boys and girls in the play they are to give at commencement exercises. One moment a hall filled to capacity with happy neighbors and friends; twenty minutes later, a heap of smoking ruins and seventy-seven charred and smoking corpses. Will America, ever learn its lesson? The holocaust of children in the school fire at Collinwood, Ohio, the inferno of the Iroquois Theatre fire at Chicago, the tragedy of the General Slocum steamship disaster at New York, and now the horror of the Cleveland District School Fire in Kershaw County, South Carolina. These are all outstanding instances of heavy mortality through fire in comparatively recent years. Each would seem to have been sufficient in itself, and yet such is the resilience of the American nature that we can forget almost before the sound of weeping has died in our ears.

“On the evening of May the 17^th, while a play was being presented by the children as part of…commencement exercises, fire broke out in the district school auditorium[5] and in twenty minutes only the smoking ruins remained and seventy-seven had perished in the flames….

“….I had the good fortune to visit the scene in company with the…Insurance Commissioner of South Carolina, and to assist him in making a full investigation….We interviewed…the principal, and Misses Prosser and Garvin, teachers, all of whom barely escaped with their lives; also among those who escaped from the building….we were able to deduce very clearly just what had happened and to obtain many tragic sidelights.

“The school house, which stood entirely exposed on all sides, was a two-story frame building with tin roof and coiled with wood on the inside. The building was 100 feetlong by 34 feet wide, with two classrooms and two cloak rooms on the first floor and the auditorium on the second floor, the latter being used also as a class room during school hours. These rooms were used by three teachers who taught a rural grade school from first to tenth grade.

“At one end of the auditorium a wooden platform had been raised eighteen inches above the floor to serve as a stage. Against the left hand wall of the building facing the stage, was a wooden stairway leading from the cloak room on that side and opening into the auditorium at a point about half way from the end of the building. This stairway was completely boarded up on either side from the cloak room to the second floor; the well hole opening to the stair shaft was protected at the second floor on one side by a hand rail about three feet above the floor and the space between the hand rail and the floor was boarded up to prevent pupils falling from that side into the stair well. At a point between 24 and 30 inches above the cloak room floor, the stairs from the auditorium, fourteen or fifteen steps in number, and having a width variously estimated at from 30 to 36 inches, came to an end on a landing three feet in width, but instead of continuing their full width to the landing, a door frame intervened at this point, thus creating an off-set on each side of the stairs, and this proved the most fatal defect in the construction. From the landing, three more steps led down to the cloak room floor. From this point, a person descending would turn at right angles to the left and pass out of the cloak room door into the vestibule of the school and another right angle turn to the right led through the main door into the open.

“The school was lighted by metal lamps of the Argand burner type, suspended by their bails from hooks in the ceiling. The first floor of the building was raised on brick piers to a distance of about 24 inches above the ground; the ceilings of the ground floor were about eleven feet high, and allowing 2 ½ feet for the height of window sills above the floor in the auditorium, it appears that the total distance from the sills of the auditorium windows to the ground was approximately fifteen feet.

“On the evening set for commencement exercises, the auditorium was filled to capacity by relatives and friends of the children from a large part of the country, the number of those present being between two and three hundred.[6] The stage had been curtained off at each side with burlap to form dressing rooms and a metal oil lamp was suspended from a hook set in the ceiling above the stage to furnish light. While the play was in progress,[7] one of the audience, a Mr. Humphreys, observed that the wood ceiling just above the lamp had ignited and was burning. Cautioning the lady beside whom he was sitting to make no outcry, he started toward the stage to extinguish the fire before anyone else should notice it and start a panic. Before he could reach the stage, however, the hook from which the lamp was suspended pulled out and the lamp fell to the stage. Some of the men attempted to extinguish the burning oil with a rug and with the curtains on the stage, which they tore from their fastenings, but the fire spread too rapidly for them to get it under control, quickly igniting some of the curtains and dashing across the stage.

