Book Review


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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