Author: Robert Wells
Prentice-Hall INC., Englewood Cliffs, N.J.
Book Review by Samara Cobus
At first, I will admit, I was
very apprehensive about reading a book about natural hazards and disasters. No
matter what way I spun it in my mind to convince myself, I was sure that no
book about these kinds of events wouldn’t
read a like a textbook. But Robert Well’s writing in Fire at Peshtigo did a pretty good job of proving me wrong.
Originally, I had picked it up because it was an event that took place in my
home state of Wisconsin, which gave me interest in it immediately. I felt like
I could relate to it more and could really comprehend better the events knowing
the land where it took place, rather than reading about a disaster that
occurred in some far off land I wasn’t familiar with. This turned out to be
good idea. Slowly but surely, the book showed me that you can learn a lot
without reading a textbook. But it also showed me how dangerous fire can be.
As just mentioned, Robert Wells did a wonderful
job describing and retelling the events of the fire that occurred in Peshtigo,
Wisconsin on October 8th, 1871. Oddly enough, this was the same date
as the Chicago Fire, which is more commonly known despite not being nearly as
deadly. In the Peshtigo Fire, it was estimated that nearly five times as many
people got killed as in the Chicago Fire. In this book, Wells tells the reader
many different stories of the victims of the fire and how they survived, and,
in some cases, how they didn’t. The author himself describes his goal in the
foreword, admitting to the audience:
“I
have tried to describe its causes and effects, as well as the backgrounds of
the lumberjacks, homesteaders, and others who lived on what was then a remote
and colorful frontier. But mostly I have attempted to tell what happened to a
few thousand people suddenly confronted with prospect of painful death, and the
wise and foolish and sometimes courageous ways they met that challenge.”
I was rather impressed by the
research that Wells must have done in order do to accomplish this goal of his.
Some of the most helpful sources were newspaper articles published right after
the event, and included the Marinette and
Peshtigo Eagle, the Milwaukee Journal,
Milwaukee Sentinel, New York Tribune,
and of course Peshtigo Times, though
these were only some of the ones he reviewed. He also used several other
historical books from which he conducted research, such as H.R. Holand’s History of Door County, and the rather
lengthily titled An Illustrated History
of the State of Wisconsin from its First Exploration Down to 1875 by
Charles R. Tuttle. These, of course, are just a few of the history books he
used.
He did also admit that by the
time he had begun this project of his, most of the survivors had passed away
simply from old age and so he could not get the very first hand accounts of the
fire. However, many of them had written about their experiences, several being
published in a booklet called “The Great First of Wisconsin” by Franklin
Tilton. Thankfully, many of the stories had been also been passed on to the
next generation of their families, and he was able to get some information from
though. Although I do question exactly how accurate these second-hand stories
are, given the tendency of details to be lost in translation the farther away
they get from the original source, but I assume most of them are fairly
accurate if only a bit more colorfully told or slightly exaggerated to be more
exciting. There is also, I feel, a potential for the survivors to paint
themselves in a better light when telling their stories, which would have
passed on to the next generation as well.
These personal stories of the experiences
of the victims didn’t start until the sixth chapter of the book. The first five
were very detailed descriptions of the town of Peshtigo itself as well as its
neighboring villages, cities, and other towns. Wells did a great job in these
chapters of giving the reader a sense of what it was like to live in the
northern wooded areas of Wisconsin in the mid 1800’s, especially in the decade
before the fire in Peshtigo. I could clearly picture the lumberjacks working
their long days cutting trees during the week, and traveling to the saloons on
the weekends, rough-housing as they drank and trying to talk themselves up to
the girls of the town.
There were also hints as to what could
have caused the fire, and what may have turned it from a normal forest fire
into the disaster it is known as. From what I understand from this book, during
this time period, fires were common during this time of year, and the residents
of the area generally didn’t worry about them because rain would come and help
control the small fires that would come up. Residents seemed to me to be so accustomed
to the presence of fires in the distance that when the day of October 8th
came and they saw red in the distance, it wasn’t a big concern. They were just
waiting for it to be put out. But in that year, there had been a drought. That
area of Wisconsin had barely seen rain for much of the summer, into the fall,
and up to that day, which understandably makes for it easier for fires to start
and harder to put out. A second reason that the fire was so devastating was the
amount of material was available for it to fuel itself. First and foremost,
during this time, Wisconsin was so full of trees that they were the biggest
impression visitors got from the state, and no one who lived there ever worried
about wasting trees from logging. Of course, it only made sense than that
almost all buildings and houses were constructed with wood. Thirdly, the winds
that day were so strong that it fanned the flames unusually fast, carried the
heat with its gusts so well that people were burned by the hot wind alone, and
were powerful enough to carry the flames over the Oconto River.
Once Wells began retelling the
stories of the survivors and victims, I really felt like I was there. He did a
great job describing the thought processes of the many accounts he had
collected, letting the reader known their doubts, their hopes, and how some
quick thinking saved their lives or a how a moment of indecision caused others
to lose theirs (sometimes even someone else’s). I learned a lot about several
of the individuals he wrote about, and all the kinds of things different people
took into consideration when they realized they were in danger. Some realized
the danger of the fire long before others did, and tried to fight the fire by
doing things like digging trenches or just left while they could. Others
thought it was just like any other fire, and doubted that they were in any real
danger until it was too late. Many had children, and had to try not only to
save themselves but those of their children as well. Wells told of a mother
that knew she had to bring two pails of water to dowse herself in should she
catch fire, but also had two small children that she needed to save. They had
to hang on to her in some way, but her hands would be filled with the water
pails. So quickly and cleverly, she tied the older child to her back and
wrapped the younger one in a blanket that she carried with her teeth “as she
had seen a mother cat carry a kitten”.
Wells wrote about many, many more
stories of those who experienced the fire, as well as little bit about how they
had been changed by it afterward. His way of including little details about
things (such as a man who could not find his second boot to escape from the
fire in had to wear a slipper on his other foot), I believe makes the reader
connect better with the victims despite this event happening 142 years ago in a
time that was much different than what we know today. He seemed to have an
excellent understanding of the way people spoke which, for me, really made
these people seem all the more real. I felt like I could understand exactly how
devastating this event was for the town of Peshtigo as well as the nearby
towns. No textbook could make a reader feel as if they truly knew these people
as if they were their own neighbors, that this fire effect thousands of lives,
that it really was one of the worst fires in history like Robert Wells does in Fire at Peshtigo.
Wells, Robert W. Fire at Peshtigo. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968. Print.
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