“A panic quickly followed and the maddened crowd rushed wildly for the one small stair. Some got through to the open before the jam occurred at the doorway opening from the stairs to the cloakroom landing, which jam had been largely due to parents dropping their children over the auditorium rail on to the stairway below. Added to this, many of those who had escaped in the first blind rush came to a realization that they had left behind them members of their families to perish in the flames and attempted to force their way back into the building up this same narrow stairway to save them. The result was two opposite streams of humanity trying to force their way over a stairway all too small at the best, and the ensuing jam became unbreakable. The bodies were so interlaced at the doorway that three strong men from the outside seizing the living while yet in a standing position were unable to budge them and they were left in full consciousness of their fate, to perish in the advancing flames.

“Many deeds of heroism and self-sacrifice were performed and more than one man gave his life that others might live. Among these, Tom B. Humphreys raised the principal, Miss Stevens, in his arms, forcing her over the heads of those packed immovably on the stairway so that she was taken through the space above the mass of bodies at the entrance, but Mr. Humphreys died in the hospital from his burns. R. A. Bruce and Donno Campbell passed a number of the women out of the windows to the roof over the porch and cloak room, after which they broke off the flag pole on this roof and using it, enabled the women to slide to the ground in safety. When rescuers tried to get Mr. Charles Humphreys and Mr. West out of the jam at the cloak room landing, they told them it was useless trying to save them, they were too tightly wedged, but to try to get some of those further back. Many jumped from the windows to the ground below, resulting in a number of injuries to limbs and backs. Automobiles were driven under the windows and a number were gotten safely out of the building by leaping, from the windows to the tops of these.

“The net result of this terrible holocaust was seventy-seven dead, of which several bodies were completely consumed and others were so badly burned that only two were recognizable by their appearance after the fire.[8] The greater number died from suffocation before the flames reached them, but some of those who perished could only wait in full consciousness until the flames should reach them and end their agony. Two entire families were wiped out of existence—one a widower with three girls and one little boy, and the other consisting of father, mother and one child. One lady in Camden was said to be related to 43 of those that died and there was barely a family in the town of Camden not affected.

“The potential cause of this fire was, as is so frequently the case, carelessness—an oil lamp having sufficient burner capacity to throw off through the chimney heated gases…of considerable intensity, and this lamp suspended from a metal hook set into a wood ceiling without suitable protection. Naturally after the wood above the lamp chimney had been subjected to this hear for a sufficient length of time, the fibers became charred and the weight of the lamp was such as to pull out the hook. What followed, was to have been expected.

“A single exit, and it of a thoroughly combustible nature, for buildings of more than one story in height is too palpably wrong to even admit of comment, especially when such stairway is the means of egress and exit to and from a room where any considerable number of people congregate, but in this case, the most grievous mistake lay in constructing a doorway at the point where these stairs opened on the cloakroom landing, thus creating an offset on either side. One of the fundamental recommendations in connection with exit facilities is that the stairs shall be continued full width to the street or other open space where safety is to be found….

“Bodies [were] wrapped in sheets awaiting burial. There were insufficient coffins available and the bodies could not be kept until shipment of coffins could be made from other points…. [A mass] grave for sixty or more of the victims [was dug]. This grave measured ten feet by forty feet. Most of the bodies were buried in this common grave as they could not be identified.” (Schoen. “The South Carolina School Fire, Quarterly of the NFPA, V17, N1, July 1923, 14-19.)

Newspapers

May 18: “(By Associated Press) Camden, S.C., May 18, Seventy-three known dead was the toll of the Cleveland school house fire last night, as estimated at 7 a.m. today. Collapse of a narrow wooden stairway, leading from the second floor, where an entertainment incident to the school closing, was in progress, caused many of the deaths, a number of persons being crushed in the debris. Others, cut off from escape in this way, were burned to death, while still others jumped from windows.

“The fire started from an over-turned oil lamp on the stage and in an incredibly short time the flimsy structure was a mass of flames and from a merry gathering of neighborhood friends and relatives the hall was converted into a charnel house. The stairway, the only means of egress from the second floor, was quickly jammed with a panic-stricken, struggling mass of humanity. Men, women and children fought to force their way out and many went to their death under the crush. Others, seeing the only avenue of escape shut off, ran to the windows and leaped out. Many of these sustained broken limbs and some were reported as seriously injured.

