“The alarm of fire that was sounded last Wednesday afternoon, was occasioned by the burning of a frame tenement house, just inside the corporation line, on the Chillicothe pike, north of the hub factory. It was a one story building, of one room, occupied by a colored man named Alfred Carr. He was engaged at one of the slaughterhouses in the environs, and his wife1, who had occasion to visit her mother, living just over the hill, on the Kinney place, made a pallet on a pillow, behind the stove, for her infant of 4 1/2 months old, and leaving it there took the eldest with her.”
“During her absence it is supposed that sparks from the flue, which was too large for the large stove pipe, fell on the pallet and fired the room. William Stone discovered smoke issuing from the roof, and with Mr. Jacob Shope hastened to the dwelling, and burst the front door open. The room was full of smoke, but they managed to get the most of the furniture out. They saw nothing of the child, and retreated when they found they could save nothing else.”
“Shortly after, the mother came running home, piteously crying to save her babe. Stone again ventured in, and as well as he could, in the smoke and fire, made a hasty search, but the crumbling ceiling and scorching heat drove him out. After the fire was extinguished, the charred remains of the infant were taken from the debris by a Mr. Holliday2.”
“A coroner’s jury was impanalled to investigate the affair, and their verdict censured the mother for her carelessness. She says she has often left the infant in the house, and excuses herself on the ground that her second child was too small to be trusted with the baby, and she was unable to carry both of her children with her.”3
- Elizabeth Holliday Carr
- Nelson Holliday
- Burning of a Dwelling. A Child Destroyed in the Flames. (1876, February 19). Portsmouth Times, p. 3.
