Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Fire

April 10, 1845

Pittsburgh has always had a good fire department, and has generally managed well in providing securities against loss by fire. Once, and once only, was she caught in a great whirlpool of fire. This was in 1845. After it was over a public meeting was held to take measures for public relief, and a committee, consisting of Hon. Cornelius Darragh and Hon. Wilson McCandless, was appointed to lay the case before the legislature. As the narrative they presented to that body is the best statement of the facts, it is hereto appended:

On Thursday, April 10, 1845, at 12 o’clock noon, a fire broke out in some frame buildings situated on the southeast corner of Ferry and Second streets. For two or three weeks before the weather had been dry, and high winds prevailed to a great extent. At the time of the discovery of the fire the wind was blowing fresh from a few points north of west. In a very brief space of time the flames had spread throughout the square, and communicated fire to one of the opposite squares. The wind continued to increase, and with it the conflagration extended until it enveloped at least one-third of the city in the tempest of flame. The fire extended along Ferry street south to First street, consuming the whole square; it crossed from the south side of Third Street to the north side, and burned that block, with the exception of one or two houses; it passed east on Market street, and consumed more than one-half the block between Third and Fourth; it passed up Third street to Diamond alley, and destroyed the larger part of the block between Fourth street and Diamond alley to the base of Grant’s hill, and consumed all the buildings between Diamond alley and tile Monongahela river. Its eastern course was arrested only when every house or building, with few exceptions, was destroyed. It passed from the city into Kensington,* and destroyed that town. The burnt district comprised most of the large business-houses and many of the most valuable factories. Intelligent citizens estimated the extent of the fire as covering at least one-third the geographical extent of the city, and two-thirds its value. The loss can not fall short of six or eight million dollars. The bridge over the Monongahela was entirely consumed. The magnificent hotel, erected at a vast expense, known as the “Monongahela House,” is a ruin; cotton-factories, iron-works, glassworks, hotels and several churches are prostrated in the general desolation. It is estimated that not less than eleven hundred houses were destroyed the greater number of which were buildings of a large and superior kind.

Gov. Shunk sent a message to the legislature, along with this statement. The legislature passed an act appropriating $50,000 for the relief of Pittsburgh, and exempting property in the burnt district from state taxes for the years 1846—48. The news of the fire also excited great sympathy for Pittsburgh, and the contributions for the relief of the citizens amounted to $198,740, besides large donations in provisions and clothing. This was a small sum to make up such a loss; but it came very opportunely for those people who had lost their all, clothing, furniture, etc., in the conflagration. The owners of real estate had to depend mainly on themselves for means to rebuild. The system of dividing fire losses among many companies, home and foreign, was not in existence then. As a consequence, all the insurance companies of Pittsburgh were broken up completely, and there were not banks enough in the city then to help much in the way of recuperation. Yet all did help manfully, and somehow the means for rebuilding were gathered up, and in a very short time the work of rebuilding was going on extensively.

The fire, like the similar big one in Chicago, began in an act of carelessness. Some washerwoman had built her fire in the yard, as more convenient than the house, and the wind carried the sparks to a frame stable adjacent. There was a great scarcity of water, the city then having but a small supply. The firemen worked nobly, but the fire had got a good start in a short time, and the wind carried it eastward faster than the firemen could put it out. When it got a good start it was practically beyond their control.

One life was lost, that of Samuel Kingston, a lawyer on the corner of Fourth and Smithfield streets. He probably went into the office to get some papers, and was smothered by the smoke before he could get out.

The fire extended from Water to Third on Ferry, then cut across to the northern side of Third, working over to Diamond alley between Market and Wood. It crossed Smithfield at Andrew Fulton’ s house, between Fourth and Diamond alley, and crossed Fourth on Ross street, just south of the corner of Fourth, leaving, singularly enough, a combustible frame house standing on the corner of Fourth and Ross. The house is still standing, as is also the house which was erected after the fire and which marks its limit on Smithfield street.

The sight of the ruins was a melancholy one. On Water street, the site of the iron and glassware houses, the debris revealed great masses of iron melted into all possible shapes, kegs of nails reduced to useless masses, and lumps of glass mixed with nails, mortar and other rubbish. It was a mass of utter ruin, not a vestige of anything useful remaining, and the result showed how terrible must have been the intensity of the heat produced by such an extended fire.

The individual losses to real-estate owners ran from $20,000 to $60,000. The heaviest loss fell upon Lyon, Shorb & Crossan, owners of the Monongahela House, their loss being put at $60,000. Messrs. Lyon & Shorb also lost $15,000 on the stock in their iron warehouse adjoining the Monongahela House. Their factory, being on the South Side, escaped. The burnt section embraced a large part of the business portion of the city, but not the manufacturing part; Bakewell’ s glasshouse, the Novelty works, on Grant street, and the Kensington rolling-mill were the principal factories destroyed.

The banks and other dealers in money exercised great lenience and forbearance, and through mutual acts of accommodation the sufferers were enabled to tide themselves over the difficulties of the occasion. Those who had money to lend found instant employment for it, and those to whom money was due waited patiently until the current of business was resumed. It is astonishing how soon, apparently, a community gets over such a disaster. But it is only in appearance, for in reality it was a long time before the effects were removed. Outwardly, new stores and warehouses and factories took the place of the old ones, and the burnt spaces were mostly soon filled; but many a shoulder was sore for years with the heavy burdens assumed and carried along to the end. The recuperative powers of man are great when fairly called into action.

No great fire has occurred here since, and the fire departments of the two cities seem able to keep any fire from spreading far. London, New York,
Chicago and many other cities have had to pass through the same ordeal, and Pittsburgh may therefore console herself that she is in good company. Every year, on the 10th of April, the fire-alarm strikes 1-8-4-5 on its alarm-bell, to remind the citizens of the time when they “passed through the fire.”

* Kensington was then the general name for what was also called “Pipetown.” It extended from Try street east, between the bluff and the Monongahela river. It is now a part of the Sixth ward.

History of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, 1889, Pages 580-582

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