“The school building, a two-story frame building, containing three school rooms, burned rapidly, and before outside aid could be summoned, nothing remained but to collect the dead and give medical care to the injured. All available doctors were called from Camden and other nearby towns.

“The death list reads like a roster of the families of the communities. Family after family were virtually wiped out, in almost every instance where parents are listed as dead, from one to four children perished. Among the dead is County Coroner G. L. Dixon and his young daughter….

“The audience was watching a little comedy presented by the pupils when a lamp suspended from the ceiling by a bracket, fell onto the stage. Panic followed and little effort apparently was made to fight the flames which quickly communicated to the dry timber of the little 40-foot frame school building. Mothers with children in their arms were trampled under foot. Young and old fought alike for exit.

“Forty young children, 16 men and 15 women, including a negro nurse, were burned to death and two young white men are missing. Entire families were wiped out and in some cases there are no relatives left to claim the bodies….

“Eye-witnesses said today that a number of the men who perished lost their lives in heroic efforts to save others. In some instances they won their way to safety but on learning of the desperate situation inside the burning building returned in an effort to save women and children.

“Identification of bodies was a difficult task, as almost all were burned so badly that only through keepsakes and bits of clothing could their identity be established. One man was identified by an automobile switch key and another by a belt buckle.

“The play being presented by the pupils was entitled ‘Stoney Brook.’

“Thirteen dead resided at Camden and were among those who went to Cleveland to witness the play….

“Camden, S.C., May 18.– ‘Topsy Turvy’ was the play which was going on when the fire started and the blaze began as we were shifting the scenery between the second and third acts,’ C. C. Bruce, 19, who played the part of Ned in the comedy the Cleveland school was presenting as part of its commencement exercises, said in telling the Associated Press today of the catastrophe that cost at least seventy-three lives…..

I was standing right under the oil lamp which was swinging from the ceiling and was partly hidden behind the curtain when it fell. Some believe the heat from the lamp had melted the soldering and loosened the iron ring causing it to fall. Others say the curtain…struck the lamp and loosened it. Anyway, it fell and oil ran out over the floor and blazed up. At first people screamed and began to get up but we told them we could put it out and we tried to do so. The flimsy draperies caught, however, and soon the stage and platform were ablaze. Then everyone acted panicky and began to rush for the stairway; the only exit and a very narrow and rickety one. There [were] about 300 people in the audience, I believe. The

The men tried to keep the crowd from pushing each other down the steps but could not control them and the flames were licking closer on all sides. Soon some of the people in the hall began going to the windows and jumping out. Mothers threw their children to ones below, and some jumped after them. I remember Mr. Stoney Campbell, whose daughter was trapped on the stairway and burned to death, threw his wife out of the window and jumped after her. She broke her leg, but both escaped.

There were none, besides the principal, Ina Mae Stephens, Eula Prosser and Esta Garvin, teachers, on the stage with us, who were in the play. The case was composed of eight, four of whom, Irma Arrants, Ola Phillips, Bertie Hendrix and Jack Rush, are dead. The worst part of it all was trying to help those caught in the blazing building.

I got out by jumping across the banisters and down to the first floor instead of using the steps. Shortly after I got out of the building the stairway collapsed and there was a struggling mass of people, many hurt, some even then dying, I guess. The splinters from the jagged edge where the stairway gave way soon caught fire and burning pieces of wood fell upon those fighting for their lives in the pile of debris. The only light was from the fire itself, and the heat was intense.

I pulled at those in the doorway until I saw it was useless and many of us stood under the windows trying to catch the children who were thrown out and to break the fall of those who jumped. Automobile seats were placed under the windows to break the fall as much as possible, but few who did not get out early by the doorway escaped with less than a broken wrist or ankle.

Soon the clothing of those yet inside began to catch fire and the cries and groans of the dying added to the horror of the scene. Then the building collapsed and, well, I guess you know the rest.

“As an afterthought, the youth…added:

And the tragedy of it all is that the building had been condemned and this ws to be the last commencement ever held in it. Next hear the boys and girls of the Cleveland school community were to have been in a new school house.

