Page:New Brunswick Magazine Issue 1.djvu/181

which it made its way to Main street and Fort Howe. Thence it went up the Fort Howe road, burning the houses on the highway, and extending as far as what was then known as the Jenny Spring Farm, now the Millidge property. It also burned the old gun house at the rear of Fort Howe hill, north of where the present shed of the Militia Department stands. Returning to Portland street, it burned the whole block to the eastward and fronting on Main street, and finally destroyed the Methodist chapel. So rapidly did the flames advance, and so dense was the smoke, that it was out of the question to get anything out of the houses, and they were burned just as they were left by the terrified inmates. Many of the buildings were three and four story tenements, and several of them were newly erected. There was scarcely a dollar of insurance on any of them.

In the hold of the ship were no less than forty tons of lignumvitae, put there for broken stowage. This large quantity of highly combustible wood burned like pitch, and with a terrific heat. The danger of the blazing hull falling over and spreading the fire in new directions was imminent, and to avoid this men were put at the dangerous and arduous work of placing wetted timbers against the sides of the hull, as shoring to keep it in position. At the rear of the ship was a small brig from which the lignumvitae had been taken, and which was aground at that time of the tide. This also took fire and was soon consumed.

The alarm bells were rung when the fire started, but there was little need of them, for the huge volume of smoke and flame could be seen from every part of the city, and vast crowds gathered in the vicinity. The fire engines of that day, such as they were, had no lack of hands to man them, but as it was about low tide when the fire began there was, as usual, a scarcity