Columbiana-Harrison County OhArchives News.....Roasted to Death in East Liverpool, Ohio February 25, 1881 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/oh/ohfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Sheila Fritts sfritts101@hotmail.com March 29, 2006, 8:32 pm Johnstown (PA) Weekly Tribune February 25, 1881 Roasted to Death! In East Liverpool, Ohio A Mother and her Six Children and Brother in Law Perish The Father and One Child Escape The fire this morning in the drug store of Sloan Bros. proves to have been much more serious than at first supposed. The store was located in Frank Stewart’s four-story frame building, which was also occupied by Stewart as a feed store and baled-hay warehouse, and by Mr. Kaufman as a grocery. It is supposed that Sloan, being a newcomer, did not know of the heavy pressure which comes on at times from our natural gas, and left it burning in the drug store, over which he was sleeping, with his family of wife and seven children, and brother-in- law, a Mr. Skeels, of Harrison County, this State, and who only arrived in the town on Tuesday to pay them a visit. On discovering the flames Mr. Sloan woke all, and picking up a little daughter three years old told them to follow. The stairways were by this time burned away, and escape by that means cut off. Turning to the front of the building he told his wife (with babe in her arms) and children to follow him, and leaped to the ground. The wife and children were either overcome by the flames and stifling fumes from the drug store, or failing to get the children to jump, preferred death with them. Mr. Sloan hoped by jumping first to be able to catch the others and brake the force of their fall, and although, breaking a leg in the leap, hobbled around crying out piteously for the others. The building was erected last summer, and was a perfect fire trap, having numerous elevators running up through the fourth floor, which opened up an inviting pathway for the fiery fiend, and nearly every floor was filled with hay, the flames spread with frightful rapidity, and in twenty or thirty minutes the entire structure was consumed. The firemen, by heroic work, confined the fire to Stewart’s building an a …. adjoining frame residence. At 7 o’clock this morning the ruins were sufficiently reduced to commence the search for the bodies, three streams of water having poured on them from 2 o’clock. Mrs. Sloan was found with her babe in her arms, and both burned nearly to a crisp. Around them were huddled the bodies of the other children, all having hustled into one corner, and died as close to the mother as they could cling. Mr. Skeels was sleeping in a back room, and probably never knew the danger until escape was impossible. The scenes at the ruins this morning were heartrending, and beggar description. The names of those who perished are Mrs. Wm. Sloan, aged 31 years Luella Sloan, aged 13 Clyde Sloan, aged 12 Lizzie Sloan, aged 11 Alex. Sloan, aged 9 Paul Sloan, aged 5 Another daughter, aged 18 months Wilbur Skeels, a brother-in-law of the unfortunate woman. Seven of the bodies have already been recovered from the ruins, but the eighth, one of the children, has not been found. The headless and limbless trunks have been carried to a storeroom in the immediate vicinity and covered from sight with heavy wrappings of muslin. The bodies are charred beyond recognition, those of the grown persons being guessed by their size, while the child burned to a crisp on the breast of its mother makes hers the only identity certain. Around the burned building a sorrowful crowd of citizens is grouped, anxiously watching the efforts of the firemen in their search after the last of the victims, and now and then directing toward some peculiar arm among the fragments. Only one of the bodies was found below the room in which the family had been sleeping, while the others were lying together in the corner of the cellar underneath the rooms through which the father of the family made his escape. It is evident that the mother and children had followed him in his effort to pilot the way to safety, and had been overcome by the smoke or borne down in the crash which followed an explosion of some of the materials in the store below. This part of the building was occupied by Frank Stewart, as a grain and produce dealer. Messrs. Sloan Brothers, occupied the middle room and cellar as a drug store, and George Kaufman dealer in groceries, the remaining room. The general appearance is that the fire originated in the center of the building, and Mr. Sloan himself says the he is almost certain of it. When it became known to him that his wife and six children had perished in the flames, Sloan was overcome and was taken in an unconscious state to a neighbor’s house, with a little daughter, the only one of his children. When he had sufficiently recovered to converse, he said: “I was wakened last night by the sound of some one striking the house, and thought I smelt lamp oil burning. I hurried to the door that leads to the store, and could see that the room was filled with smoke. I knew that the fire had got a good headway, and so thought of nothing but saving my wife and children. I wakened them and gathered them round me, making sure that no one was missing, and then told them to follow me through Kaufman’s store to the stairway. The smoke drove me back from that, and I rushed to the window where I heard people shouting for me to jump. I told my wife to jump first, but she refused, and my brother, who was standing with one child in his arms, said he would try and help them out, if I would jump and assist them from below. I jumped, but when I looked back they were overcome by the smoke, then I went round to the front of the store, but could not get in and ran on around to the back staircase. I climbed up it and got as far as the out kitchen, when Kaufman’s man grasped me from behind and dragged me out. Some persons put this coat on me, and I knew nothing more until I found myself in this room.” “I came here,” said Mr. Sloan with tears in his eyes, in answer to further questions, “from Harrison County in the fall and opened a drug store; there were better schools here, and I wanted my children to have the best education I could give them, but it is all over now,” and he shook his head sadly. “I’ll go back to Harrison County with their bodies.” Sloan said further, in answer to questions, that the fire must have been incendiary, as there was nothing in the cellar from which it could catch. The doors of the cellar had been inadvertently left unlocked. He suspected no one, he said, but added: “There are sly ways of dealing with insurance companies.” Mr. Kaufman, whose wife and family made a fortunate escape from the building was confined to bed from injuries. He says he knows nothing about the origin of the fire. His loss he estimates at $2,300; on which he held $1,600 insurance. Mr. Sloan estimates his loss on stock at about $1,500. He has $7,000 insurance. Frank Stewart’s loss will reach $5,500. His stock was insured only to the amount of $2,000. An inquest on the remains of the victims will be held at 3 o’clock this afternoon. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/oh/columbiana/newspapers/roastedt31nnw.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/ohfiles/ File size: 7.6 Kb