“….Cleveland school is located in the center of a fertile section, but sparsely populated. The road leading to the scene is little more than a one-way path along the edge of a plowed field….

“Columbia, S.C., May 18.–Governor McLeod will attend the funeral exercises of the Cleveland school fire victims this afternoon and will issue a proclamation with regard to the tragedy, it was said.” (Associated Press. “Many Deaths as School Building Burns.” Hattiesburg American, MS, 5-18-1923, p. 1.)

May 19: “Camden, S.C., May 19.–(By Associated Press).–The death list of the Cleveland school house fire of Thursday night, today was definitely fixed at 75. Tom B. Humphries, of Camden, died of injuries in a hospital here during the night.

“Approximately 60 bodies of unidentified dead late yesterday were buried in the Beulah church yard within a few hundred yards of the scene of the fire and today most of the identified dead will be interred. The body of J.J. Johnson, Jr., son of the Rev. J.J. Johnson of Camden, will be taken to Louisville, Ky. Two other funerals were held in the same church yard after the unidentified had been buried.

“Some confusion over the exact number of dead was caused yesterday by the condition of the bodies of the dead, it was stated here today. The committee in charge of the burial of the unidentified dead announced that 62 bodies had been buried in the one big grave, including several that had been identified….The committee announcement stated that 16 women, forty-one children and 17 men were known to have perished, making the death list, up to th time of the Humphries death, 74…..

“With the dead accounted for and most of them buried, thoughts today turned to the relief of the survivors. Governor McLeod last night issued a proclamation to the people of the state asking that financial aid be extended. Offers to aid from throughout the nation yesterday were declined by Mayor Garrison, of Camden, who heads the committee in charge of this work. The American Red Cross has notified officials that funds in any amount needed are available. A total of $1,244 was raised locally yesterday and several newspapers throughout the state are raising funds in addition to the fund being raised as a result of the governor’s proclamation.

“The Cleveland schoolhouse…was one of the best school buildings in Kershaw county, according to a statement made last night by Alan B. Murchison, county superintendent of education. He said that it was to have been abandoned after Thursday night in favor of a modern consolidated high school. Cleveland was the superintendent’s home district and he said that many of his own relatives perished in the blaze.

“The superintendent said that 6,000 out of the 10,000 children in the county attended just such schools and that if he could help it there never would be another opportunity for such an occurrence. ‘I will never permit if I can prevent it, the holding of another such gathering in any of the school houses — and the Cleveland school was above the average — until adequate fire protection has been provided.’ the superintendent said. ‘Three fifths of the school children of the county are exposed to like dangers and it will be my purpose as speedily as possible to remove or lessen so far as possible these dangers. Not another school house will be built with my approval that does not embody all modern improvements.’” (AP. “Death List Now 75 in Holocaust of Schoolhouse.” High Point Enterprise, NC, 5-19-1923, p. 1.)

May 21: “Camden, S.C., May 21–The death list of the Cleveland schoolhouse fire of last Thursday night today had been increased to 77 persons with two more placed on the doubtful list. Tracing down of rumors yesterday by Sheriff G. C. W… [unclear], of Kershaw county, resulted in the announcement that Ellen Barnes of Lucknow and Fannie Bowers, of Kershaw, undoubtedly perished in the fire that followed the falling of an oil lamp on the stage during a commencement play at the school.

“Reports were current here that a Miss Blackmon and a Miss Thorne, both of the Thorne Hill section of this county, had attended the play and had not been heard of since. This is a remote and inaccessible part of the county and a more thorough search was planned today to definitely ascertain their fate.

