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He kindly replied that his friends had decided that he should remain in Springfield until after the election, but if he would come down there he would give him sittings. Mr. Hesler went down the last of June and secured a number of good negatives, prints from which in reduced form were scattered by thousands all over the country."

MOSHER AND HIS MEMORIAL PHOTOGRAPHS

An odd genius, by the name of Charles D. Mosher, flourished in Chicago before the fire of 1871. He had a photograph gallery at 146 Lake street at that time, In 1883 he and some years after the fire we find him at 125 State street. deposited some thousands of memorial photographs in a vault of the City Hall. These photographs he had been taking for this purpose for two years previously, and they were to remain there until the second Centennial, 1976. He says in the "key" to the list of names, printed in a small volume describing the plan, "the photographs are cabinet size, and photographed with that accuracy that there is not so much as one single hair added to or taken from the likenesses."

These memorial photographs were to constitute a "Memorial Offering," and "are to be deeded to the City of Chicago." Mosher was a sort of "Colonel Sellers" in the expansiveness of his ideas, in which were included plans for providing for Chicago great public buildings for all sorts of purposes,- -a museum, art gallery, opera house, and library; all to cluster around the nucleus furnished by his collection of "Memorial Photographs." Just how this was to be accomplished was not made quite clear. In his plan, elaborately detailed, he quite eclipses the well known "Plan of Chicago," recently presented to the public. He also gives his views at length on "the duty every person owes his fellowman," and says he has given to this subject "much thought and study," and we may well believe that he had after a perusal of the little volume which he wrote on the subject. He says that the subject "has ever been in my thoughts, day and night; even in the busy street I have passed and repassed without seeing my dearest and best friends, being so absorbed in thought, developing this work for the Memorial Offering that I now submit, with my heart full and overflowing with zeal, and bequeath this immortal legacy to Chicago."

The little volume referred to was apparently issued before the photographs had been put away for posterity to gaze upon. He requests all persons who have sat for their memorial photographs to send him a short biographical notice of their lives, and a "certified family record, which might become of great value, and the only connecting link to their descendants in proving heirships to inheritances.” At the end is printed in small type sixteen pages of names, three columns to a page, of the fortunate sitters, whose photographs were to be enclosed in the vault. This list he promised to extend in a later edition.

When the City Hall was demolished in 1908, to give place to the splendid new building now just completed, the Mosher collection of Memorial Photographs was encountered by the authorities when the contents of the vaults were about to be removed. "Memories of many years," says the Tribune in its issue of August 12th, "were stirred yesterday when the photographs and biographies of Chicago's pioneer citizens were removed from the Mosher Memorial vault in the city hall to another vault in the temporary quarters at 200 Randolph street. Five albums full of the

faces of men whose names for the most part are now known across the continent, were opened for a moment and then closed up again, to remain secure from light and air until 1976. Thirty-five packages were left untouched by the order of Commissioner of Public Works John J. Hanberg. The commissioner even was enabled to withstand the supplications of the spectators when it was found one package was designated "The Ladies.'"

There were present on this interesting occasion, Miss Louise Mosher, a cousin of C. D. Mosher, who gave the collection to the city, Miss Valentine Smith, at that time the city archivist, and others. The brief glimpses taken of the pictures, however, afforded an opportunity to observe the character of the collection. “There are no men in Chicago now with faces like those," commented Commissioner Hanberg, (quoted in the Tribune article). "I suppose the driving life we lead prevents it. In these pictures there is a sort of simple courtliness which is rare now, although I do not think we are any the less polite in our intentions than were our fathers. Perhaps the difference is that they had time to be courteous and we sometimes think we have not. And, if you notice, nearly every face is pleasant, humorous almost, and kindly."

Charles D. Mosher, indeed, has secured a lasting hold on fame by the gift of this collection, and he will certainly receive the thanks of posterity for his efforts in its formation and preservation, and he will well deserve them.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE GREAT FIRE

