Fire in School at Peabody
Nineteen children were burned to death and two children died from injuries received in a fire in St. John’s Parochial School in Peabody, Mass., on Thursday of last week. Four children received severe injuries and burns. Many of the victims were between 7 and 12 years of age. The building was an old three-story structure of brick, with a wooden interior. It was gutted, at a loss of $150,000. There were no fire escapes on the building. The cause of the fire was not definitely determined. It was first thought due to a boiler explosion, but investigation by the State police apparently showed that it started in a closet in the back of the boiler room and stairs in the basement. One theory is that the fire started by spontaneous combustion in a mass of rubbish, probably sweepings, in the closet. It is stated that a few days before a practice drill was held in which the school was emptied in two minutes. There were 782 pupils in the school when the fire started. They were at prayers when the fire gong sounded its warning. Reports state that pupils on the first floor, emerging from their rooms into smoke and flames from the fire that was eating its way up from the basement, broke ranks and raced for the main doors. In vain the Sisters of Notre Dame, who conduct the school, tried to maintain order. The fright of the children was contagious and was communicated in a minute to the girls on the two upper floors, with the result that they piled down the stairs in a rush, some falling and being trodden upon in the rush. The main doorway, it is stated in reports, became blocked and the jam was aggravated when pupils from upper floors reached the ground floor. While this struggle was going on at the doors, the fire spread through the wooden interior so fast that in fifteen minutes after it started the inside of the building was a fiery furnace. Floors and walls cracked and flaming splinters fell among the little ones fighting for life at the doorway. Many pupils jumped from windows on the second and third floors. Some clambered down waterspouts and others down ladders quickly raised by the firemen. Still more jumped to safety in improvised nets made of overcoats, etc. The death jam at the front was relieved when firemen and police hacked away the doors with axes, and some of the sisters relieved the pressure from behind by inducing the calmer children to go out by the rear or through windows. Trouble at the rear door, which became jammed for a time, also impeded the children. This exit was re-opened, however, and many pupils escaped through it. There were many acts of heroism by teachers and pupils, as well as firemen, Sister Aldegan stood at a window on the second floor, with her black dress on fire, and tossed twenty-five of her charges safely to nets held by men on the ground. All of her pupils were between six and eight years old, mostly girls, and but for her calmness all probably would have been burned. She was badly burned about the head and shoulders. Some boys climbed down waterspouts to safety. Francis Keough, a Boston fireman, who. had been hunting on some nearby marshes when the fire started, carried out six or seven from the first floor and was injured by falling timbers.