Historical Marker Database: Below are the names and ages of the fatalities in alphabetical order, taken from the Inbody contribution to the HMDB. I have taken the paragraph-form information and reproduced into a numbered list in order to verify the number and check against other sources. By doing so I saw that two names were in the list twice, and removed duplications

Grace Arrants, Age 7 yr.;
Ima Arrants, Age 17 yr;
Ellie [or Ellen] Barnes, Age 17 yr.;
Fannie Bowers, Age 16 yr.;
Eugene A. Brown, Age 57 yr.;
Mrs. Eugene A. Brown, Age 49 yr.;
Mrs. Floride Brown, Age 47 yr.;
Lottie Brown, Age 9 yr.;
Edline Campbell, Age 14 yr.;
Mrs. Estelle Campbell, Age 20 yr.;
Dorothy Croft, Age 10 yr.;
Hamilton Croft, Age 6 yr.;
Mrs. Lula Croft, Age 37 yr.;
Ase R. Davis, Age 37 yr.;
Mrs. Ase R. Davis, Age 42 yr.;
Eva Mae Davis, Age 10 yr.;
Fannie Lee Davis, Age 7 yr.;
Leila Mae Davis, Age 14 yr.;
Lina Davis, Age 8 yr.;
Mrs. Lizzie Davis, Age 34 yr.;
W. S. Davis, Jr., Age 3 yr.;
Mrs. Addie Dixon, Age 22 yr.;
Clara Dixon, Age 12 yr.;
Linwood Dixon, Age 12 yr.;
Margaret Dixon, Age 7 yr.;
Mrs. Nannie Dixon, Age 50 yr.;
S. Lucas Dixon, Age 42 yr.;
Sara Dixon, Age 9 yr.;
Theda Dixon, Age 6 yr.;
Thelma Dixon, Age 9 yr.;
Mrs. Theresa Dixon, Age 32 yr.;
Willene Dixon, Age 1 yr.;
Mary Lynn Godwin, Age 1 yr.;
Alva Hendrix, Age 6 yr.;
Annie Lee Hendrix, Age 13 yr.;
Charlie W. Hendrix, Age 52 yr.;
Bertie Hendrix, Age 16, yr.;
Mazie Hendrix, Age 15 yr.;
Wilbur Hendrix, Age 10 yr.;
Wesley E. Hendrix, Age 60 yr.;
Frank Hinson, Age 9 yr.;
J.C. Hinson, age 9 yr.;
Ora Belle Hinson, Age 11 yr.;
Charles N. Humphries, Age 64 yr.;
Mrs. Charles N. Humphries, Age 56 yr.;
Tom B. Humphries, Age 30 yr.;
William Jeter Johnston, Age 11 yr.;
Adeline McCaskill, Age 20 yr.;
Mrs. Kate McCaskill, Age 40 yr.;
Colza McCaskill, Age 12 yr.;
Grace McCaskill, Age 5, yr.;
Roy McCaskill, Age 4 yr.;
Bruce McLeod, Age 2 yr.;
Burnel G. McLeod, Age 29 yr.;
Mrs. Burnel G. McLeod, Age 27 yr.;
Lindsey McLeod, Age 5 yr.;
M. Baum McLeod, Age 63 yr.;
Miller L. McLeod, Age 39 yr.;
Mrs. Miller L. McLeod, Age 33 yr.;
Milton McLeod, Age 1 yr.;
Jessie E. Pearce, Age 40 yr.;
Mrs. Dora Phillips, Age 45 yr.;
Dorene Phillips, Age 14 yr.;
Eva Phillips, Age 8 yr.;
Ola Phillips, Age 17 yr.;
Mrs. Grace Rhoden, Age 32 yr.;
Jack Rush, Age 15 yr.;
Louise Sewell, Age 8 yr.;
Clara Mae Sowell, Age 13 yr.;
Jesse Smith, Age 13 yr.;
Dunnie Truesdale, Age 23 yr.;
Emily Trapp, Age 10 yr.;
Vera Trapp, Age 9 yr.;
Sadie Wade, (colored) Age 17 yr.
Rebekah West, Age 11 yr.;
Shell J. West, Age 37 yr.;
Thelma West, Age 15 yr.;

(Historical Marker Database. “The Cleveland School Fire.” Contributed by Anna Inbody and edited by Craig Swain, 10-20-2011, 6-16-2016 revision.)