CLIMATIC CONDITIONS IN OCTOBER, 1871-ORIGIN OF THE FIRE-HEADWAY ATTAINED

OF THE OGDEN

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HOUSE-NORTHERN

BY THE FLAMES-RAPID PROGRESS OF THE CONFLAGRATION-EFFORTS MADE TO CHECK THE FIRE-INTENSE HEAT GENERATED ACCOUNTS OF EYE WITNESSES—— THE FORCE OF THE GALE-FLAMING BRANDS CARRIED FAR-TRAGEDIES OF THE FIRE-ACTIONS OF THE PEOPLE-THE FIRE IN THE NORTH DIVISION-THE ESCAPE LIMIT OF THE FIRE-RAIN QUENCHES THE FLAMES FUGITIVES FROM THE FIRE THE "TRUE CHICAGO SPIRIT"- -THE MAYOR'S MESSAGES THE WORLD'S SYMPATHY AROUSED-GENERAL SHERIDAN TAKES ACTION -MEASURES ΤΟ PRESERVE THE PEACE-RELIEF MEASURES-SHELTER FOR THE HOMELESS PROVIDED CARE OF HOMELESS PEOPLE-SUBSISTENCE AND CLOTHING FURNISHED ENORMOUS QUANTITIES OF FOOD AND SUPPLIES RECEIVED-CARE OF SICK AND INFIRM-HOUSES BUILT FOR DESTITUTE-CONDITIONS GRADUALLY IMPROVED THE WORLD'S CHARITY.

D

THE GREAT FIRE OF 1871

URING the summer and fall of 1871 the Middle West suffered from a most prolonged and severe drouth. In July the rainfall at Chicago was 2.52 inches, which is 1.14 inches below normal; in August it was 2.01 inches; in September there was but 0.74 inches of rain, or 2.23 inches below normal.1 In October no rain fell up to and including the eighth of the month. The weather during September and the early part of October became very warm, and this condition, combined with the drouth, had dried up both country and towns. In the northern parts of Michigan and Wisconsin, and on the prairies of Minnesota great fires were burning over immense stretches of forest and plain, destroying valuable timber lands, villages, and even hundreds of human lives. Chicago, the commercial capital of this middle western country, was suffering from the same drouth and heat. As day after day passed without rain and the city grew more parched in the continued heat, the alarms of fire became more frequent, and during the first week of October much property was burned. On the night of Saturday, October 7, there was a large fire which started near the corner of South Clinton and Van Buren streets. A high southwest wind was blowing, and the flames soon spread beyond the firemen's control, burning north as far as Adams street and east to the river. Within the sixteen acres that were destroyed were large lumber and coal yards, which burned all the next day, Sunday, and into the

1 Bulletin of the Geographic Society of Chicago, No. 3, p. 82.

207

night. Had this devastation not been followed immediately by a calamity as overwhelming as that which in a few hours fell upon the city, the fire of Saturday night would be remembered as one of the city's great misfortunes. During Sunday there were many visitors that came from all parts of the city to look upon the ruined acres and watch the still burning piles of coal and lumber.

The illumination from the burning area had not disappeared before there was an alarm of fire, which sounded about half past nine o'clock on Sunday evening. For about thirty minutes the light in the southwest in the vicinity of the former night's fire had shone more brightly than during the early part of the evening. At this time there were in the streets on that warm evening crowds of strollers, and people returning home from church services, who heard the alarm and saw the light. Many who saw the fire, supposing it was but a blazing up of the ruins of the night before, paid little attention to it, and went home and to bed. Many, too, grown accustomed to the frequent ringing of the alarm, had now ceased to start at its sound. This light, however, was not that of flames coming from an almost burned out pile of debris, but of those rising from a small cow shed in the West Division, at the corner of De Koven and Jefferson streets. Instantly they had been caught up and swept along by a strong southwest wind that was then blowing twenty miles an hour, and by the time the alarm was given the fire had made great headway.2

ORIGIN OF THE FIRE

The cause of the fire is not known, even after the diligent investigation which was undertaken a few weeks later. The story, now classic, that Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicked over a kerosene lamp during the process of milking and thus set fire to the straw in the shed, is cherished by romancers and cartoonists; others scoff at it as a myth. Whatever their cause, the flames spread so rapidly through the neighboring shanties, small frame dwellings and factories, that by the time the first fire engines reached the scene, the wind had carried the fire beyond their control; other engines arriving were utterly inadequate to check its advance as it travelled rapidly to the north and northeast, the high wind carrying blazing brands far beyond the burning district, which set fire to the buildings on which they fell. Block after block to the north and northeast were destroyed, and as the fire approached the area, two blocks square, which had been burned down the night before, it was hoped that there it might be checked. Moreover, it was felt that the river, which had prevented the spread of the previous fire, would act as a barrier to the advance of this one. Yet all this time the wind was carrying through the air sparks and bits of burning wood in a course directly through the center of the city. The heat for some space about the burning area was so intense that the power of the wind was greatly increased in the neighborhood of the flames, and a rushing draft from the east was created, which sent up into the air a whirling column of smoke and flame, and drove the fire backwards and to either side of its track, even while it swept the flames forward. Just at midnight a piece of blazing timber carried by the wind fell on the roof of a small frame building at the

2 History of the Great Conflagration, by Sheahan and Upton. Andreas, Vol. II, p. 702.

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THE O'LEARY HOUSE, BACK OF WHICH THE GREAT FIRE

IS SAID TO HAVE STARTED

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