Sources

Associated Press. “Death List Now 75 in Holocaust of Schoolhouse.” High Point Enterprise, NC, 5-19-1923, p. 1. Accessed 9-26-2017 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/high-point-enterprise-may-19-1923-p-1/?tag

Associated Press. “Many Deaths as School Building Burns.” Hattiesburg American, MS, 5-18-1923, p. 1. Accessed 9-26-2017 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/hattiesburg-american-may-18-1923-p-1/?tag

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

Find A Grave. “Cleveland School fire – May 17, 1923.” Accessed 9-26-2017 at: https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=vcsr&Gsvcid=4110

High Point Enterprise, NC. “Death Total Now 77 After Inquiry.” 5-21-1923, p. 1. Accessed 9-26-2017 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/high-point-enterprise-may-21-1923-p-1/?tag

High Point Enterprise, NC. “How Fire Occurred.” 5-21-1923, p. 1. Accessed 9-26-2017 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/high-point-enterprise-may-21-1923-p-1/?tag

Historical Marker Database. “The Cleveland School Fire.” Contributed by Anna Inbody and edited by Craig Swain, 10-20-2011, 6-16-2016 revision. Accessed 9-26-2017 at: https://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=48563

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. The 1984 Fire Almanac. Quincy, MA: NFPA, 1983.

National Fire Sprinkler Association, Inc. F.Y.I. – Fire Sprinkler Facts. Patterson, NY: NFSA, November 1999, 8 pages. Accessed at: http://www.firemarshals.org/data/File/docs/College%20Dorm/Administrators/F1%20-%20FIRE%20SPRINKLER%20FACTS.pdf

Richards, Miles S. “Cleveland School fire.” South Carolina Encyclopedia. 4-15-2016, revised 5-16-2016. Accessed 9-26-2017 at: http://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/cleveland-school-fire/

Scarborough Genealogy. Cleveland School Fire, Camden, South Carolina. Accessed 4-29-2009 at: http://www.scarboroughgenealogy.com/Cleveland.htm

Schoen, A.M. “The South Carolina School Fire.” NFPA Quarterly, V17/N1, July 1923, 14-19.

Additional Reading

Moseley, John Oliver. The Terrible Cleveland Fire: Its Victims and Survivors. Charleston, SC: Southern Printing & Publishing Co., 1923.

[1] Blanchard figure based on: “Thirteen bodies were claimed by relatives and taken home for burial. But at least 67 remained. It was nearly impossible to separate and identify the other dead. It was determined that since they had died together, they would be buried together.” We simply add 67 and 13 to derive 80. There is on the HMDB website (Inbody contribution) a list of 67 names from the Mass Grave Site Memorial. The same site, however, provides a list of all the fatalities which numbers 77, not 80. Inbody recognizes the discrepancy and notes that “This may be a result of those surviving the fire, but dying later of their injuries.”

[2] A list of 79 named fatalities from the marker is presented. We have included the names below.

[3] Though the Inbody/Historical Marker Database article notes 77-80 deaths and includes a list of fatalities totaling 79 deaths, two names are listed twice, thus making the list of names 77. Other sources, many of which we cite, show seventy-seven deaths. Thus, we conclude seventy-seven is the most accurate estimate of the death toll.

[4] “The Cleveland School was named after President Grover Cleveland (probably so honored because he was the first Democratic Party candidate elected president after the Civil War).” (Scarborough. Cleveland School Fire.)

[5] There was a tradition that on graduation night, the children would put on a play. During this day and time, before regular radio programming and television, a play was a special occasion to attend. This graduation’s performance would be “Topsy Turvey” before an approximate crowd of 300. It was made even more special by news that, after tonight, the school would be closed for good and that the children would be attending other schools next year.” (Scarborough Genealogy. Cleveland School Fire.)

[6] Scarborough has it at “approximately 300 persons…” (Cleveland School Fire, Camden, SC.)

[7] “Around 9:00 p.m. and the start of the last act of the play…” (Scarborough Genealogy. Cleveland School Fire.)

[8] “Most of the bodies were buried in…[10x40ft] common grave as they could not be identified.” (Schoen, 18.)

1923 — May 17, Fire, Cleveland School District, Kershaw County, near Camden, SC — 77